Curious what musical freestyle is and whether it might be for you? Join Julie and I for a conversation that includes tips and tricks for laying out your routine, choosing which tricks to train, and more!
Transcript
Melissa Breau: This is Melissa Breau and you're listening to the Fenzi Dog Sports Podcast brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy, an online school dedicated to providing high quality instruction for competitive dog sports using only the most current and progressive training methods. Today I'll be talking to Julie Flanery about crafting a musical freestyle routine. Hi Julie, welcome back to the podcast.
Julie Flanery: Hi Melissa, thank you for having me back.
Melissa Breau: Excited to chat about this. Do you want to just start us off, remind everybody a little bit kind of about you, about your dogs, maybe what you're working on with them?
Julie Flanery: Sure. I have been working and competing in musical freestyle for about 25 years now. I started judging also in 2000, I don't know, 2010 maybe. It's been a long time. So I've been involved in the sport since its first inception in the US And I developed a club out here on the west coast, still one of the largest and strongest clubs in the US and so I continue to compete with my dogs.
I have Phee, who is polishing up her intermediate advanced freestyle routine and we're also continuing to work on our mimicry skills. We've been really enjoying kind of advancing those since my last mimicry class. And she is a 7 year old mixed breed Australian Shepherd, Shih Tzu mix. Not quite what I was expecting, but an awesome little dog. Anyway, Phee, her name is Phee for Phenom. And then Will is my newest dog.
He is 19 months old and he is a border pap and he is working on his rally free skills test, which is a skills test for freestyle and rally free that allows you to practice and work on the individual skills and submit a video of those skills and then you can earn your first title in one pass. So that's kind of a nice way to get started since we're talking about freestyle, a nice way to get started in freestyle.
He's also doing some disc dog. We're learning some updog games and we're playing with a really cool sport I came across which I'm really starting to get into, which is barrel racing. So that's really fun. It allows him to kind of really move out and have fun with some good speed and also some control in terms of distance and directionals. So that's been really, really fun. And of course with a 19 month old intact male, he's practicing his life skill in a lot of different places. So he has been a very, very busy little boy.
Melissa Breau: Sounds that way. So I know we've talked about it before, but for those who maybe aren't familiar or super familiar with the sport. How would you describe what musical freestyle is?
Julie Flanery: So I think. I think most people now at this point have seen musical freestyle. It didn't. I wouldn't. I didn't used to consider it a mainstream sport, but I think now I consider it a mainstream sport.
I think most have heard of it or seen it, and there are several organizations now offering titling opportunities. But basically, the dog and handler team choreograph and perform routines to music. And those routines include obedience and tricks and sequencing skills. It's a sport where the dog has almost as much to say about what goes into the routine as the handler. And together they have to work through what works for each of them.
And the one cool thing about freestyle is that the judge doesn't know what the team is going to present in the ring. And while we hope that it all goes as planned, if it doesn't, and often it doesn't, as long as we keep moving, we can get back on track and finish out the performance. And no one is the wiser because they don't know what we're going to perform.
So that's kind of an interesting thing about freestyle that is different from other sports. Aside from competition, freestyle is also a really great sport to show in therapy, dog visits or community events like pet fairs, or just a really, really fun way to train and interact with your dog.
Melissa Breau: So when you're starting to work on a new routine, where do you usually start? Do you usually start with a key trick, with a particular song, with a story you want to tell?
Julie Flanery: So how you start your routine can vary from person to person. So in general, you want to have a few tricks or behaviors and some experience with a bit of heel work to start. But really, your inspiration for starting to develop a routine can come from anywhere. It might be a song you heard that inspires you. It might be a really cool trick, or as you said, it might be a story you want to tell, or it might be a costume or a prop that you saw at the thrift store.
And you want to maybe build a routine around that. So it could be any of those things. It could also be your dog's personality or maybe something you're going through in your life. Freestyle and developing a freestyle routine can be very cathartic. It's a very emotional kind of sport. Once you have your inspiration, though, you'll need to decide on your music. And once you have your music, you have a starting point from which to build the routine from kind of the ground up and start to choose your behaviors and where they're going to go within the piece of music.
Melissa Breau: How important is it then to kind of pick the right music and maybe what. What makes music like a good fit for a particular team?
