The best way to describe it is running in a straight line parallel to the line of jumps and only using your hand to direct the dog. So, to send the dog over the jump, you point to the jump, when they are on the opposite side and you want to bring them over, you drop your hand to your side.
This new way makes a ton of sense to me. The biggest reason is that I am keeping my path free of extra movement (girations). When I am running Tip (she runs 7 yards/sec), this is important. Split is going to prove to be as fast.
I have really been struggling with training this. Split/I are better at this than Tip/I. I think this is a foundation issue. Last month at camp, Jerry Brown helped me identify the foundation elements that I needed to have with the dogs to do this. Tip being my first dog, I never trained her to jump to my heal and come to my hand. I have since trained those, but they aren't second nature to her. Split I have trained those since the beginning. Secondly, I think I am doing something which I can not identify.
The exact problem that we are having is on the middle jump. Both dogs want to keep running past it and not come in/over if I am moving too fast. I can get them to come in my dropping my shoulder and putting my hand back, but this is not the ultimate behavior that I want.
So, tomorrow I am going to film myself and see if I can notice anything odd.
