We left off from part 1 of our exploration of Josh Waitzkin’s book, The Art Of Learning with Josh discovering a deepening love for chess, while at the same time losing his competitive edge. In part 2, Josh discovers eastern philosophy and Tai Chi, starting him on a new journey of self-discovery and mastery through the art of Tai Chi Chuan and the competitive world of Tai Chi Push Hands.
I experienced something similar to Josh in my scent work journey. As I coached more and more students to top placements and sent multiple students to NACSW National Invitationals – including 2 students to the final NACSW National Invitational, where they placed in the top 5 out of 45 teams – I began to push the boundaries of scent work as I understood it. I had a sense that the dogs we were searching with were being limited by our arbitrary competition rules, our group class structure, and our fear of truly letting the dogs lead us through the world of scent.
Around this same time, Ron Gaunt (a treasure of a human being and the co-founder of what we know today as nose work or scent work) passed away, and with him went his way of knowing and being. I became disillusioned with the competition world and set off on a journey into the depths of scent work to find Ron’s wisdom. It was easier to get started than I expected. As Ron always said, “it’s all about communication.” These words filled me with a desire to receive communication from the dogs doing scent work. I recognized I had to let go of coaching, teaching, training, instructing, handling and claiming to know what was going on in a search. I had to try to become one with the searching dog. Repeat: I had to let go of the idea that the dog is the “learner” and I am the “teacher”. I had to let go of predetermined paths and outcomes, of some ultimate knowledge that lies outside of the dog’s communication, of the idea that I am responsible for the dog’s experience and that I know best what experience he should have. I had to learn to just be with the dog.
Being with the dog was not hard, but required total commitment and a lot of time. In doing this, I lost touch with my competitive edge, I struggled to maintain my drive to coach students to top placements, and winning at the game of scent work held little appeal. Just like Josh, I found eastern philosophy and I found a form of scent work that started me on a new journey of self-discovery through searching in partnership with scent work dogs, ultimately leading me back towards the competitive scent work world with a refined approach to coaching.
Losing Yourself To Find Yourself: Building Resilience & Growth
Josh describes a period in his later teen years where he was coached to play chess in a style that did not reflect his true nature as a player or a person. During this time, he also learned from a coach who helped him integrate an opposing style of play into his true nature. Josh describes one way of learning as “shock & awe” or “breaking stallions”. He is not in favor of this way of learning, yet he can reflect on it and see that it shaped who he is – it cannot easily be subtracted or substituted from his experience and still lead to the person he is today. Josh describes the other way of learning as “learning the hard from the soft” or “horse whispering”. He finds much to love about this way of learning, and sees it as preserving the core of who the person is while also integrating opposing ideas into the person’s core. The delicate balance of pushing and stretching while preserving the spirit is how we grow.
In scent work, we have to connect with our true nature and sense the true nature of our dogs. I know that my true nature is like Josh’s, embracing chaos, thriving in the unknown, playing with physicality and kinetic energy. I am not so interested in following someone’s method or conforming to someone’s vision for who I should be. As a coach, I have to be careful not to pull my students into chaos with me, assuming it will align with their true nature as it does with mine. If I’m coaching people in a workshop, I might lean heavily into my true nature to give the people a taste of something different, but my day-to-day coaching is more balanced. While it may be easy for me to work with someone who is similar to me, it is beneficial for me to partner with someone who is opposed to my true nature. This is where the growth happens.
How might you know what your dog’s true nature is? The same way you know what your own is. Does your dog thrive on routines and structure? Is your dog timid, shy, reserved? Does your dog need clear context cues to do scent work in novel environments or can he just jump right out of the car and start searching? Does your dog feed off of your energy or feed energy to you? There are so many facets to a dog’s true nature. I think of dogs who have a deep connection to their environment, but not a deep connection to people or rewards offered by people – these dogs have a true nature that can be challenging for us to accept. Some dogs love to be in motion as they problem-solve, some dogs retreat into themselves to do their thinking. Some dogs love an audience and love performing without input from others, some dogs need the guidance and involvement of a “manager”, like a gifted child actor. We can get caught up trying to make our dogs search efficiently and logically (find the threshold find first, don’t ping pong all over the search area), and in the process disconnect them from their true nature. It is up to us to find the balance and do so in a respectful and conversational way.
