In all my years — first in horsemanship and now in agility — I have yet to find a coach or mentor who is creating PRECISELY what I want to create. A few have come very close. Many resonate on some level. And I made this into a problem for far too long.
It’s so very human to draw lines in the sand that separate “us” and “them.” It’s woven into the fabric of our culture on too many levels to count. We feel safer when we are “right,” so we want very badly to label something as “wrong.”
So no, I don’t think it’s any real wonder I fretted and stressed for years over choosing a coach, over the relationships I had with instructors or mentors, and over the ways in which they disagreed with or contradicted each other. I was operating from the fundamentally flawed assumption that I needed to figure out who was right.
But there is no right. And frankly, there is very little that is wrong in the world of dog agility.
Rather, there are a multitude of options, an abundant array of approaches, and the great privilege we have to CHOOSE the way WE want our agility odyssey to look and feel.
So I’ve come to realize: if I want more precision and clarity in my agility experience, I can seek out someone who exemplifies and instills those qualities. If I want a pragmatic voice to counter-balance a highly theoretical and abstract one, I can find both. If I want a little more earnest soulfulness in my training, I can connect with someone specifically because I love that about them.
It’s my right and responsibility to coordinate the colors with which I choose to paint. And that is all it is.
As I’ve begun to imagine it like this, I’ve breathed a deep sigh of relief. So many things have become lighter to carry. Because I stopped trying to find the right way, and started discovering my way in all its intensely colorful and passionate glory.
