LuLu is new to the game of disc. She’s 15+ months old and got a bit of a late start. She doesn’t have great catching skills and she doesn’t really have a Give, but other than that she’s a little rockstar. I might lay out some of our training trials an travails in the future as her progression is quite interesting from a PLAY+ standpoint.

The Golden Form Defined

The Golden Form is a Golden Disc game. This means that once the Golden Disc comes into play that there is something that has to be done. In the Golden Form game we insert the Golden Disc into a form or pattern of play and work the form around the task that the Golden Disc calls for. This is no simple task; we’ve got to work the form, shift gears to the Golden Task and then fall right back into the form in flow.

This game is of huge benefit to the handler in particular. I’ll lay out the specifics of the game after the jump and share how you can use it to improve your disc management and ability to move and flow as a team.

Ready? Let’s go!

How to PLAY a Golden Form Game

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After watching the video above, you should see the mechanic and the general game play. If you can’t quite catch it, hit me up in comments below. I’m gonna run through the emergent gains below. We’re playing this game to get these emergent gains that can’t happen when you intentionally plan to do the thing. This is embodied flow training.

Embodied flow is hard to get on the training field, particularly when you’re working a trick. The reason for this is that our intent to do the trick overwhelms our Awareness of the things happening that lead up to that trick. It can be planned, but that planning usually requires the canned placement of the disc leads to a very limited and inflexible understanding and does not provide the skills required to read and respond to a developing situation like a live performance of your routine.

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After watching the video above, you should see the mechanic and the general game play. If you can’t quite catch it, hit me up in comments below. I’m gonna run through the emergent gains below. We’re playing this game to get these emergent gains that can’t happen when you intentionally plan to do the thing. This is embodied flow training.

Embodied flow is hard to get on the training field, particularly when you’re working a trick. The reason for this is that our intent to do the trick overwhelms our Awareness of the things happening that lead up to that trick. It can be planned, but that planning usually requires the canned placement of the disc leads to a very limited and inflexible understanding and does not provide the skills required to read and respond to a developing situation like a live performance of your routine.

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The difference is that I now have quite a bit more experience and a far better understanding of the Constraints Led Approach (CLA).

My entire life I’ve been an Ecological Coach and athlete. I started coaching in High School and have been lucky enough to have coached elite athletes (and have been one myself) at the regional and national level ever since. The Ecological Approach has always been my schtick, but I didn’t know that was the case until the 2020s.

In this session with CupCake I’m using a second Railslide jump as a constraint that restricts the landing and affords better and more thoughtful collection as a result. The CLA works this way, getting performance results as a byproduct of achieving a physical challenge. The difference between the CLA and traditional dog training (prescriptive approach) is that you not only get the actions and behavior, you develop skills.

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Each session was super fun, high energy, and loaded with embodied experiences of a variety of skills. On the whole our Over introduction introduced: the railslide jump itself, leaping for targets, stride regulation, taken and thrown targets, movement into and out of the Over skill and exposed her and our team to the specifying and invariant information for the Over skill, Flatwork, Team Movement, and coupled play in general.

If that sounds like a laundry list, good; it is. That’s the point of working this way. We’ve been developing the intangibles that we don’t get when we take the standard prescriptive route that consists of static Waits, precise distances, and straight line approaches. Of course, we didn’t get many of those key actions and behaviors required for isolated Over performance, but when do you do Overs in isolation, anyway? I’ve got some stuff cooked up for future lessons, you’ll have to stay tuned and stop by again in the future when we revisit the skill.

Identified Issues — What’s Next for LuLu?

Throughout the series I’ve identified a number of issues with LuLu that we’ll need to address, some of them I knew we had and some of them cropped up due to the repetitive nature of these sessions:

• Bite-Catch

• cued Drop

• front footed landings

• clear Trigger

• less wasted movement

These actions will be exercised and embodied throughout the rest of our play, in nearly every session we have.

I’ll avoid the problems for a bit by selecting exercises, forms, and games that afford quality performance of each of these actions and I’ll select exercises that feature these weaknesses as core elements of their performance.

We’ll lean on this experience here — the intentional, purposeful “work” we did here as a team that was performed with exuberance and gusto and we’ll use that energy and understanding of Opportunity as motivation that will give her a sense of Achievement.

Muffins & Cotton Candy → Brass Tacks

In the last piece I mentioned that we’d add some consequence to her performance. From about 1:30 on in the video, you should be able to detect a change in my marking and my consequent responses. If you were sensitive or observant enough to have the idea that I was marking the “wrong stuff”, feel free to jump back up and check out the subtle change. If you watch closely, you should be able to see the change in LuLu. I think this resulted in the strong finish of the session.

It can be difficult to balance engagement in small-sided games, communication, and consequent responses, and I certainly made my share of mistakes in these sessions, but it doesn’t really matter as long as I don’t repeat them long term or make such an egregious error that I shut the dog down or damage our session.

Could I have been harsher, more stringent in my handling? Perhaps, but again, it doesn’t matter. I got what I wanted and what I think we needed as a team: a game that is intrinsically motivating. We’ll play different games with more strict rules in the future, upping the ante so to speak, leveraging that intrinsic motivation and desire to flow using Next to reinforce and no Next to punish. This will move us towards improved performance and execution.

Go Do Dog Stuff…

I am pretty happy with these sessions with LuLu. We had a lot of fun introducing this skill and I think we both got quite a lot out of the experience. She’s a much better partner today than she was 2 weeks ago. I think she thinks the same about me.

I’m kind of bummed that I need to put this away for the time being. Part of me wants to keep hitting on this; striking while the iron is hot. But she’s not ready. We’ve got mechanical skills to work and she’s young still.

I’ll take the information I picked up here, give it some thought and come up with some new games for us to play to address these mechanical problems. They’ll include Fly Chi forms, more This, That, the Other, and maybe we’ll add in some Jam in a Flash stuff. And, of Course, Bitework is definitely in her near term future.

I will be working the next steps for LuLu with 🥋Ken Du🥋 and the 🧁CupCake🧁. I’ll be going out to pick up some materials to make another railslide jump. Stay tuned…

Handler Challenge and Skills Development

In traditional, prescriptive training, the handler assumes the role of the expert. And it fits, I’m totally an expert. But this is a complex situation with a critter who doesn’t yet have the actions and understanding to adapt actions to skills. This session is just as much about me learning how to do this as LuLu.

The assumption of traditional training that the handler knows and controls while dogs do and perform is an impediment to handler improvement and skills development and acquisition for dog and handler.