How do we know we are searching in partnership with our dogs, in our true nature? I know we cannot use trial success or fast finds in practice to confirm this. You can skillfully get your dog to do what you want, how you want it, and make it fun for them, but be going against your dog’s true nature. I see lots of dogs look happy doing agility, but many of those dogs are simply working within the expression of the human’s true nature – the dogs are doing what you tell them to, and their happiness is a result of your clear instruction and consistent reward. In scent work, the dog can be quite happily engaging in the act of searching, but maybe not in the way you are comfortable with or that makes you happy. You must be much more thoughtful about your interactions as you are not the one with the “course map”, guiding your dog to success. You must show acceptance and understanding of your dog’s communication to search in partnership in your team’s true nature.
If you are able to support your dog’s true nature when searching, and to let yourself end up in challenging situations, you will build resilience and experience growth. The easiest way I know to do this is to search with a complete unknown – no knowledge of boundaries or hide count – and to make your own calls without relying on a judge for confirmation. I worked a dog recently who showed me two hides along an exterior wall of an ice arena, then shot around the corner to the front of the building and showed me collecting odor with no clear line to source. I observed him bend his head backwards over his right shoulder as we rounded the building corner, which gave me reason to believe we had passed a hide. The dog decided to nuzzle the ground near a planter in front of the ice arena, slowing his expression of behaviors and his progress towards sourcing. I made the decision to play with the dog for a bit with his tug toy, then I offered him the search again and he swung me away from the planter and about even with the building corner, pausing before launching us in the direction of the other two finds on the side of the building. I raced along behind him as he began to show me presence of odor and source on a handicapped parking sign we’d passed earlier! I will search with this dog under any conditions, without fear or concern. We respect each other’s true nature and we partner together well. I trust him to seek out edges of odor, to set his own boundaries and to describe collecting odor, odor from source, and source using distinct sets of behavior. I do not worry about stamina or confidence, because we have rituals to regain our energy and focus, and we are dedicated to mutual understanding. This doesn’t mean we don’t experience extreme challenge and failure. It means we welcome extremely challenging searches that build our resilience and fuel our growth.
Beginner’s Mind
In the chapter, “Breaking Stallions”, Josh says, “I think a life of ambition is like existing on a balance beam. As a child, there is no fear, no sense for the danger of falling. The beam feels wide and stable, and natural playfulness allows for creative leaps and fast learning. You can run around doing somersaults and flips, always testing yourself with a love for discovery and new challenges. If you happen to fall off – no problem, you just get back on. But then, as you get older, you become more aware of the risk of injury. You might crack your head or twist your knee. The beam is narrow and you have to stay up there. Plunging off would be humiliating. While a child can make the beam a playground, high-stress performers often transform the beam into a tightrope. Any slip becomes a crisis… What was once light and inspiring can easily mutate into a nightmare… My chess career ended with me teetering on a string above leaping flames…”
Josh talks about the journey from child back to child in his transition from chess to martial arts. Tai Chi offered him an opportunity to “create like a child under world championship pressure.” In the chapter, “Beginner’s Mind”, Josh finds a connection to eastern philosophy through Jack Kerouac, bringing an aliveness to his final chapter of competitive chess – an aliveness Josh recognized as existing outside of chess. A move to Slovenia and a deep dive into the Tao Te Ching pushed Josh towards Tai Chi.
As a beginner in William C.C. Chen’s Tai Chi Chuan studio, Josh experienced the mystery of Chen’s mastery of the body and of the energy known as “chi”. In Josh’s words, “Chen could be as ephemeral as a cloud and as punishing as a battering ram.” Josh spent months learning the 60 basic movements of the meditative form. Unlike his most recent chess experiences, Josh felt free to explore this new arena with the openness of a child. Josh writes, “slowly but surely, the alien language began to feel natural, a part of me.”
