Junior Nogueira is one of the most talked-about heelers in the country right now.
I did a couple of schools in Brazil, and he was at both of them. Obviously, as an instructor, you want your students to work on horsemanship and to rope from the same position every time. I used to talk to Junior about Jade [Corkill] and Patrick [Smith] and how their position is exact every time and their shot is easy every time.
But here’s what Junior does so well that contradicts every-thing an instructor wants a student to do – he focuses completely on his delivery. He never lets the other aspects of the run take away from that extreme focus. Headers Jojo Lemond and Kaleb Driggers do the same thing. They can reach such a long ways and they have such an intent focus on their release that they don’t miss very often – even if a steer is way off to the right.
Would their catch percentage go up if they rode their horses into a different position? I don’t know, because their ability to focus at the exact time that they pull the trigger is just so amazing either way. And that’s how Junior is – he doesn’t have to be in exactly the right spot. He can be a little past the corner or have the steer out in front of him quite a ways or even be a little on top of the steer. But he watches the feet so well and concentrates so well as he’s throwing that, in a sense, it takes away a little from him riding his horse.
Most of us tend to have the opposite problem. We’re so busy riding our horse or swinging correctly or we get so caught up in the speed of the run that we don’t really see our delivery happen in clear focus. Honestly, within a 6-second team roping run, your actual delivery of the rope is probably not even a hundredth of a second.
For years, people have asked me what I think is the most important aspect of heeling. They want to know if I’ll say it’s posi-tioning. Or timing. Or swing mechanics. Honestly? It’s the delivery – and how well you focus during it.
Picture yourself about to shoot a free throw. Everyone in the background is waving their arms and screaming and trying to make you miss. You know you need to look at the middle of the rim, feel your knees bending and use your wrist – those are the mechanics of shooting a basketball. But it’s all won or lost that instant the ball leaves your fingertips.
Remember, perfect positioning and mechanics are absolutely necessary for you to catch the highest possible number of steers. Just be careful that you’re not trying so hard to ride your horse that it takes away from that do-or-die moment when you actually pull the trigger – because that’s where it’s all won or lost.
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