Julie Flanery: Yeah, so it's important, and it isn't important. I mean, it is important. It's a sport built around music and moving to music. So if you are competing in freestyle, then, yes, your choice of music will impact your score, and part of your score is affected by how well you and your dog move to the music, how well you interpret that music through your choice of behaviors, your choice of handler moves, your props, your attire, and your overall presentation.
So in that regard, it's important that you choose music that has a rhythm or a beat that you and your dog can easily move to and that the judge can see your movement. And the sequences match the tempo and phrasing of the music. You want the routine to be visually appealing to the audience, as well as something that your dog's movement is showcased. So by choosing music that you and your dog can easily move to, that's one piece of choreography that you.
That won't feel or look forced or unnatural. Thankfully, there's a lot of music out there. And usually the problem isn't that it's hard to find music. It's that it's hard to narrow down the choices to something that you really, really want to with. So, having said that, though, music is a really personal choice. And in freestyle, your motivation may not be high scores, but rather that emotional impact.
And working with a particular song, that emotional impact is often conveyed to the audience as well. And it's rare that I don't see an audience affected by the emotional impact of a song. So that may have a bearing in what you choose as well. Most certainly, you want to choose music that you can listen to over and over and over again, that you can really learn it like the back of your hand and still want to listen to it, because you're going to be listening to it a lot.
Routines can take weeks. It can take months or even a year or more to develop. So choosing a song that is either very meaningful to you in some way or another, that inspires you, certainly, or at least one that you don't mind listening to a lot. You might have other motivations for choosing a particular song. Kind of a funny story. When I was first developing my very first intermediate routine with one of my dogs, it was with an organization that I don't compete with now, but it was one that I was competing with several years ago, and their requirement at the intermediate level was that you not use any hand cues at all, that all of the behaviors were on verbal cue.
And at that time, this was 20 years ago or so. At that time, the primary method of training for positive reinforcement trainers was lure reward training. And so all of my behaviors were taught through luring and then transferring to a verbal cue. And for a lot of handlers, that can be really difficult, and dogs as well, that when we are under stress or we are under pressure, it's easy to fall back into using those hand cues again, Even if your dog doesn't need them necessarily, they act as a bit of security for the handler as well.
To make sure, oh, I know my dog will do it on hand cue. I'm not so sure he'll do it on a verbal cue. And knowing that in order to qualify at that particular time, I needed to minimize or eliminate my hand cues. So I chose a piece of music that I really, really, really did not like at all. And the piece of music that I chose was the Macarena, Because I could learn the dance moves to the Macarena, and I could do those throughout my routine.
And if I was doing the dance moves to the Macarena, then I was not giving my dog cues. So that's what I did. And we qualified and did quite well. But what's interesting is that while at the start, I did not like that song, I didn't like the song at all. But, you know, it was a really fun song, and it was fun learning the arm movements, and it was a fun song to do with my dog, and it was very upbeat.
And by the time that I actually finished out with that routine, I actually, really, really liked the songs. And to this day, if I hear the Macarena start, I can. I can go right into the arm movements without any trouble whatsoever. They're so ingrained, it's kind of funny. But. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, music is. It's a. It's. I don't want to say it's a huge decision, a big decision, but you do want to consider it carefully.
Some pieces of music, you are a little bit harder to choreograph in terms of presenting a theme or an interpretation. So a song might be difficult to find costuming for or attire for that's going to fit the theme. So when you're listening to the music and you're trying to determine, well, what piece of music do I want to choose over this or that? Certainly you want something that you and your dog will move easily to and well to.
But also consider, how are you going to develop a visual performance around this piece of music? What are you going to be wearing? What props, if any, what moves you going to choose to convey? Whatever it is you want to convey in this music? So, yeah, a lot of times people will choose a piece of music and they'll start to choreograph, and then they're not quite sure what behaviors to choose, what costuming to wear, what props they might put into their routine, how to interpret this music so that the audience can enjoy the music as well.
Yeah, yeah, it does matter. But like I said, it's a very personal choice. We don't always know when we view a routine what the handler's motivation was in that choice. So the most important thing, I think, is to make sure you and your dog can easily move to it.
Melissa Breau: So how do you decide? Like, when you're thinking about the routine itself, how do you decide which trick or behavior should be at what point in the routine?
