It wouldn’t be that hard with four world championships to decide I rope good enough. But lately I’m actually opening myself up to those little things I could be doing that I just never worked on. We all have those.
To be honest, I’ve always admired guys like Clay Cooper or Jade Corkill who are able to rope with their hips down in the saddle. I was taught to stand up in my stirrups. As a kid, I would stand up, lean way out and rope and then sit back down and get to the horn. I was athletic enough to pull that off. But I want to become more efficient with my posture.
So I literally attached some rubber straps to the D-ring on my saddle and ran them through my belt loops. With that tension pulling on my belt, it keeps my hips way down in the saddle. Even though I’ve roped all my life, the more I do that, the better I’ve been riding and staying down in the saddle.
Young guys might see those straps on my belt loops and snicker about it. I don’t care. I’m trying to rope as good as I possibly can for this next year and a half. Tweaking these little things has been kind of fun because at this stage in my career, I still can’t assume I’m as good as I’m going to get. There are so many little things you can work on to make yourself better.
And always in the past I’ve been so disciplined about riding good position and taking good shots that I’ve become a little conservative. That doesn’t work, because nowadays it’s so tough out here that you basically have to just pull off some shots. I used to be able to do that if I pushed myself to the edge. But it needs to happen more often for me, and it’s been kind of fun to push myself extra hard, to where I’m riding a little higher and even if that steer is only halfway heelable, I can see that shot and feel confident about going after it to finish and come tight fast.
To get better at that, I blended some of my old strategy with the new. When I was roping good at the peak of my career, I could almost see things in slow motion. So if I really work on relaxing and having everything very automatic out of the box, all that’s left is to see is how the steer shapes up in the corner.
That’s why lately I’ve been bringing my Pipes with me on the road, so I can work on getting my swing and delivery as automatic as I can. I want to be able to see in slow motion that steer coming around the corner. And with my mind freed up to focus only on that steer in the corner, I can tell I’m actually getting better and feeling sharper. And that’s smart roping.
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