In a small-sided game, the handler is both a coach and a player. As a coach I may be an expert, but as a player I don’t really know how my teammate performs and what our team’s capabilities are. When I get a new teammate, my ability and our abilities together create a system that can and will both challenge my understanding and develop and enhance my skills. These games are tremendous learning opportunities for dog and handler.

This, That, the Other is 3 reps of 3 random tricks (A-B-C) performed in staggered fashion: A-B-C, then B-C-A, then C-A-B, creating the desirable “repetition without repetition” concept which is key to skill development and acquisition.

These random draws of tricks from the Jam in a Flash generator (opening image of video) are perfect for challenging the team and creating truly novel games of This, That, the Other. I don’t know how to do any of this. I’ve never done a Thru N Twist to Over. I would likely never do an Over to a Twist.

Jam in a Flash, a PVybe original Primal Game, is a purpose driven small-sided game with the goal of creating flowing sequences and new transitions. That results driven intent is awesome and useful, but it falls into the prescriptive, narrow focus problem, limiting what can be learned to what is known and intended to be taught — sweet sequences and transitions.

This, That, the Other does not have those rigid requirements: to hop from pose to pose, for the handler to be prepared and active, and to intercept the dog between tricks for the control and flow of the sequence.

Instead, This, That, the Other affords the handler the opportunity to learn how to handle the dog. What happens when I pay the dog on this trick? What happens if I use a Bite instead of a throw? It’s much more flexible and open-ended. This open-ended game provides an amazing learning opportunity for the handler while the dog gets to build the skills that are required to successfully perform and generalize the tricks we do together.

Challenge for the Dog and Skills Development

There are several types of challenge for the dog in learning the Over behavior and developing the Over skill — behavior and skill are not the same thing.

Traditionally speaking, behaviors are intentional actions. In the Ecological Approach and PLAY+ Skills are intentional actions adapted to fit the environment and task at hand. This is a critical distinction between PLAY+ and traditional training and the main reason that PLAY+ looks and feels different.

As you can see in LuLu from the video, this game is clearly fun for the dog. It is both a challenge and an opportunity. This type of playful challenge is highly motivating for the dog and will be used as primary motivation when we start to turn up the performance and requirements and degree of difficulty and tune up the skills to bring them up to performance standards. This, That, the Other sustains novel challenges for the dog and helps to create the understanding that playing the game is a primary motivator.

Traditional Alternative

Traditional Over training is work. It’s lined up, distances are strictly regulated, lines are straight, and the behavior is developed by controlling the environment in which the task is situated.

In traditional training, the immediate challenges are behavior based:

• proper Wait

• proper Collection

• stride regulation

• self control & discipline

• and of course catching the disc

All important, mind you, but putting them first sets up the prescriptive approach and attempts to builds behavior and patterns of behavior that we then have to generalize and adjust through prescriptive interventions and rigid structure and training protocols.

Through the Ecological Approach we’re exercising and embodying the experience of adapting the actions to achieve all of those challenges through play rather than lining the dog up and teaching them through reward and repetition. This happens before the prescriptive performance challenges. When the skills happen first the skills learned will be leveraged to improve and proof our actions and behaviors. It’s better to take the performance challenge after you’ve got some skills and experience of performing the actions, right?

Developing Skills Around the Over With Low Reps

A couple weeks ago, LuLu worked the Thru N Spin/Twist move via her introduction to This, That, the Other with discs. She was not very good at it. It’s a complex skill: a directional Through that resolves into an Twist or Spin that we perform together. It’s not a simple trick.

We’ve not done any reps outside of that session since. Notice how well the skill is performed in the video above. Notice how well she responded to each of the skills we did in this session. She was responsive, biddable, and ready to roll despite her boisterous and excitable state.

This skilled performance happened not through reward and repetition, but through embodied experience and understanding how the game is played. Skills don’t need to be generalized, they transfer to any and all relevant and related actions and behaviors. This is the strength of the Ecological Approach and PLAY+.

From Muffins & Cotton Candy to Brass Tacks

LuLu is quite reserved. She’s brave, but not fearless. She has a very soft bite but will totally kill her brothers and sisters if they mess with her toy — in a dangerously cute way, mind you... I recognize that she’s not catching everything, and I recognize most of the performance shortcomings. But I don’t really care, there are endless mistakes a young performer can make.

I’m marking things that she’s doing correctly, that I like, and that I want to see again. She’s getting that information and I’m providing consequent responses and continued, flowing or dramatic engagement. I’m cultivating the game and turning the game itself into a cookie. We’re learning to enjoy the game and she will love to do it. This will pay off and be a vital tool in my tool box when we up the ante and put some performance based challenges upon the skills.

About half way through our next session filmed today, the marking changes a bit. All of a sudden just flying around doing isn’t enough. She misses and I’m flat. She catches and I’m excited and we jam. She doesn’t get sad or angry and pout or quit. She wonders what went wrong. At which point I set up a challenge she can achieve and make note of her achievement; she figures it out, and wants to do those things. THAT is reinforcing.

These games click from muffins and cotton candy to brass tacks performance and the dog doesn’t care; well she cares but she doesn’t crumble. This is how PLAY+ creates a sense of achievement and develops resilient performance and engagement. Catch the next session and you will see…

Go Do Dog Stuff…

In the last few sessions, LuLu has been introduced to the Over skill using a free-flowing structure, achieved skilled performance of the Over for dog and handler through repetition without repetition within a game This, That, the Other, and is now linking the Over to complex set up moves and skills with intent. It’s low level skill, but she’s adapting her actions on the fly.

Her handler has learned some stuff as well. I made more mistakes than LuLu in this session. Be sure to catch the next few sessions to see LuLu get her feet under her with the Over and to see the performance start to take shape.

This is a textbook case of features vs properties: looks the same on the outside (features) but what is actually being done (properties) is very different. I’ll try to explain and show you what I mean…

This, That, the Other

This is a PLAY+ Primal Game. It’s the game where we explore and embody the Primal Skills of Flow and Function.

Most of the time people see this game and decide that the goal is to get through the whole sequence 1-2-3 or A-B-C and then pay the dog. That’s not the point, although we may wind up doing that and it might be a goal that we choose every now and then. The actual goal of the game is to explore and experience a variety of situations with these 3 skills. It’s set up so each skill sits in the starting spot, is sandwiched in the middle, and finishes the sequence.