Julie Flanery: Right. And if you only have a couple of, like, really wow kind of tricks or behaviors, where in the routine would you place them? So I break my routine. When I develop my routines, I break it up into. I have heel work. I have main moves or tricks which include my wow moves. I have transition behaviors, which are moves that allow us and the dog to move easily from behavior to behavior or sequence to sequence.
Our transition moves are what create flow and smoothness in our moves. The goal in freestyle is to have your behaviors or tricks or sequences match with the phrasing of the music. It's what we call musicality. So that plays a really important role in where we place our behaviors, including our wow behaviors. So, like, basically, when we start to choreograph or when I start to choreograph a routine. And freestylers, different freestylers have different ways of doing this.
But I map out my routine through the lyrics. Or if the song doesn't have lyrics, then I will use, like, the instrumental phrasing, and that will go on paper first. And as I listen to the music, I will start to literally see in my mind's eye behaviors or sequences that might match the musicality or the phrasing that piece. And I'll just note that down on my paper about where in the music I would want to put that.
And so I don't start from the beginning and work down or from the middle and work out. It varies from song to song. I might start at the beginning with an opening pose, or I might start Making notes in the middle of the routine, and then we start to flesh it out from there in. You know, routines don't have to be full of wow behaviors. There is a lot of risk in putting big wow behaviors into a routine.
And especially when you're first starting out, there really isn't a need to add a lot of difficulty or risk to your routine. If there are behaviors that I want to use that are likely to wow the audience, though, I often tend to put them in the middle and then again at the end. I like to build up to them and then have them be like one of the last thing a judge remembers.
And two, if we put too many hard things in the beginning of the routine, remember we're going to be out there cueing our dogs and asking them to do behaviors for 2 to 3, even 4 minutes, 2 minutes, about as average for a newcomer or entry level routine. And if we start doing a lot of difficulty at the start of the routine, the further we go into the routine, the harder it's going to be on the dog.
I try to make the wow behaviors, as you refer to them as something the dog really enjoys as well. So as we get into the routine and in the middle part of that routine, we might have a wow behavior. And then as we continue at the end, we have another one. And as I said, as the music builds, you can add in behaviors that start to match how the music builds.
But there is no hard and fast rule on where you put your wow behaviors. It's really more important that the behaviors you choose have a reason for being included in your routine, that they aren't just added gratuitously. Like, for example, you maybe have a slower, melodic love story. And right in the middle of the slow part, you throw in a flashy rebound or a speedy set of spins just because your dog likes them.
So it often can make it look mismatched to the overall theme or the genre or the totality of the performance. So. So when you start to develop, when you start to choreograph your routine, generally that music guides you as to where and what behaviors you're going to include in that routine. That makes a lot of sense. Is there, you know, are there any tricks maybe to avoiding a routine that feels really repetitive or even really chaotic?
Just like too all over the place. So even if you're using the same kinds of behaviors throughout the routine, it doesn't need to appear repetitive. There are many basic tricks or foundation tricks or behaviors that you can create simple variations of. So they look different, even though the main behavior is the same. And that allows you to provide a lot of interest and variety without needing to do a lot of different, different behaviors or train a lot of different behaviors.
So say in a two minute routine, that's a long time. You might have, you know, 30, 40, 50 cued behaviors in a two to three minute routine. And those do not all have to be different, nor should they be different. You know, maybe your dog only knows how to do a spin or circle around you or a weave a pass through your legs. Dozens, literally dozens of behaviors can be built from just those three foundation skills.
And then once you add in your heel work, then you have a really nice little newcomer or entry level routine. So people shouldn't feel pressured or like they have to build a huge repertoire of tricks. More important is that you get some base behaviors really solid so that it's easy to build off of those and create more complex or difficult tricks based on those foundation skills. More often we do see routines that are going to appear a bit chaotic or rushed, and I think that's from a lot of beginners try to put too many moves into a routine.
They've learned a lot of things, they think they're all really cool and they just want to it all in there. That is really, really hard. That's hard on the handler, it's hard on the dog, and it does start to look very chaotic or choppy or they don't really understand how to use transitions as a way to smooth out the sequences and allow for better flow within the routine or they eliminate the heel work.
