How do you practice? What’s been most valuable to me is taking a lot of shots in a short amount of time, kind of like shooting free throws where you grab a ball, shoot; get another and just keep shooting. I don’t mean brainlessly practice, but once you isolate a certain “shot” – or problem in your roping – then just work on that one thing.
At my schools I generally have two or three four-wheelers going at a time pulling Smarty sleds so you can work on one drill over and over. Like if your steer is running to the left fence and you’re a header, you’d practice roping and getting your horse framed up while understanding how much space you need between you and the fence to bring the steer’s head back smooth. Your four-wheeler would head for that left fence over and over.
What about a steer that slows down in front of you? Have the sled driver do that 50 times in a row. Now, the next time a steer checks in front of you, instead of leaning down and leaving your tip in the air, you will automatically get your horse rated and finish the right way.
My challenge to you is to analyze your training program and try to practice with purpose. Make enough runs in a short enough amount of time that your subconscious can pick it up and retain it. To just tell yourself to get your tip down one run and then be thinking of something else on your next run – by the fourth run, you’re back to doing the first thing wrong again. You need to work on something over and over until your subconscious retains it.
Everyone’s a little different – some of you might have to do a drill 30 times in a row. Some of you might need to do it 15 times and then go work on something else and come back and do it another 15 times.
Here’s the key – you can only think of one thing at a time. So practice that one thing with purpose. Aggressively go after the problem areas until they disappear. Then you’re not allowing whatever it is to become that nagging problem. There are certain people that their whole career, the same deal happens to them over and over at every other rodeo. What I tell people is, “That gets old, doesn’t it?”
Think about it. If you picked one thing out and worked on it every evening the entire month of July, by August you wouldn’t have to worry about it. Usually it doesn’t even take a whole month. Everybody needs to be their own coach and realize, “Hey, I’ve got to practice a little on this every day.” Make 10 straight runs thinking about nothing but, say, keeping your spacing.
Most people don’t focus on something repetitiously enough to ever fix it. That’s because it takes 21 days to break a bad habit and form a new one. You can do it. Try shooting around.
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