This article originally appeared in the award-winning AKC Family Dog magazine. Subscribe now!
Seoul, September 19, 1988. Greg Louganis, 28, considered the greatest diver in history, bounced high off the springboard and gracefully completed a series of airborne somersaults.
Then disaster struck. Louganis remembered it as a “hollow thud.” The horrifying image the world saw was his head slamming into the edge of the board on the way down.
That he remained conscious and exited the pool was a miracle. But even more stunning, about 20 minutes later with a concussion and four stitches in his head, he was back up on the board.
He went on to win one of his four Olympic gold medals in the finals.
What do six seconds (an average dive takes around three) in a super athlete’s life have to do with you as you step up to the line with your novice dog?
As it turns out, a great deal.
Today, Louganis is a dog sport competitor with experience in conformation, obedience, and agility. His current partners are G, a Pumi, and Pax, a Pyrenean Shepherd. Like the rest of us, he’s seen how his moods can affect his four-legged partners.
“If I’m overstressed, then he can go into avoidance. He can disconnect. There are so many ways it shows itself,” he told FD in a phone interview. When Louganis was nervous, G had issues with his start-line stay. As soon as the collar came off, G would bolt and start zooming around the ring.
“So usually, I have to laugh at myself and then do some tricks, easy things that are easy for him to be successful, get his mind off it, get my mind off it, and really kind of get focused on each other,” he says.
Louganis has a repertoire of stress busters that he honed over decades for the highest levels of world competition. He teaches these techniques in an online course, Finding Your Rhythm. He recently shared some of these methods with AKC Family Dog.
Just Breathe
Louganis was terrified when he stepped up for his second dive in the preliminaries that day in 1988. He felt like his heart was pounding outside his chest. He put a hand on his chest and took a deep breath. At that moment, he heard some of the spectators giggling.
“The people who saw that realized, Oh my God, he’s scared. We’re scared for him. And they chuckled because they were having that same anticipation of fear. So when they chuckled, I started laughing,” he says. The breath, the pause, and a little humor broke the tension enough for him to complete a great dive.
Patterns of inhalation, exhalation, and even holding your breath create different physical reactions. In his course, Louganis teaches several breathing patterns to deal with all kinds of situations.
“If you’re really high on the arousal, then what you want to do is use a breath to calm,” he says. “Generally, a breath to calm is exhaling twice as long as you inhale,” such as inhaling to a count of four and exhaling to a count of eight. Another pattern, “box breathing,” involves holding the breath at the end of deep inhalations and exhalations. Some of these exercises may make you dizzy, but that may be what it takes to jolt you out of a negative mind loop—repetitions of I can’t, I can’t, I’m not good enough—and allow you to clear the mind for the task at hand.
Think About It Tomorrow
After the accident, Louganis had a flood of negative thoughts—reliving the crash and chastising himself because “really good divers don’t do this.”
“A lot of people asked me, ‘How did you get over it?’ ” he recalls. “There wasn’t enough time. To get over something you need time, you need to process it.”
He had less than half an hour to get back up there.
Over the years, Louganis has honed a technique to set doubts, negative thoughts, judgmental people, and fears aside in a snap.
“I can compartmentalize things quite well. I’ve had a lot of practice at that,” he says.
It’s not a matter of pushing the thoughts away, he points out. “The harder you push, the more present it’s going to be. So you have to acknowledge it and say, ‘Well, is there anything I can do about it?’ ” The answer usually is no. “So then it’s like, ‘OK. Then let me focus on this moment.’ ”
Human minds, wired as they are, always look for judgment, drama, conflict, and worries. It takes practice to be able to put these paralyzing thoughts aside and focus your attention where it needs to be.
But it’s a skill that will pay off in many areas of life.
Remember to Warm Up
Peak performance, Louganis has learned over the years, is a matter of regulating a trio of reactions—heart rate, breath rate, and body temperature. Of the three, body temperature can be a little tricky.
When he performed in musicals as a dancer, performers used physical warmups like ballet barre and vocal exercises,
such as humming. These exercises
are important, because “every night is
opening night, there are no do-overs.”
Dog sports are the same. Serious competitors have pre-run protocols to get in sync with their dogs, such as stretching, quick walks, or tricks. Louganis likes to use easy tricks, such as a hand target or a high five, which can build a dog’s confidence.
Settle for Success
Many athletes rehearse in their minds, a method known as visualization. Often they like to imagine a flawless performance, but Louganis suggests taking it down a notch. “I encourage people not to visualize perfect,” he says. Striving for perfection leaves little room for small mistakes that might happen in high-stress situations. Striving for perfection after an error could lead to an overcorrection. That, in turn, could spark a downward spiral of errors. When that happens, Louganis says, “your relationship with your dog, which is the most important thing, is going to deteriorate.” Aim to have things go well, trust the hours of training you’ve put in with your partner, and don’t overthink it.
Pick Up the Pace
The walk-through, a standard part of agility and rally competitions, gives participants a chance to rehearse the course without their dogs. In agility, for example, it’s an indispensable part of preparation, essential for figuring out angles, timing, and turns.
Louganis has observed many competitors rehearsing their moves in slow motion during walk-throughs. Slow
motion is fine, he says, when you’re learning a skill. A slow pace allows
you to create a memory of what the movement should feel like.
“A huge key to success is you have to get your visualization at speed or faster,” he says. “If you do all your visualization in slow motion, you’re more than likely going to be late.” Even in diving, where the move takes three seconds, Louganis went a little faster in practice and warmups.
The future diving champ came to this realization as a very young child. Years before he climbed up on a diving board, he trained and performed as a dancer and acrobat. It started when he was a toddler and accompanied his mother to watch his sister take classes. Instead of watching, he tried to join in.
After a couple of years of lessons, his teacher told him to practice a routine and then she left the room. He practiced until he was confident of all the steps.
His teacher came back and asked him to perform the routine. But when she turned on the music, she increased the tempo. It was a test. If he could do it fast in practice, he’d be ready to do the step at the normal speed during performance.
“The first time out, I made it fluid,” he recalls. “She said, ‘OK, you’re ready.’ ”
But Don’t Rush
Another mistake some handlers make is rushing to get into the game, trialing too early. It takes time, training together, and understanding movements and rhythms that are unique to you and your dog.
“When you first start out, understand it’s a learning process, so allow yourself time,” he says. With G, he trialed infrequently, just to see where they were as a team and what they needed to work on. Then they’d practice before going to another trial. Take the time to build confidence before entering the high-stress environment of competition. “It’s their trust in you and your trust in them,” he says. “It really is mutual.”
From behavior and training to health and nutrition, learn from the experts at the American Kennel Club, in AKC Family Dog magazine. Subscribe now!