Scent work can be experienced through the mystery of the dog’s “scent vision”. If you’ve ever watched a dog cut up and down a hill, nuzzle a pile of leaves, trace along a tree root, up a tree trunk, carefully sniffing the cracks in the bark, then shoot off 30 feet away and circle a cluster of utility boxes, climbing up the boxes and throwing his head back into the air to find a hide hanging from a tree branch, you can appreciate the dog’s mastery of scent. You should feel little pressure to perform in this setting. Perform what?! Instead, you should feel a playfulness as the dog reveals to you his “basic movements” the words – or behaviors – that will string together to form sentences, paragraphs and stories. As you let the dog speak to you in his “alien language” it should begin to make sense, to feel like a shared language. This can be such a rewarding phase for you and your dog if you remember to bring your inner child and use beginner’s mind.
Yield To Overcome
After some time spent learning the meditative form of Tai Chi Chuan, Josh was invited by master Chen to join the Tai Chi Push Hands class. Josh worried that this would mean getting into opposition with others and losing the relaxing, personal connection he’d cultivated through Tai Chi Chuan. Josh contemplated what he’d read about the martial art of Tai Chi Chuan: “the essence of Tai Chi Chuan is not to clash with the opponent, but to blend with his energy, yield to it, and overcome with softness.” He was ready to experience Push Hands and to practice maintaining and deepening his relaxation under pressure.
I see scent work as similar to Tai Chi Chuan and Tai Chi Push Hands – it can be meditative and relaxing, expanding your awareness through the cultivation of a way of being; or, it can be the challenge of blending with your opponent’s energy, of yielding to it, as you maintain your way of being. When I hear about a student doing a 45 minute search with her 14 year old dog and the two of them loving that way of being, it’s a very personal, meditative form of scent work. When I observe a team searching in a swine barn during a freak blizzard at an October Elite trial in Wisconsin, I see the environment and the time constraint as opponents, and I also see the unexpected communication passing back and forth between dog and human (and human to human or dog to other dogs/humans) as the opponent. As in Push Hands, the opponent is not to be opposed, but to be blended with, its energy to be yielded to so that you can overcome it.
How do you know what it is like to “yield and overcome”? Josh learned it through the experience of what it is not like. Early on in Push Hands he applied what he thought would work – his strength, his power, his oppositional force. These things only led to him being tossed across the room, or to him over extending and losing his balance. As Josh found his knowledge of “martial arts” to be unhelpful, he turned his attention to master Chen and the way his body moved as they did Push Hands. Josh noted the way Chen would absorb the energy of Josh’s fully extended arm pushing into Chen’s shoulder. Josh saw Chen’s wrist rise up and imperceptibly alter the course and force of Josh’s arm. The combined experience of not doing – or doing poorly – and observing the ways your opponent is doing effortlessly & effectively is a powerful way to open you up to where you need to be and how to get there.
It is not hard to create an “opponent” for a scent work team that will have them thrown off their game. It happens quite frequently at trials or simply under novel conditions (a new training location, a new person setting hides, etc.). Lean into this experience and allow yourself to take note of what it’s like to be bested by the environment or by unexpected communication with your scent work partner. Do what Josh learned from master Chen, make an “investment in loss”, and “give yourself to the learning process.” Allow yourself to be bested by your opponent. Practice not resisting. Do not get “locked up by the need to be correct.” Josh experienced rapid progress through the beginning stages of Push Hands because he wholly accepted that his experience was “humility training” and he was easily molded by master Chen’s subtle corrections and new teachings. Imagine if you could treat your scent work experience as “humility training” and be wholly open to new ways of being and doing. Imagine if you could be easily molded by your dog’s subtle corrections and new teachings. Josh notes that “most people cling to their habits and make justifications, frozen in place, repeating their errors.” You don’t have to train this way. Great leaps and advances are possible – for you and your dog – with the right mindset.