In the video above the Over started out sandwiched in between the Backhand Throw and the Kneeling Over. Then in the next rep it starts the sequence. Then in the final turn of the game, it’s the skill that finishes up our jam. This creates repetition without repetition, a key aspect of the ecological approach and the game mechanic that asks dog and handler to adapt the skill to fit the situation.

As a handler and trainer, I’m not looking for perfect performance here — this is key, as I don’t know what or how this sequence should look or how I will need to do it for LuLu and I to be successful. The immediate assumption by the handler or trainer that we know how this is supposed to look is a real problem in dog training.

Discovery is the Achievement of Exploration

We don’t know how it is supposed to look. We’ve never done it. And even if we have done it in the past, that is one possible expression of it. How do you know you got it right when you did it last time? What does it mean to have done it right? Is there a right way to do this? I think not…

So we’re gonna explore this sequence with the understanding that discovery is the achievement of exploration. We can do this to flow or we can do this for function, but that idea of exploration should be the root of what we do. Discovery is the win condition of This, That, the Other.

Each throw I make, each trick we do isn’t about doing it right; it’s about seeing what happens and working to navigate the emergent activity that our cooperative actions have created. This is what will give us not just actions and behaviors, but skills.

Skills are actions or behaviors adapted to fit the situation. If we only do a perfect situation then we don’t learn to adapt our actions to fit the environment and we do not discover, exercise, or develop, skill.

Building Skills, Not Behaviors

This, That, the Other is about acquiring skills, not doing behaviors. It’s also about the handler learning how to do things, not just the dog.

For the Handler

I’m learning how to read LuLu after the catch. I’m learning how to throw to create the line for a successful approach to the jump; perhaps you didn’t notice, but all the throws from these sessions delivered a nice line for the jump. Do you think that happened by accident? Do you think I knew how to do that with LuLu before we started this in that first session?

I have no idea how to do a Kneeling Leg Over after the Over with LuLu, particularly in exactly the same line; normally after an over the handler adjusts to the dog’s landing position and incoming line. How am I gonna get her back into position after that Over? I don’t know — let’s give it a shot LuLu?

These are the things that we’re learning how to do. I can all but guarantee that you didn’t think about the Over to Kneeling Over in the same line when you watched that video. You didn’t even know it happened, that it was a big deal, or that I needed to learn how to do it. It was hard. I now know a couple ways to do that with LuLu and have that experience and understanding moving forward so I can be a better handler in the future. This is why we play the game.

LuLu caught thrown discs this time. You might not have noticed that or might not have seen the previous session where we only did takes. Doing a take with an Over removes the timing element all but completely for the experienced handler. For novices and people inexperienced with these skills, getting a Low-High take to trigger the dog’s leap is going to be a skill that you need to discover, not a behavior you need to do properly. You won’t know how to do it or if what you’re doing is right until you experiment with it. Best to do that with a goal of exploration rather than performance. You’re likely to learn the skill if you explore, if you perform it, you’ll just get the behavior and struggle to adapt it to throwing or other skills.

For the Dog

LuLu exercised the drop, was asked to collect for leaping targets on the run, to collect for leaping targets from a standstill, and to work both directions, clock and counter. (Didn’t notice the clock and counter directions, did you?)

She experienced this in flow and was marked either with a marker or the cue (Prospective Marking) throughout the session. Those markers make her actions at those moments memorable which enables her to notice them as they’re happening. These moments of coupling are usually hidden in flow; the Attention drawn to them and to the shifts in coupling reduce the number of repetitions required to adapt actions into skill. It’s also great for motivation — LuLu is stoked.

Learning is More Than Getting the Behavior

Many trainers see this session and think that it’s just a simple Over exercise. Just doing some behaviors and getting an Over that isn’t particularly solid, “I could get it much faster and much better.” or “It’s just an Over with some tricks between it…”

Getting a behavior can happen with very little learning. Particularly if the handler is skilled. When the handler is skilled and the behavior has been gotten quickly, not much learning has happened and that behavior is not likely to hold up when it is time to generalize.

In this session, LuLu and I both got the behavior, but we also got a bunch more. Getting the behavior is the very beginning of learning how to do it. Once you’ve got it you’ve got to learn how to do things with it. This, That, the Other provides a framework for acquiring skills while getting or exercising the behavior.

It forces the handler to perform while offering a framework for exploration. It asks the dog to perform the skills while providing a framework that is not going to become pattern trained performance. Repetition without repetition is how you turn simple behaviors into usable skills.

Go Do Dog Stuff…

This was a great session for LuLu and I. I know it might not look like much, but hopefully after reading the above you’ve got a slightly different perspective on what we were actually doing out there in this game.

That it was a game and not an exercise or drill is hugely important because not only did we learn a bunch of cool stuff that is going to help us in all aspects of our play and work together, even outside of disc, but we had a blast doing it.

This is how training should be. It should be fun, it should be rewarding, it should be challenging, and it should be successful. Mission Accomplished. PLAY+ for the WIN!

Author’s note: I consulted the PLAY+ GPT to try to organize my thoughts on this piece, get the ecological context organized in my mind and was just floored by the “feedback” I was offered. The Session Context above is a copy paste from that chat.

The rest of the response captured about 60-70% of what went down in our session. It was a bit surprising and somewhat startling. I’ve got a bunch of PLAY+ documentation uploaded to the GPT and it’s just a bit too close to prophecy for my liking… spooky stuff. I mean, what am I even here for…

The Images are screenshots from the chat. They’re pretty valuable, I’ll be riffing from them throughout the piece.

Session Context

The “method” applied in the video is likely to be seen as “all wrong” by traditional trainers, good trainers, and through their lens, they might be correct. The Ecological Approach to skill acquisition does not function like traditional training. We’re not doing the same thing.

Instead of creating a strong, robust, intentional performance of the over as a behavior, we’re setting up a situation where the skill of leaping for targets will be self assembled by dog and handler. This emergent learning is the hallmark of the ecological approach and has been the PVybe foundation for 20 years.

Framing Concepts

The concepts of PLAY+ are fully on display in this session. In this section we’ll compare what PLAY+ GPT says happened in LuLu and I’s session and what actually went down. It should be noted that the GPT only got the simple text query in the link above. It saw no video. All of this springs out of PLAY+ documentation.

Awareness > Attention

I did use slack focus in this session and I did read LuLu’s actions. I used that information to provide quality targets and good reward placement that would afford a good leaping opportunity.

This open ended Awareness rather than methodological Attention helped LuLu and I create a game that gave her confidence and allowed us to exercise and embody a bunch of the skills required to leap for a target. Getting these aspects of the skill upon our initial introduction is quite a training coup. She loves it, I get a sense of what she needs to be successful, she gets the experience of doing the thing.