You want to have heel work within your routine. It provides a respite for the dog, it provides a respite for the handler, provides a respite for the audience from, you know, if you have a lot of stuff packed into your routine, it can, you know, be, like you said, very chaotic and very not appealing to the eye, very jerky. So you don't want to really try to do a lot of complex or difficult moves at the beginning levels, especially when the team isn't ready, especially when they don't have the experience of what it's like to try to do that full two minute, three minute routine without reinforcement all the way through.
Because we practice in segments and rarely are we going to work our whole routine all the way through. So yeah, I do see new handlers, new freestylers, try to put way, way, way too much into their routines. Matter of fact, oftentimes even experienced freestylers, when I choreograph and I have my notes down on my paper. All too often, I may have my notes, but once I start to check those sequences with my dog, you know, kind of ask my dog the question, what do you think of this?
Is this gonna work for us? I end up having to take out a lot of stuff because we might have this vision in our head of how this is going to look. And what we end up finding out is that our dogs don't quite have the ability to hear those cues and process and execute those cues as quickly as we have in our head. So it's not uncommon to remove behaviors or moves from a routine that we're just starting to develop, because it can just get too, too much really, really quickly.
Melissa Breau: That makes a lot of sense. Kind of thinking about performing. Right. I'd imagine a lot of trainers maybe feel intimidated by the musical part where they actually have to dance. So how much do you need to know how to dance to do freestyle?
Julie Flanery: Well, okay, you do not need to know how to dance. I do not consider myself a dancer. I couldn't tell you one dance step from another.
I do enjoy music, and it obviously helps that you enjoy music, that you be able to hear a beat, hear the phrasing and step in time to the beat or the rhythm of the. Of, you know, any particular song. And, you know, really maybe don't even need to do that. You can figure out what is your natural movement. So say, what is your steps per minute? And then match that up to a song that has the same beats per minute.
And as long as your dog is comfortable moving at that same pace, you can start that way and then learn to hear the beat, learn to listen to the music, and step in time to the music. So you don't need to learn how to dance. And I totally understand that that can be very intimidating. I think sometimes what's more intimidating is the thought of getting out there and not dancing, but dancing in front of someone.
Having someone actually see you dance with your dog. And I think that may be the more intimidating part. I would bet that a lot of people dance with their dog in private quite a bit, but it's the getting out and doing it in front of somebody that can be a little bit intimidating.
Melissa Breau: What do you tell students who maybe are worried that their routines aren't going to be good enough to actually compete or to share?
Julie Flanery: Yeah. So I have found that people think they need way more than they think they do to succeed in competition. Did I say that they think they need more than they actually do to succeed in competition? So you know, they look at the freestyle routines online, they look at the Crufts routines or even the top freestylers in this country. And that should be an inspiration to you, not a roadblock that says I have to be that good or I have to have a bunch more tricks or I really need some of those wow, fancy tricks.
You know, my heeling needs to be more precise. The overwhelming majority of first time freestylers qualify, so that, that should be encouragement for people. I don't know of any dog sport where novice handlers are expected to be experts or top performers. And in my experience, people, like viewers are in awe of anything you put out there that has anything to do with dancing with your dog. I mean, who else does that?
It's cool and it's fun and it's entertaining and no one is looking at you thinking anything but good thoughts and well wishes. And that has truly been my experience in the freestyle world, that this is an incredibly welcoming community that want to help you in any way that they can. So if you could give kind of. Somebody's listening to this, they're kind of interested in getting started or maybe they're new to freestyle.
Melissa Breau: Right. If you could give one tip to somebody who's kind of just in those early stages. Stages, what would it be?
Julie Flanery: One tip. All right, Julie, what you got? I'm kidding. You know, freestyle is a very. It's a fun sport, it's a complex sport. But if I had to give like just one tip, I would say work at the appropriate level for you and your dog. If you're an entry level or newcomer, work.
Work at the entry level, not at the advanced level. Don't feel like you need to try to put a bunch of advanced tricks or behaviors into your routine. Your dog will thank you and your freestyle career will be longer and stronger for it. One of the best things I think you can do is just get involved, join a club, get into a Facebook group. My favorite Facebook group is the Rally Free For All group.
They are super welcoming, super helpful. Take a class. If you're intimidated by the music aspect of it, start with Rally Free. Rally Free is a sport that actually uses those freestyle behaviors, but on a rally style course so there's no music involved and it allows you to learn the skills and allows you to learn how to sequence those skills before trying to put it to music. So that's a really user friendly way and it still includes a lot of the creativity that freestyle has.