I watched a dog working in the presence of loud, punctuating noise the other day. The dog showed interest in working odor, then had enough of the noise and left the area. Understanding the way the dog gets into opposition with the environment is a key first step. Next, you need to understand how to blend with the dog and the environment and use its energy to your advantage. This dog who left the area just needed our support and engagement away from the noise, then she was willing to reenter the area and advance on the source. We didn’t directly confront the noise or try to turn it into a positive, we yielded to it to overcome it. Earlier that same day at that same location, a driven Czech Shepherd was searching with an opponent manifest through turbulent airflow from a ceiling mounted heating unit. The dog chased odor towards source, then raced away from source, and the human could not understand his behavior. At one point, he moved away from source, slowing and turning has head back towards source as he reached a bucket of chalk on the floor. His human was unable to yield to his behavior, to blend with his energy, and thus the dog was pushed further from source, where he attempted the same behavior at another bucket. We were able to adjust the human’s movements in the moment so she could receive her dog’s communication more fully and clearly. Soon, her dog was able to work to the hide and source it.
Every time you search with your dog, you should be practicing awareness, acceptance, yielding, blending, and maintaining your team’s way of being. This is more valuable than all the targeting drills in the world. This prepares you to be the team you know you can be, even in the face of an unpredictable opponent.
Josh encourages all high performers to allow for times where they can reconnect with beginner’s mind and investment in loss, where they do not need to carry the pressure to perform. He notes that Michael Jordan is known as the player to have made the most last minute game winning shots for his team in NBA history. What many people don’t know is that Michael Jordan is also the player to have missed more last minute shots to lose games than any other player in NBA history. Jordan had a “willingness to put himself on the line” and a “willingness to look bad on the road to basketball immortality.” If you want to grow and help your dog grow, you have to be the one to adopt the mindset that “great ones are willing to get burned time and again as they sharpen their swords in the fire.”
“Cultivating Energetic Awareness”
In the chapter, “Making Smaller Circles” Josh shares an excerpt from the book Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, writing, “I believe this little anecdote has the potential to distinguish success from failure in the pursuit of excellence. The theme is depth over breadth. The learning principle is to plunge into the detailed mystery of the micro in order to understand what makes the macro tick.” Just as Josh learned chess by focusing on a mostly empty board with variations on endgames, he learned Tai Chi Push Hands by focusing on one punch for months. Later in the chapter Josh writes, “Practicing in this manner, I was able to sharpen my feeling for Tai Chi. When through painstaking refinement of a small movement I had the improved feeling, I could translate it onto other parts of the form, and suddenly everything would start flowing at a higher level. The key was to recognize that the principles making one simple technique tick were the same fundamentals that fueled the whole expansive system of Tai Chi Chuan.” Josh chose wisely when he focused on endgames in chess, and on a simple punch in Tai Chi. What aspect of scent work should you make “smaller circles” into to discover the fundamentals that fuel the whole searching experience?
The majority of people who get into the scent work game will put their focus on teaching the dog to target the source and to indicate at source. Let’s see if we can find the “macro in the micro” as Josh would say. Spoiler alert: the answer is no. You can dive as deeply as you want into the topic of targeting and indicating source, but it does not hold the key to the broader fundamentals of scent work. In fact, it is a Macguffin. It seems important, but it will lead you astray and leave you gobsmacked at the crucial moment in your search. You obviously need to do something with the target odor, and there are many people that can give you their opinions on what to do. Since the inception of this sport it appears that no matter what route you take to imprint your dog on odor and develop their persistence in odor and communication at source, if you end up with a dog whose behavior changes in odor are dramatic and energetic, and whose patterns of behavior reliably move from searching to locating to sourcing to indicating, you’ve done well. There’s more room to dive deeply when it comes to your reward delivery and the consistency of your behavior at hides, but people get obsessed with this, too, and usually to no better end than focusing on targeting and indicating, so we’ll put it aside.
If you were to focus on “smaller circles” by honing and refining your awareness of your dog’s behavior from the crate or car to the start of your search (preferably starting near the crate or car), now you can do as Josh does and “sharpen your feeling” for scent work. Now, you can begin to see how what you’re practicing can be applied to any aspect of scent work (even the two mentioned in the above paragraph). Josh describes a master like William C.C. Chen as appearing to be magical to the untrained eye, when really he is just compressing many movements into one and performing these movements in moments in time where the untrained observer is blinking or distracted. Your goal is to reach this magical state as your dog’s partner from crate or car to start of search. You want to become so fully aware of your dog and his communication that you are able to perceive things and react to these things without it being apparent to the untrained eye that anything of importance is happening. You want to learn how to partner with your dog so you can compress the ritual of “preparing to search” into one action – one imperceptible action.