This embodied experience and ability and desire to do the skill may be leveraged to tune up the skill using more traditional techniques in subsequent sessions. Then again, it may not be necessary.

Inceptive Marking

I did not do this in this session. Didn’t even think about it. It is probably a good idea even at this early stage of play. I did use some Prospective Marking, but did not attempt to do so intentionally. I’ll probably try to drop it into the foundation earlier.

Coupling points for Inceptive Marking:

• Orientation after catch

• Teeth off on cued drop

• Collection

• Front feet off the ground

• Leap

Affordance Usage

This is perhaps the most key aspect of this session. LuLu wasn’t ever asked to do the over. The situation I presented afforded an over opportunity. This is a critical distinction between the ecological approach to skill acquisition and behavior training.

The Over is an emergent action, not a behavioral goal. This simple shift takes all the pressure out of the situation for both dog and handler and allows us to create desire and value on the game itself. This desire and value for play becomes the main motivation and fosters a sense of achievement that you just can’t get with traditional training.

Handler as Opportunity

I am the opportunity on the field, not the disc. In the video, you can see LuLu trying to take off a couple times as if the disc is gonna happen for her. The disc is only cool when I have it; it takes a handler to make a disc happen.

This will serve to keep the handler central to the game and will help LuLu do things like retrieve, approach, and give Attention to the handler rather than simply focus on the disc or the trick.

Ideal Skill Formation

Ideal Skills are ready-to-hand skills, which are skills and actions that an agent knows how to use in expert fashion. They are embodied experiences that serve as the intuitive understanding of how things can happen and what actions are available to be leveraged towards the task at hand.

These Ideal Skills are revealed and disclosed through memorable experiences; Inceptive and Prospective Markers at key moments of coupling will disclose these skills in flow and make them memorable.

Initiative Transfer

Initiative Transfer in this session is dynamic and meaningful. Next is leveraged as both motivation and opportunity. It shifts organically from handler to dog and dog to handler. LuLu and I are not only learning how to do an Over, we’re learning how to play together.

I give the cue and it’s my initiative. I trigger or throw and LuLu takes the lead. She catches and I mark? There’s a question as to who is leading. I answer that question with the Drop cue. Teeth off, and I present another Trigger and LuLu takes the lead again.

This dynamic interaction is a large part of the skillset for cooperative play that you simply cannot get in a standard training session. In traditional training you only get the Over behavior. Here we not only get the Over action or behavior, we get a ton of skills that afford cooperative play.

Rhythm Contours

A static start and imposed Wait can be dramatic for a dog with experience, but for a new dog or a dog with little confidence it can be a deal breaker. The behavioral challenge of having to wait and “do it right” can be too much for both dog and handler and lead to stress and undesired effects like anxiety, logy peformance, poisoned cues, and avoidance.

In this session the rhythm of the game is used to both motivate and inform LuLu as well as to shape and build intensity for the big move or to draw down the intensity of the game for more thoughtful performance.

This open ended structure affords a rhythm of playful interaction that is fun and effective for dog and handler.

Subjective Tone

Another killer app aspect of the ecological approach is our ability to affect the Subjective Tone, the classically conditioned state of the dog. The Subjective Tone can be influenced by the general tone of the game being played.

This is much harder to do in a typical, traditional training session.

What Happened in the Field

This is where things get a little creepy — not really I guess, as it’s pretty standard, I could have come up with this if you told me what you did and I knew a bit about you and your dog, but still… I think it speaks to the clarity and predictive nature of PLAY+. It is a science based philosophy after all…

Reading the Field

I certainly did read the field and I created an Over-shaped opportunity. I read the dog and our situation to make throws that afforded leaping opportunities. I learned a ton about how LuLu moves and responds. These handler skills are invaluable experience that will help me and LuLu in all of our play together moving forward. These skills are not achievable in a traditional Over training session.

Slack Focus and Awareness

Slack Focus was a key aspect of our session. While LuLu was shifting between laser-beam focus for her triggers and targets, I was free to simply watch and take in, with broad spectrum awareness, what was happening. This afforded me the opportunity to learn about my dog and to present more relevant and compelling opportunities to her.

Inceptive Marking

I did not do this, but I certainly will in the future. I was using Prospective Marking but not intentionally.

Cooperative Affordance Usage

The Over did become a shared skill. It became a Shared Aim. We got the over behavior, not perfect mind you, but more importantly we got the stuff that will afford an Over in many different contexts and angles.

We explored the solution space with leaping for targets as the central activity. LuLu and I both discovered many things that will make us better able to tackle any task that has leaping for targets as a central focus.

Flow and Initiative

LuLu and I did experience flow and learned how to pass the Initiative in seamless fashion through our individual skills and towards the achievement of a Shared Aim. This cooperative performance aspect of our session is far more valuable than a perfect static Over technique.

Reflection: From Action to Skill

Again, the GPT’s expectation from PLAY+ documentation is rather startling. And again, I shouldn’t be surprised, as this is the point of PLAY+ and it’s nothing I wouldn’t expect to see out of my students or clients’ experience. But for it to so closely match my actual experience is still a bit kooky.

Action

LuLu started the session with a couple of simple actions (behaviors): leap over the Railslide Jump and Bite. These were uncoupled actions, never having been linked before, and very crudely understood.

She didn’t know how to do this on the run and she certainly didn’t know the Over cue as a leap over the thing for the target.

Coupling Moment

Prospective Marking was used at moments of coupling to disclose key moments of our interaction in flow. This disclosure makes these moments memorable and will help them become ready-to-hand actions that we adapt into skills to overcome challenges and to achieve.

My throw placement, her drops, line selection, collection, and biting all connect to become skillful performance.

Skill Emergence

I’m pretty sure both of us have this as a rudimentary skill. We have embodied and “know” several key aspects of the performance of the Over as a task and have a good start on the skills, the intentional adaptation of known actions, to achieve satisfaction of task.

Flow Integration

LuLu learned that her handler and the Railslide Jump are opportunities for action. I learned how to present myself, the disc, my throws, and the Over as an opportunity for my dog. This was done in Flow.

This is a massive win and a huge gain in our ability to work together as a Team.

What We Learned

Yes.

What’s Next?

Ah, the bot is human after all… That bullet point is not very close. I guess I still have a job, afterall…

The Bullets

All of these are on point, including the last one (except for that stuff inside the parentheses). End with Consequent Opportunity (or Dismissal), sure, but a Consequent Opportunity is a cookie. Don’t forget that a near miss is a very motivating consequence.

