New goals

I never want to handle my dog again the way I did this weekend. My timing was horrible. We were off course, missing jumps and when she did take the correct jump she would drive out wide. All this shows me she didnt know where she was going. So my new goal is to try and learn so see my dog's commitment point so I know how soon I need to cue. How am I going to do this? Im not sure. I hope to work with Meagan this week and see if she can help me. I plan to slow down my videos and see when I should have given the cue. Then practice that section and put a marker on the ground so I have a visual on when to cue her.
Next, I signed up at the last minute for a USDAA trial this weekend. I only entered Saturday and just starter gamblers, jumpers and speedjumping. I wanted to do some easy courses to try and get my confidence back up. Im not sure the speedjumping will be easy but its suppose to be based on novice courses. So we'll see.
I helped teach the beginning agility class again. We now meet on Mondays instead of Thursdays. We had everyone demonstrate there dog getting on the plank. I think only one dog out of 12 could just jump on the plank without body motion cues. Most people were heeling their dog onto the plank. So we talked about not moving at all and letting thier dog figure it out and reward by putting the treat on the plank. We worked on start line stays and "walk, trot, run" stuff. Then came targets. I know a lot of people hate targets but its the only way I know how to train beginning agility stuff. I used targets to train my dog to go over the jump in beginning. It gave her drive and focus. So anyway, "T" and I have a different way of training targets. He feels the targets should be clear in the beginning. But I disagree. My dog has never been able to see a clear target in the grass and was pretty much useless for me. Im not sure what to do about this.
So I talked to the class about how I used targets and then tried a demonstration with a target. Now I haven't used a target with Miley in a very long time. Leave it to kids and dogs to make you look bad. LoL So I tried to demonstrate that if I didnt show her a cookie on the target, she shouldn't stop there looking for it. Boy did that back fire. LOl. I took off sorta running and Miley stopped at the target and she wouldn't move. Then went into a down. Lol I think I may have reinforced the down on the mat to much. She thinks everything is a mat target. Before class I was working her around a jump stanchion that was used for obedience jumps. It has a wide white base at the bottom. Miley kept downing on that too. LoL