Your dog is very aware of you and your communication, so you can use this to your advantage. What is the tension in your body like before you get your dog? How are you breathing? Where is your attention as you get his leash and treats? How are you getting your dog out of the crate or car? What are you saying or doing or thinking? Are you really paying attention to your dog’s readiness and needs, or simply placing a demand on him to work? How do you adapt to unexpected stimuli in the environment? How do you help your dog and yourself to assume your expected roles? How do you feel that you and your dog are ready to search or not? How do you feel your dog feeling the team’s readiness? How do you refine your partnership in this one aspect of scent work over many many searches in many different locations, under many different conditions without getting bored, frustrated – without taking over and abandoning your goal?
Seems daunting, right? It is. But, if you believe what Josh has experienced and learned, it is the way to a deeply enriching partnership and to exceptional performance. It is worth the investment of time and energy to develop your feel for scent work, for partnering with your dog.
Note that I did not include questions a human might ask another human, such as, “where are my boundaries? Where is my start line? How many hides? How much time?” These are meaningless pieces of information if you have no awareness of your dog’s communication and no development of your partnership with your dog.
How do you know when it’s time to move on to the next aspect of scent work? You never fully move on from “making smaller circles”. You get a feel for the internalization of concepts, for the compression of many actions into one. You get a feel and you let yourself explore another small circle of the scent work world. If you feel off, maybe you revisit your relationship to awareness of your dog and yourself from crate/car to start of search. There is no predetermined roadmap for your success – well, there is, but it’s only going to be of superficial use to you. The deeply meaningful journey is the one you create for yourself from truly listening to your dog and yourself and finding the “smaller circles” that matter most to the two of you.
When I speak the behaviors that I see in a dog searching for target odor, the dog’s human might say, “I’ve never noticed my dog doing those things until you said them.” The dog’s behaviors were invisible to the human. Josh highlights this phenomenon with examples from boxing (Ali might appear to do little or nothing at all and suddenly his opponent is knocked out), and chess (Grandmaster Michael Adams can control the center of the board without appearing to use or give any attention to the center of the board), and, of course, Tai Chi Push Hands (two competitors can appear to be doing little more than touching each other’s shoulders and all of a sudden one of them is on the ground 10ft away). These are all examples of regular people who have trained themselves to see more than virtually every other person – including their peers. They started by believing there was more to see. Then they dedicated countless hours to honing their awareness and feel for these unseen aspects of their craft. Finally, they learned to condense many complex moves into one or a few, creating a potent attack. In scent work, the potent attack manifests as clear communication and productive partnership amidst complexity. If I can learn to see many signs of my dog’s intentions during a complicated search, I can react with the clearest communication and enhance my dog’s ability to advance on the problem. The easiest example is an exterior search on grass with trees throughout the area and leaves gathered around stumps and tree roots, where a dog switches from searching building walls at nose height to searching the ground amongst the trees, roots, stumps and leaves. The untrained eye may only see distraction and desire to pee. The trained eye may see signs of collecting odor, thinking and processing, tracing and nuzzling, skimming and trying to find direction. The same way that Josh can knock an opponent off his feet by sensing that opponent’s overextension and misread of Josh’s next move, a human can knock his search team out of the game by misreading the dog’s next move – or failing to see it at all.
