Raph – 2×2 – Days 5-19, Sessions 6-21

Jan 132010

This is my big catchup post. I’ve gathered ALL my past sessions with Raph and shoved them all together into one big video (that YouTube then forced me to cut up into 10 min pieces). I don’t expect anyone to watch the entire set of footage, but I wanted to have a record. There may be a few readers out there that are also starting 2×2 that would like to see what it looks like ‘in real life’. I will try to point out some parts that are particularly interesting. At the least – you can watching one of the early sessions and one of the late sessions to see how we progressed. As an added bonus – you get to see me grow in front of your eyes since I’ve been pregnant for this entire process and have made significant ‘progress’ myself! Not as obvious under all the winter clothes though

It’s a little crazy for me to go back and rewatch the last session I posted on the blog. The toy was still on a long line, and I thought I was almost ready for the 2nd set of 2x2s. I ended up staying here for another 16 sessions. The biggest reason for the delay is that I had several long breaks. If I had been able to consistantly work, I think it would have taken about a third of the time/sessions that it did. But the winter was wet and after each long break I spent most of each session catching back up to where I was.

In addition – I was thinking about adding the 2nd set of 2x2s because he was getting entries from the hard part of the ‘pie’. Basically, the ‘easy slice of the pie’ of entries is about 45 degrees out from the center line of the poles on either side. Susan talks alot about the hard slice of the pie – generally about 90 degrees on either side. But as I watched the video and as Raph got better, I realized that I wanted and needed the entries that were beyond that; from ‘behind’ the poles.

So – some stats on these sessions. There are 16 sessions over 15 days spanning three and a half calendar months. The average session was 4 mins long, total training time of 1 hr 4 mins.

I try very hard to let Raph work through mistakes, and he and I do quite well. I tended to help him a little more in earlier sessions than in later ones (as I got more comfortable). I also noticed that I tended to help him only when he got so confused he stopped even attempting to go toward the poles. I would let him attempt 10 times in a row wrong without helping him.

For some examples of Raph struggling and working through – check:
Part 1: 4:00, 9:30 (spills into part 2)
Part 2: 0:50, 8:18
Part 3: 2:35
Part 4: 8:50

For another interesting bit, check out Part 3: 8:40. He goes around the outside twice that I don’t see and end up rewarding. That little fiasco continues into Part 4.

He also definatley took a step or two backwards when we changed locations.

And finally for the session that prompted my previous post about him ‘flipping a coin’ see Part 6: 2:40-6:10.

Part 1