You want to quit on high, not success.

This, That, the Other

On deck for me, and I’d recommend it for you too, is a game of This, That, the Other. I’ve got about 10 of these 3-trick sequences loaded up for some small-sided games of flowing fun ready to roll.

If you don’t know what that game is, you can feel free to subscribe here or join my patreon and get access to my classes.

Go Do Dog Stuff…

This was a super fun session with LuLu. I worked it with MerkiDu as well. It was equally as fun and successful.

The GPT assist in this piece was not expected, but pretty fun and useful. I think it speaks to the veracity and predictive nature of PLAY+ as both a solid philosophy and scientific scaffolding of PLAY.

Get out and jam with your dogs and have some fun while you’re doing it.

Flipping the Field - Changing the Invariant Information

As promised, I flipped the field from how we’ve been working. You can’t see this in the image, but it’s clear in the video. I’m facing the other direction to start; towards the other corner of the field. The pattern remains the same as the image, as the ideal picture in my head, but my experience flipped in the actual world. It was a real problem. It felt like this:

I’ve been talking about Specifying and Invariant Information for a some time now, but I think this might be the first time I experienced and understood them. When I flipped the field the entire background changed… The shed was gone, different trees in the background, camera on the wrong side — it was a completely different picture in front of me. This is invariant information.

Reading CupCake and relating the moment to the next move was extremely difficult. I struggled mightily because all of the invariant information changed and it became difficult to locate and make sense of the specifying information that I was using to handle the dog and the situation.

If the map was the terrain, we’d be OK, but the map is just what’s in our head. It does not hold the information we need to effectively handle the dog and place ourselves squarely in the world. Flipping the map is easy. Flipping the actual world is a disorienting experience.

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CupCake and I have been invited to the UpDog Freestyle Invitational (UpDFI) as I am half of a former International Finals Champion freestyle team (Thanks, Eppie!). We’re working pretty hard to dial in the routine, which means we’re playing 4 or 5 times per week and doing so with purpose.

The Routine™

Here’s our routine:

Pretty fancy, huh? I like mindmaps (Xmind), It’s nice for planning.

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We had 2 sequences of three tricks each: Trick 1, Trick 2, Trick 3. Unfortunately I didn’t hit record on the first round where we introduced all the skills. This is LuLu’s second shot at sequencing work and her second rep of This, That, the Other with discs.

This, That the Other:

1. Select 3 Tricks: 1,2,3
2. Do Tricks in order:1-2-3
3. Then 2-3-1
4. Then 3-1-2
5. Fin

She’s been rocking out the Fly Chi Forms, but we’ve not worked much sequencing. We took this opportunity in the second set to insert a flip into the sequencing process. LuLu is about 14 months old.

The game works as follows:

1. Select 3 Tricks: 1,2,3

2. Do Tricks in order:1-2-3

3. Then 2-3-1

4. Then 3-1-2

5. Fin

This is a similar game to Jam in a Flash, but it’s open ended and exploratory. There is no intent by the handler to create a tight sequence or to go live speed after 4 reps like there is with a Flash Jam.

A fun session with a fine young man… Good Work, KenDux

Where We Are At… Back to the Future

CupCake is a little badass, but she is a microdog and her badassiness includes ridiculo…

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But that isn’t how it works, and if that is how it works, your flow will not be impressive. It will be a meandering river; while meandering rivers flow, they’re not very cool or entertaining to watch.

Flow that is entertaining has dramatic movements, speed changes, smooth stops and smooth starts. It is these attributes, the hidden intrinsic properties of Flow that define the concept; these are the things we actually want to see.

When I Learned What Flow Was All About

I was clued into this idea back in 2008 or so when talking to Dave, the dude filming the USDDN finals. He was a friend of Dan (RIP, kind sir) and a super cool guy. I remember being upset because the Japanese dude who won spent 30-45 seconds standing in front of his dog, and that shit just wasn’t flow (I still think it was overkill; just sayin’…).

But Dave set me straight. He told me, “Yea, your stuff is badass, but it’s too much. Nobody has a chance to breathe.” I told him that’s what I was going for, “I want all of my tricks to be 11 out of 10 and, “I don’t want to stop moving.” Dave told me that was stupid or naïve; not in those exact words, but that was the gist. Dave was right.

“You ever see an mp3 file? You know how it’s got peaks and valleys? Tight compact sections and long drawn out sections? That’s entertaining, that’s what people want to see. That Japanese dude did that. You went out there and blew the lid off for 2 minutes straight. It was too much, people can’t relate to it… You need valleys to accentuate the peaks, you need some pauses to emphasize your Flow.”

“You should stop, on purpose. Or better yet, you should do something in slow-motion deliberately, to make a point…”

This was some of the wisest counsel on performance I ever received. I never did do that Slo-Mo thing, but it’s been in the back of my mind for a long time. I still might. But this conversation always stuck with me. Hopefully it resonates with you. If you’re a real jammer hell bent on turning people’s heads, you need it.

The Intrinsic Properties of Flow

Flow itself is an aesthetic feature of Disc Dog Freestyle; it’s a key aspect of Freestyle. As a feature and an aesthetic, we know it when we see it. But what is it made of? What are the inherent, intrinsic properties of Flow? Let’s dive in and take a look.

Smooth, Coordinated Stopping & Starting

Flow is not just keeping it moving; it’s not “never stop.” Flow depends on how things start and stop. A clean, intentional stop (that transitions into a new start) can increase the sense of flow, just like an eddy in a river is part of the flow. What breaks flow is an unintended stop — the stall, the awkward reset.

Starting and stopping smoothly, crashing to a stop together, the momentary decoupling for the handler to hit the crowd followed by smooth resumption of jamming; these are key aspects of Flow that require the intrinsic properties of starting and stopping.

Changing Pace and Dynamic Speed Changes

Variations in pace are key to Flow. Without changes in pace, you’re just a fast flowing stream; no drama, nothing interesting to attract the eye. Dog and handler moving together is one thing, dog and handler shifting gears, in unison is another. Maintaining sustaining the Pace of play are huge part of Flow.

Dynamically changing speeds as a team, both smoothly and jarringly make Team Movement interesting and give the observer something interesting to watch as you smoothly move around the field together.

If you’re just going flat out for 2 minutes, it doesn’t matter how cool the stuff is your doing, people will get bored after 15 seconds. To go back to Dave’s mp3 metaphor: even the heaviest of heavy metal bands have dynamic pace changes in their music. If they didn’t nobody would listen to them.

