Thoughts On Being A Beginner Again

Thoughts On Being A Beginner Again
Mar 23rd 2008
wolfmoonsleddog
Alaska
Location: Ester, AK
Time - 9:12pm
Temperature: 17 degrees F
Conditions: Cloudy, snowing, windy
Forecast: Cloudy with snow tonight and tomorrow. Lows in the single digits, highs in the 20s

Well, I was going to blog about the Powerhouse Team (Orion and Chaps in wheel, Ceasar and Raven in lead), which I took on a 10-mile run today, but I had some other thoughts coming into my head that I felt I had to expand upon. They do relate to the run today.

Back in Georgia I am a dryland musher and I list my skill level as “experienced” on the Dogs Across America form which I fill out. I consider myself an authority on scootering and find I am teaching others how to do dryland mush. I am far beyond the beginner stage and I have gotten to where I am without a teacher, through trial and error and reading every mushing book I can. And I have trained my dogs myself.

Sledding, sledding with a real sled not a kicksled and with a team of dogs, is different. I find myself far behind where I would like to be. I work hard but it seems that whenever I feel I am becoming competent at running my four-dog teams, I discover that I am doing something wrong or there is something I am not doing or something that I should be doing or should not have done or should have paid attention to and didn’t…

I must admit it is hard for me to be at this stage when I am so much farther in the dryland world. Here, with sledding, I have someone teaching me and explaining what I should do. I’m just not used to that. I get frustrated with myself. I have what I consider to be an excellent run and I don’t want it critiqued. I understand that it has to be if I ever want to get where I want to be, but I am just having a hard time adjusting to the fact that I am a novice. I write “Dog & Sled”, I dryland mush, I know how to mush - on paper, I know many mushers and I have made my mark in the sled dog world. I am beyond where many my age might be.

But when it comes to actually being on the runners of a sled, driving a team, I am very much a novice. A beginner with a long way to go.

And I don’t want to whine about it. I guess everyone wants to hear “oh you are doing so well” even when they aren’t, just to make them feel good about what they’ve done. But, if you always hear that you never learn. You never move forward. And hot dang, I want to move forward. I just want to be more forward than I already am.

I’m impatient. It’s suddenly obvious to me as I write this. And you can’t be impatient running dogs.

Here is some of what I’ve been having issues with.

Going too fast. The dogs want to run like crazy, I love to let them. However, as I learned today, it takes too much out of them when you let them go as fast as they want. This is a problem I’ve had for a while. Going too fast
Going too slow on curves. Hey, curves are freaky. What more can I say?
But that’s just how it is. And things will look better in the morning. Hope I’m not annoying everyone. I’m not trying to gripe. I’m just trying to come to terms with the fact that…I’m a beginner again.

Edit This
2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Thoughts On Being A Beginner Again”
Christian Hollingsworth on 25 Mar 2008 at 9:24 am # edit this

Are you still in Alaska right now - or are you back in Georgia? I read your article in Mushing magazine this month, and loved it! Sounds like you had a blast in Wyoming!

wolfmoonsleddog on 25 Mar 2008 at 10:28 am # edit this

Yes, I’m still in Alaska and having a glorious time! Unfortunately I will have to head back to Georgia but I do miss little Calypso and will be glad to see her when I return.

Glad you liked the article in “Mushing.” I’m probably going to go to Cold Spot pick up some extra copies for friends & family today. Wyoming WAS great. By the way, the sledding picture in “Mushing” was taken at the 2007 Casper races.