“Using Adversity and Slowing Down Time”
The next two chapters dive more deeply into themes established earlier in the book. Josh uses a story from his Tai Chi Push Hands journey as a through line for these chapters. In September 2001 Josh fought in the Super Heavyweight Finals as preparation for the Middleweight Championship just seven weeks away (Josh chose to challenge himself with a much heavier opponent). During a fight against an aggressive, 230 pound giant, Josh broke his hand. This might put an end to most people’s fighting and training, but not Josh. He completed the match and trained and competed in the Championship two months later. It’s not about being crazy or tough. Josh used this unexpected challenge to heighten his feeling for Tai Chi. He dove deeply into his new situation and learned how to use his arm without using his hand, as well as how to use his good hand in an enhanced way. Josh is hugely inspirational as a human being who welcomes adversity. When you partner with your dog to search, unless you’re at home or at your class training facility, there’s a good chance you’ll face some adversity. When you do, you’ll want to face it like Josh and use the adversity to become something better than before.
If you think you can’t do what Josh did and win against all odds, you’re right. You can’t. 2001 Josh had the benefit of 80’s and 90’s Josh’s experiences. 2001 Josh spent his whole life to that point cultivating the art of learning. If you have, too, then I’m sure you can overcome a 100 degree July trial day with ground bees in the exterior, your car battery dying in the parking lot, forgetting your leash and harness, the container search having all dollar store toolboxes arranged in a carpeted hallway, etc. If you have not spent your entire life cultivating the art of learning, you can start now, just don’t expect immediate world class results.
To use adversity, you have to welcome it. Start there. Bring a mindset to your search experiences that welcomes the very challenges you most fear. Don’t try to do anything about the challenges at first, just be present and accepting. No buts about it. Learn to chill out in the face of challenge. This can be super hard and take a lot of time, but it’s worth it.
Once you learn to just be with whatever happens during a search, then you can channel your inner Josh and begin the work of using adversity. As I write this we are experiencing a very warm winter, which allows us more time outside without icy, snowy, cold conditions, but it also means we face the challenge of lots and lots of really dumb squirrels who think it’s spring. Just in the past week I’ve had to practice acceptance and hone my focus and energy to use the presence of stupid squirrels to the advantage of the dog I’m partnered with. I’m grateful for the opportunity to work with this particular adversity, but it is very mentally and physically taxing. Make sure you are prepared to handle the demands on your mind and body. Most humans in scent work incorrectly claim the dog is tired, frustrated, unfocused, giving up. Dogs have plenty of mental and physical stamina and know how to invest in the long game. People in modern times have short attention spans and tire easily from intense focus – they can do it, they just don’t want to. Make sure you prepare yourself to want to focus before you channel your inner Josh.
The next chapter, “Slowing Down Time”, is so important in our exploration of transcending the technical, but it’s also a bit abstract for most people. Josh asks readers to leave the pages of the book and focus on their peripheral vision, noting how expansive their field of vision is. Then he asks readers to return their focus to the book, but also stay aware of their peripheral vision. He has readers imagine what it would be like to deeply cultivate this extra-sensory vision, where you have a conscious focal point and unconscious awareness. He writes, “In a relaxed enough state of mind, you can zoom in on something in front of you with great precision while maintaining a very sharp awareness of your surroundings. Along these lines, chess players must let the unconscious flow while the conscious leads and follows, sorting out details, putting things in order, making precise mathematical calculations.” Relax your mind, focus on one thing and everything, consciously lead and follow your unconscious to achieve your goal. Josh’s words are profound, yet they are also hard to accept without having a firsthand experience.
When you read this chapter, note that Josh highlights intuition and the interplay between the conscious and unconscious minds as crucial to high performance. He is not saying to just do what feels right or act on the first thing that comes to mind. He is describing a person who has acquired a great deal of knowledge, skill, and experience in her chosen field reaching a place where she can move that knowledge into her unconscious and consciously “look at less, not more… look at very little and see quite a lot.” Think of the scent work human who has to check a wrist timer, look out at the search area, fumble with the leash versus the human who has internalized the passage of time and needs only a subtle chime from a phone timer at 30 seconds remaining to offer her dog the opportunity to act on the set of behaviors she observed 4 minutes earlier at the opposite end of the search area.