Coupling

When two critters are playing together, in order for them to Flow, they must be coupled. Coupled movement is dog and handler moving as one, each adjusting to the other in real time. This coupled movement is, perhaps, they most important property of Flow. Without it, the dog is just running around out there. With it you present yourselves as a Team, and are jamming together.

Coupling requires both Attention and Awareness by dog and handler. When the dog locks on to a trick or skill, the handler has to maintain Awareness. When the handler is focused on their job, the dog should be aware of the handler’s movements.

Too much Attention might actually kill flow because both partners are too focused on the task at hand to maintain Awareness. Attention to skills, task, or actions narrows the lens, and it is usually a loss of Awareness that busts the groove.

Initiative and Initiative Transfers

Someone has to lead and someone has to follow. This is the intrinsic property of Initiative, and Initiative is critical to Flow.

Who is leading matters. If the dog leads throughout the round, things can spiral out of control and it can look as if the handler is constantly in danger of losing the handle on the game. If the handler is leading the whole time the dog can look logy and uninspired and the game can seem mechanical or a chore.

Good Flow is dependent upon Initiative Transfers; dynamic changes of leadership that happen both organically and intentionally. Negotiating Initiative Transfers is often a breaking point in Freestyle play and any failed negotiation is a deal breaker for Flow.

Rhythm - Dynamic and Syncopated

The property of rhythm is what makes Flow interesting, and it’s not about a steady beat. The “beat thing” doesn’t have flow until it changes. This resonates a bit with Pace, but is more in the moment and about timing than about speed and movement.

Dynamic rhythm changes show themselves in short quick pauses amidst a flurry of movement or easing to a stop followed by a sharp, eye popping trick. Dynamic, syncopated movement keeps the judges and observers on their toes and on the edges of their seats. This is where Flow really pops and becomes something to truly behold. Again, contrast this property of rhythm with simply keeping it moving or moving fast…

Remember Dave’s mp3 wisdom? Rhythm is that same play of peaks and valleys, but compressed down to the trick or sequence level.

Cooperation - Purposeful Movement

Flow is a cooperative endeavor. Both dog and handler need to demonstrate responsibility and dedication for good Flow to manifest. This purposeful cooperation highlights all of the above properties and demonstrates true Team Movement.

Without cooperation Flow often devolves into the dog chasing the disc and the handler firing out discs and chasing the dog. With cooperation Flow becomes a thing of beauty; a lovely dance, a lyrical song, or a wonderful poem.

Conclusion

Flow is an aesthetic feature of Disc Dog Freestyle. It’s both a thing of beauty and a defining aspect of cooperative play. Flow might not be on all of the organization’s scorecards as a scorable category, but it feeds any of the cooperative team elements that are scored in every organization.

Flow is much more than keeping it moving, moving fast, or never stopping. It’s stopping with grace and starting with style. Altering the Pace of play, rhythmically, as a team in coupled fashion. In order for Flow to happen dog and handler need to cooperate with intent and purpose and take turns leading and following.

Now, go out and Jam.

The quote above is no exaggeration. And the introduction speaks quite well to the value modern Disc Dog Freestyle gives to Flatwork. It just doesn’t seem to exist despite the fact that more than 80% of what we actually do out there on the field is Flatwork.

You can’t get set up, can’t transition, can’t sequence interior moves, and can’t have a pass, zig zag, or around the world without Flatwork. It’s just locked in a material Black Box and hidden from us by all the tricks and throws we’re doing out there.

The Features of Flatwork Define Freestyle

The features of Flatwork are well known: Set Up and Position, Team Movement, Zig Zags, Passes, Shapes, Field Usage, Flow, and Transitions are all expressed features of Flatwork. These key aspects are black boxes that are chock full of Flatwork properties.

Nobody would dispute that these are essentially the whole game of Disc Dog Freestyle and yet nobody realizes that all of these key aspects, pretty much all the scorable aspects of Freestyle, are simply the expressed features of Disc Dog Flatwork

The Properties of Flatwork are the Intangibles of Freestyle

The intrinsic, immutable properties of Flatwork are the intangible actions and skills of Freestyle, like you can’t play frisbee without them. And they’re completely hidden by the expressed features and the black boxes that hold them.

How you move moves the dog. How you stand positions the dog. You know how you lean to the left or right and move the disc as a lure to line up your dog? That’s Flatwork. We do this stuff so much and so easily that the performance and understanding of these intrinsic properties completely escapes us. Like water to the fish and like the air we breathe; Flatwork is invisible to us.

Let’s take a look at the intrinsic properties of Disc Dog Flatwork.

Coupling - Connection & Hooking Up

Coupling is interconnectedness between dog and handler where changes in one can significantly affect the other. Understanding this coupling is essential for assessing how dog and handler move together. The dog also couples with the disc or the trick (task), but those moments of coupling not Flatwork. Those are likely the only moments of coupling that are not Flatwork.

Being in sync, when the dog is moving and the handler moves, dog and handler couple and become a system. If this works, we’ve got good Flatwork, if it doesn’t the dog and handler look out of sync. These out of sync moments are decoupled. If the team remains out of sync for some time, that is decoupled play.

When the dog turns to the handler after the catch, the dog and handler could and should couple. This affords a purposeful retrieve and beautiful Team Movement. Funneling this into the standard Set Up Move, the Through, and locking in for the next sequence, when performed well, is a coupled movement.

In an interior sequence, when the handler turns with the dog to prepare for the next trick, that is coupled movement and is interior Flatwork. If the handler turns without the dog and then the dog does their thing, that is uncoupled movement and depending upon how the team recouples, may or may not be Flatwork. Most badass freestyle sequences are coupled sequences and are dependent upon skilled performance of the intrinsic properties of Flatwork.

A well performed Zig Zag or Around the World is a coupled pattern. When it doesn’t look like the dog and handler are connected, or looks like a mechanical pattern, the skill is likely decoupled and is relying on Reward Placement rather than Flatwork.

When catches are missed or tricks go awry, that break in the flow? That’s decoupling. When it works awesome and the team remain in Flow? That’s likely a product of coupling. Coupled play is smooth, together, flowing, and beautiful. Coupling, at any time outside of the actual initiation of a trick is an intrinsic property of Flatwork.

Initiative - Who’s Leading

Initiative is who is leading the exchange. Flatwork affords the handler leadership and planned and coordinated changes in leadership. Without Flatwork the handler may struggle with leading the game or the dog might be driving the game.