In Rally Free, you get to choose 25% of your rally course. You get your Rally Free course, you get to choose, and you get the course 10 days in advance of the time that you need to video. So you get some time to practice and choose those what we call free choice behaviors before you actually submit your video or compete live. So, yeah, that allows you to kind of get your feet wet, meet some people, learn about the sport a little bit more, ask questions and don't be shy. Just don't be shy. Step. Step right up.
Melissa Breau: So one of the reasons that we're chatting about this is that you're offering a webinar on musical freestyle for us on the 28th at 3pm PT. You've also got your foundation skills class and your Joy of Heeling class in the calendar for the October term. So do you want to just kind of give us a little information about each of those things and maybe who might want to sign up for which?
Julie Flanery: Yeah, yeah, I'd love to. Yeah. So you mentioned my webinar coming up. It is a rerun of one that I did a couple of years ago, but I am looking forward to being there and answering any questions anybody has. And it will kind of give you a really good overview of the process and let you kind of just decide, do I really want to get involved in this?
And then I have my RA 500, which is the intro to Rally Free and musical Freestyle. And we teach all of the basic behaviors and the behaviors from the novice Rally Free course, which is what we encourage people to use in their starters or entry level freestyle routines. And so that introduces people to what kinds of behaviors and gets you started on those. So that starts, as you said, October 1st and then also my Joy of Heeling rock it like a freestyler course.
Also October 1st, people don't often think of healing as part of freestyle, but it really is part of freestyle and it's a beautiful part of freestyle and it's what allows you to move fluidly around the ring and in between your main behaviors. Having, like a home base position that your dog loves to be in and wants to get to will make your and your dog's life so much easier.
When it comes to freestyle, if you get lost in your routine, your dog always knows how to get back on track by seeking out that heel position. So it's also great for other dog sports where we want our dogs to really show some animation and energy in their heel work and find that joy and healing, so to speak. So we use lots of games and other really fun exercises to get you there.
Melissa Breau: Fun stuff. All right. Any final thoughts or key points you kind of want to leave folks with Julie.
Julie Flanery: Yeah. So yay for you for listening today and wanting to learn more about freestyle. Freestylers are a super fun and welcoming group of folks and they love newcomers. They love sharing about freestyle. When I first started in freestyle, there was no one near me that taught freestyle and there was no Internet at that time.
I happened to see freestyle at a demo at an APDT conference and I thought, oh my God, I have got to do that with my dog. And when I started to try and find someone that could teach me, there was nobody. There just wasn't anybody. So a lot of us old timers are self taught. Thankfully there were a couple of VHS tapes out there that we could learn from and I didn't want to do this alone.
So I gathered up a few students and started a Friday night fun with freestyle group where we all learned together. And that is still happening all over the US today. That one or two people want to learn about this sport. They can't find instruction near them, so they get together and they learn together. And thankfully they have the opportunity to learn online now. They don't have to do it alone.
And from that Friday night fun with freestyle, we grew into one of the largest freestyle clubs in the US and those that were part of that early Friday night fun with Freestyle group are still club members today, 25 years later, and all still very close friends. So freestyle creates a bond between you and your dog, but also you and your fellow freestylers that is really, really hard to match.
So yeah, join us. Join us. We'd love to have you and I hope to see you guys at the webinar or in one of my classes.
Melissa Breau: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and talking about all this.
Julie Flanery: Thank you, Melissa. It was really fun and freestyle is always one of my favorite things to talk about.
Melissa Breau: Heck yeah. And thank you to all of our listeners for tuning in.
We'll be back next week, this time with Michael Shikashio to talk about the Canis Conference and his upcoming webinar on arousal and aggression. If you haven't already, subscribe to our podcast in itunes or the podcast app of your choice to have our next episode automatically downloaded to your phone as soon as it becomes available. Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast.
Music provided royalty free by BenSound.com the track featured here is called Buddy. Audio Editing provided by Chris Lang. Thanks again for tuning in and happy training.
Credits
Today's show is brought to you by the Fenzi Dog Sports Academy. Special thanks to Denise Fenzi for supporting this podcast. Music provided royalty-free by BenSound.com; the track featured here is called "Buddy." Audio editing provided by Chris Lang.
Thanks again for tuning in -- and happy training!