When I search with a dog I have times where my intuition arises into my conscious mind and I know it’s important, but I can’t find a way to integrate the information into the current moment. Again, Josh and others like him have spent their whole lives honing elite performance practices and utilizing them in high pressure situations. I’ve got plenty of time under my belt in scent work, but I have so much more to learn. If you are able to note when your unconscious is trying to work with your conscious that’s a great place to be. If you are able to let go of your conscious mind’s need to be in control and make sense of things so that you can more fully receive intuitive information, that’s even better. As Josh says, “look at less, not more.”
If I am searching a very large area with no boundaries and unknown number of hides, it’s highly tempting for me to try and gather all of the behavior and communication I’ve observed throughout the search into my conscious mind and figure it out. This rarely goes well. It’s much better if I practice letting go of that desire and freeing up my unconscious mind to sort through all of that observational data and bring me a relevant thought. Josh describes it like this, “The conscious mind, for all its magnificence, can only take in and work with a certain limited amount of information in a unit of time – envision that capacity as one page on your computer screen. If it is presented with a large amount of information, then the font will have to be very small in order to fit it all on the page. You will not be able to see the details of the letters. But if that same tool (the conscious mind) is used for a much smaller amount of information in the same amount of time, then we can see every detail of each letter. Now time feels slowed down.” I know what Josh is talking about. I have felt time slow down, I have experienced behaviors and communication from the dog as very detailed and clear, even though nothing appears to be happening. In these instances, I always have very little in my conscious mind, yet, the previous minutes of searching provided me with huge amounts of information.
At the end of this chapter, Josh clarifies for the readers the difference between time slowing down in the middle of a car crash, and a chess master experiencing time slowing down in the middle of a chess match. I’ve been in a serious car crash and time really does slow down. I remember having tunnel vision to my wife’s face and focusing on how to protect her. It seemed like a minute went by, but it was probably a few seconds from initial impact to coming to a stop. There was nothing I could have done to affect the outcome of the crash. I had hyper-focus, but I didn’t have hyper-function. Josh describes what makes the chess master different than me: “The difference is that, in our disciplines of choice, we cultivate this experience by converting all the other surrounding information into unconsciously integrated data instead of ignoring it.” This is profound. Using your unconscious mind to absorb huge amounts of information and using your conscious mind to apply the relevant piece of information in a targeted way to problem solve.
Once again, as true as Josh’s words are, they can fall flat for someone who has a strong need to control outcomes and figure things out with conscious thinking. This type of person has to want to change his way of being and has to have actual experiences where too much conscious thought negatively affects the search, or it will seem like there must be a better way than Josh is proposing – a way that involves teaching the dog to search with more focus or more consistency, or more clear behavior. Sure, some dogs can benefit from these things, but I would argue that the dog will benefit more if the person can become a trusting partner who better understands the dog and interacts with the dog in a clear and consistent way.
The best way to experience Josh’s words is to practice what he advocates. Build a base of knowledge of your dog’s behavior patterns, your dog’s communication, and the interactions between you and your dog. Go deeply into an aspect of how you and your dog partner together and refine and enhance this aspect. Do searches that provide you opportunities to put what you’re learning into practice in all aspects of your scent work journey. Welcome adversity and challenging search scenarios. Use your partnership to turn adversity into advantage. Invest lots of time in the practice of learning to “lead and follow your unconscious mind” as your dog’s partner in searches. No, there isn’t a step by step for this. Most people I meet have figured out the basics of scent work and accumulated enough knowledge and experience that they are more than ready to do what I describe above. You can feel which step is next for you if you truly believe that scent work is about communication. Then the steps you’re taking are meant to improve your communication skills – listening and conversing – with your dog. Each search you do can boil down to communication – did you receive your dog’s communication and take in all of his signals, or did you miss something, or misunderstand or miscommunicate? Each search is an opportunity to “look at very little and see quite a lot.” Your dog is already doing this himself when he searches, so if you can join him it brings your partnership to a truly exceptional level.
There’s one more part to Josh’s book, so look for part 3 on the blog soon. Thank you to everyone who has clicked on the links in these posts (like this one) The Art of Learning and purchased anything at all from Amazon (hopefully the books and games, too) and THANK YOU to everyone who has donated to the blog (you can do that here). I’m humbled and grateful.
Happy Sniffing!
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