When we work or assess the Team Movement dynamics we are working or assessing Flatwork. When moving, who is leading and who’s following are an intrinsic property of Flatwork.

Communication - Reading & Responding

As a trick is happening, dog and handler are both reading and responding to each other. When the dog vaults, if the handler moves and moves properly, information is sent to the dog that affords seamless Team Movement. During a flip, if the handler switches feet or moves left or right, the dog responds.

After catch, when the handler reads the dog and responds intentionally, the team moves seamlessly together. These reads and responses are essential properties of Flatwork.

The Flank - Direction & Directional Changes

The Flank isn’t running around with your dog in a circle, or circular movement, the Flank is the direction of the dog in relation to the handler.

Dogs are either moving clockwise or counter clockwise; there is always a Flank. This is a first principle of Flatwork and working with dogs in general. (The dog’s lead leg is a dead giveaway for which flank you’re on if you can’t tell by your relative position.)

Letting the dog run around wherever is a lack of Flatwork. If the dog just catches the disc and keeps running in whatever direction that they wish, the constant clockwise circle, clockwise pass, the reflexive through as a set up move, or free release pass are hallmarks of a lack of Flatwork.

Intentionally controlling the direction of movement requires Flatwork. This is true at a distance and in interior sequences. So many handlers are expert at Flatwork but are only applying these skills on interior sequences and moves. Being able to do this at a distance: coupling at 20 yards and changing the dog’s Line and working direction for a coupled, well controlled pass, is a hallmark of skilled Disc Dog play.

Working Flank - Moving Together

The Working Flank isn’t a separate property in itself so much as the expression of Coupling and Flank working together. When dog and handler purposefully move in the same direction, that shared state is a Working Flank. It emerges when Initiative, Pace, and Position align to keep the team coupled and moving with intent.

The Working Flank is coupled Team Movement — effective Team Movement. It is as useful as it is aesthetically pleasing, and it’s hard to look better than dog and handler moving together with purpose.

Throws originating out of the Working Flank create Shapes and interception opportunities as the dog is some distance away from the handler. This coupled position at a distance is often hard to come by without it, and the coupled nature delivers reliable timing and position on the fly.

The Working Flank affords the team the ability to move around the field, together as a team, coupled and with purpose, and enables beautiful and thoughtful Disc Management.

Crossing - Change in Working Flank

A Cross is simply a change in the working direction from clock to counter or vice versa. There are Front Crosses, Rear Crosses, Blind Crosses, and even a Vault or an Over can be seen as a cross.

Crossing with purpose is an intrinsic property of Flatwork. It is accomplished using body position which communicates pressure to the dog and isn’t so much a taught skill, but an innate ability of dogs and humans, a reflexive action that is disclosed and revealed and then tuned up to turn it into a Skill.

Flatwork enables purposeful and well timed Crosses that afford changes in direction and working direction while remaining coupled. If you “don’t dou Flatwork” and are successfully performing a Freestyle routine, you’re doing crosses, a bunch of them, you’re just unaware that they’re happening. They’re in the Black Box of Set Up and Position.

Pulling

Pulling is the property that speeds the dog up and creates and shapes the Working Flank or helps to establish the Flank. Pulling can also be used to send the dog. Be careful though, if you pull to hard or too fast, the dog will cut behind you for the Blind Cross.

Pushing

Pushing is the property that slows the dog down and controls and shapes most Crosses. Pushing also helps to keep the dog out in front of the handler for Zig Zags and multiple throws at a distance.

Blocking

Blocking is the property that stops the dog and is the defining moment of most Crosses. Blocking happens when the dog approaches the center of the handler’s body while the handler is oriented in the other direction, or when the hands come together in the Cross and the handler shifts direction and Working Flank.

Timing

The timing of Crosses is an intrinsic property of Flatwork. Handlers that seem to always shift their dog’s direction, or give the Around or Through Cue/Trigger at the appropriate time have their timing on point. Timing is a make or break property of quality Flatwork.

Lines - Where We’re Going

Flatwork sets the Line. Setting Lines and controlling lines is high quality Team Movement. Throwing the disc out there somewhere also creates a line, but that’s not Team Movement, and not Flatwork. The dog might go out there, but the team didn’t make that happen.

Setting the Line via Flatwork can happen as the dog leaves the handler or at a distance. Both of these are intrinsic properties of Team Movement that are created through Flatwork. Lines create the opportunity for Shapes, purposeful Field Usage, and effective Disc Management. Throwing to a dog on a Line affords Disc Placement and makes throws more difficult.

Pace - the Right Speed

Controlling the speed and Pace of the dog is a key property of Flatwork. We see this all the time as a feature — that dog really moves well with their handler, but we rarely see this as a skill that the handler applies. While it is possible for a dog to have a naturally nice pace to play with, it is how the handler handles the dog that defines Pace. This handling is a product of Flatwork.

Coupled movement is the property that affords pace, and it’s application towards controlling speed is a property of Flatwork. This is high level Team Movement and just about nobody knows it exists.

Yes, you can slow your dog down or speed your dog up, but you have to know how to apply Flatwork towards that end.

Position - Lining Things Up

Position is an intrinsic property of Flatwork. To get into position effectively and in flow requires both dog and handler to know and respect the intrinsic properties of Flatwork.

Where’s my dog at? Whether it’s going to meet the dog or fine tuning Position, you’re gonna employ Flatwork to do it.

Set Up - Together in Space & Time

Set Up Moves are interior Flatwork. They’re not really properties of Flatwork, but they’re completely based on the intrinsic properties of Flatwork.

Arounds, Throughs, Spins, Twists, and even Scoots are created by manipulating the intrinsic properties of Flatwork. Arounds and Throughs are pulled. Spins and Twists are pushed. Scoots are pushed then pulled. To do these things in flow, as a team in coupled fashion requires some degree of control over the properties of Flatwork.

Linking Set Up Moves and sequencing with them in flow requires mastery over the basic properties of Flatwork: Coupling, Crossing, Pushing, Pulling, Initiative, Timing, Blocking, Lines, Pace, Position… these things are happening and they are based in Flatwork.

Entry - Entering the Trick

Trick Entries are key skills in Disc Dog Freestyle, and they’re all but unknown today, as everyone just does a Through, turns to face the dog takes a breath or does a fidget then gets on with the show. This is cheating all of us out of seeing true coupled movement and Flow.

How tricks start is a very important intrinsic property when evaluating high level, highly skilled play. A trick that starts from a Pause in Front Position is not at all the same as a trick that has dog and handler moving together on the fly as the previous trick finishes.

