I don't know why recently I tend to post more "philosophical" posts than "what's up with us" kind of posts. Maybe I'm getting middle-aged know-it-all :P (the change is in the "middle-age", I've always been unsufferable know-it-all, my best friend on the university told me once that she used to hate me for this and then realised she was the same 😂). Anyway, here it goes, three situations, three lessons:
1. Years and years ago on the way to my first AWC ever, we stopped on the way and I was waiting in a queue to the toilet holding someone's dog and someone from our team was walking by with their dog and said something like "ok, let's go tread on ours competition paws", which was said jokingly of course (and not actually stepping on anyone's dog) but my then-trainer got really furious about it, saying that for f.. sake, you're on the same team after all. That was lesson number one.
2. Some years later, when Evo and Brava were already competing but still young, we went to some competition in Motesice in Slovakia and met with Martina Klimesova there and she said something like: "Oh, it's so cool that you came, I really like having some good competition in medium". That was really nice, first of all hearing from someone with much more experience and succeses that we were treated as good competition, secondly that kind of attititude that competition is good and welcome (I will elaborate later). That was lesson number 2.
3. I already mentioned it before, but when Laura Reinhalter with Zookie got their 3rd place in EO 2017 final, I saw Werner Goltz sincerely and happily congratulating Laura on her run and looking genuinely happy about it, even though she "pushed him out of the podium". That's lesson number 3.
Anyone who knows me, can attest to the fact that I am a competitive and ambitious person. But there it goes: in order to be competitive, you need fair competition. You need someone to give you the run for your money, to really push your limits, to really work on getting the best possible line, the best turn, the best running contact. If you have good competition, you cannot allow yourself being sloppy - so simply you get better. That's first reason why competition is good for you. Second reason is that easy win does not taste as good. If you were running World Championships alone and all it took to win was to finish the run, would you still feel a champion? While I am truly happy with every good run with my dogs (there is this magic feeling of flow and connection that I always strive for and that is best part of agility for me), I have this additional pleasure coming from objective fact that it was not just my feeling that the run was good, but it was actually good enough to beat teams that I admire and respect. And when I lose to someone because that someone was faster, had better line, chose better handling option - it's a valuable lesson. It is not a shame to lose to someone better. It is not praiseworthy if you win because there simply was not anyone else in your league.
And seriously, if someone in your country has a great dog in the same category as you run in, be happy. That means you have someone to push you without having to go to compete abroad and that also means that potentially you have a great teammate. Team world championship cannot be won single-handed.
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