This is, perhaps the most overlooked and underappreciated property of Flatwork in modern Freestyle today. It used to be a badge of honor to do things in flow, without stopping, and link tricks seamlessly. Today we do a Through, take a breather, set the dog up and mask it all with a fidget. The two performances are not the same.

Exit - Releasing From a Trick

Finishing our list of intrinsic properties of Flatwork is the Exit or Release from the trick. When you do a Vault, you’re not done. How the dog releases, does it collapse into a heap of legs and a head in it’s strong desire to return to the handler? Or does the dog land, and stride out in clock or counter fashion?

After the trick is done, the Exit from the trick is something that should get more attention from handlers and judges. Not only is it an aesthetic and performance attribute, it’s a safety issue.

Conclusion

We won’t have fair results or a clear understanding of what’s happening in our game — or what the game could truly become — until we start unpacking the details that keep getting black boxed.

It’s not just how much of the field you use. Good field usage is how you and your dog move across it. For Team Movement, it’s not just pulling off a simultaneous set-up trick, it’s whether that move is actually coupled, whether it has a clean Entry, whether it flows into what comes next.

Flatwork is at least 80% of field time, yet all we’re given are the feature buckets: Set Up and Position, Team Movement, Zig Zags, Passes, Shapes, Field Usage, Flow, Transitions. Those are fine categories — but categories have content, and that content is the intrinsic properties of Flatwork.

And everybody still thinks Flatwork is just “running around in a circle with your dog.”

It’s not enough to just say, “That was badass.” We need to be able to say why it was badass.

I’ll do another piece with this video in the near future that show the key moments of coupling that led to these results.

Initiative Transfers, Awareness, and Triggers

To set up these moves safely requires a solid trigger and Initiative Transfers. CupCake has to wait for her handler to Trigger the skill before launching into action. You can see this at about 7.5s into the video if you look hard enough.

The Trigger for the Vault is the presentation of the vaulting obstacle. Using this as the Trigger affords clarity for dog and handler. And, of course the dog finds predictive, physical cues that precede the actual Trigger–a leg bending, a heel coming off the ground, a hand dropping or moving in particular fashion, and the list goes on and on.

Understanding of the Trigger Process leads to Awareness for the Trigger. This Awareness for the Trigger means that the dog has to give up control over the skill. I frequently do not trigger the vault after loading it up, as I want the dog to question, not to know.

This question leads to an Initiative Transfer. CupCake is sprinting in, wondering,”Where is the Trigger?” Well she can’t go until the Trigger is given and speed here puts the dog in a bit of a pickle. As a result of this wrangling of initiative, CupCake has to slow down and wait for the Trigger. This is how team sports and PLAY+ works. You have to be patient, proper, and well-positioned to get a pass thrown to you. I’m not just gonna throw you the bomb where you’re gonna be.

Targeted Leaping & Timing

Did the dog leave the ground for the target? In the image above that’s a no, I think. This question as the rule of thumb for leaping and vaults is critical to successful and safe vaulting. Without it there is no clear, correct answer of “when to throw it”.

The image above is the proof of that rule of thumb. I know I’m “late” because she’s leaving the ground without a visible target. This simplicity affords confident and competent handlers that know what they’re doing and know what they’re looking for. Same for the dog.

Shifting Gears and Recalling Process

During the Flipping portion of our jam I popped off the little Low-High Toss to keep CupCake honest. She’s got unbelievably aggressive flips. They’re amazing, but too much.

The Low-High here does the same thing with the Flip that the Initiative Transfers, Awareness, and Triggers did for the Vault. She can’t even begin to go until the disc has either flipped horizontal like the Low-High toss or has left my hand.

This little Trigger Check keeps the dog honest and forces a question before the flip–the dog has to look before they leap.

Timing & Placement

If you have a Trigger, a dog who understands Initiative Transfers and is asked to exercise Awareness and discretion, then dialing in timing and placement is a pretty simple exercise.

You will quickly start to pick up the information in the environment and relate it directly to performance with confidence and competence. This creates stable and clear information (in the environment) for the dog to use to perform the skill with confidence and competence as well.

Wrap Up & What’s Next?

In this piece I broke out the key moments of coupling for the Vault Skill. These moments are key to the skill, but they’re taking place quite late in the process. I started here because I think it’s easier to see these moments of coupling than the Flatwork coupling mechanics from earlier in the process.

In the near future I’ll provide either another cut of this video or a similar session where I get clear footage of how quality Flatwork affords safe and successful vaulting on the run.

We are working the Over here, but not really. I guess we’re doing something more than goofing around, but not much more than that. The object of this session is for CupCake and I to explore the leaping for a target skill from multiple perspectives, in flow. I think we accomplished that, and the results have been quite noticeable…

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And that is largely true, but it’s not really. If you know what you’re looking at: these 2 vault sequences plus the movement between them to keep the dog and the team happy between reps– well, it’s some fairly impressive work.

You won’t see very many teams vault on the run after 10 strides. And you won’t see many vault with that groovy, intentional pace either…

A few notes about this little short session so I don’t bait and switch all the paying customers… heh…

The communication with markers and cues happens on coupling. This is communicating correspondence between our relevant actions and the consequences that unfold. The drop is given as Coupie is decoupling from the catch and orienting to the handler–important moment of coupling there. The Get Out happens on the Through… There’s some stuff going on directly between CupCake and I too that is pretty relevant.

CupCake is legit reading me, questioning what I’m going to do and wondering where is that Trigger…?

This is a new sequence for a young Epic & I.

Enriched Marking

The PLAY+ Enriched Marking is on full display here. Markers and cues are given at moments of coupling, and the key moments and actions are being identified by both dog and handler. The pages below are filled with key moments from the video. These key moments are moments of coupling and markers and cues are dropped at those times.

Relational Coupling & Team Movement

This second half of the piece shifts to relational coupling and how my movement influences Eppie’s movement and vice versa. This is key information for dog and handler.

We are both just doing behaviors, right? But those behaviors show themselves to be very different depending on how Eppie or I behave. Our positional relationship and direction of movement change the nature of each trick. This positional relationship is coupled movement. Dog and handler have to learn how to couple the tricks to afford live, flowing play.

When a Behavior Dreams, It Dreams It’s a Skill

These relationships: position, pressure, direction, initiative, and speed all change the nature of a behavior. Being able to adapt behaviors to deal with these changing relationships is Skill. Skill requires information from the environment and coupling with the opportunity. So does working with dogs.