How we compete—including our confidence level, how we view our competition and our strategy—is in the psychological realm of roping. Evaluating where we’re at, and comparing that to where we perceive the competition is plays a part in our game plan and ultimate effectiveness.
When I started heeling as a kid, I perceived that my competition was stronger than me. I viewed myself as not quite as good, which may or may not have been true. Regardless of the accuracy of those feelings, if it’s in our imagination it’s going to have a psychological effect.
What I’m talking about here is why you can’t detour from rising up through the ranks. I’ve had a lot of kids and parents ask me the best way to get out there and start rodeoing. I always tell them the way I did it, which is to start jackpotting in your area and become dominant there. Through high school, college and amateur rodeoing, you’re honing your skills, and part of that is the mental aspect of the game—sizing up the competition and evaluating yourself.
The first mistake we make when we feel like we’re a little outclassed is we try to overdo it. We think we need to rise to the level of others, and a lot of times that’s our undoing. When I practice every day, I can rope two feet about every time. So if I just go do my job, I have the best chance of competing and winning against anyone.
That had to be learned over time, through trial and tribulation, and every tier I progressed through I had to navigate that psychological anxiety that’s part of the equation. The job is to ride good position and take the first good shot you see. If you bite on trying to do more than that, you’re going to ride in there trying to first-hop every steer. When I tried that, I’d make a few good runs, but made too many mistakes.
When I flipped my thought process, and made the goal riding position to where I could make my shot on the second hop, it sometimes actually opened up the first hop. That second hop is the money shot, but if the steer presented himself ropeable on the first hop, I pulled the trigger.
I wasn’t passing up the first hop if the shot was there, but riding position to take the shot on the second hop presented a makeable, consistent shot. If you watch the best ropers—like Jade (Corkill), Junior (Nogueira) and Wesley (Thorp)—they make 80-90% of their shots on the second hop, from Reno to Salinas to the NFR. But 10-20% of the time they rope on the first hop, because that shot presents itself. They know how to ride that fine line where they don’t force themselves into making dumb shots by only looking to throw on the first hop.
A lot of young guys competing against the best guys in the world for the first time try to outdo the best guys instead of just doing what they can do—which gives them a way better chance of winning consistently.
Everybody messes up, even the best guys. Learn from it, and put it behind you. Back in there, and execute the game plan. That’s the way the game is played and won.
Getting down on yourself when things don’t go according to plan is also part of the psychological equation. When we mess up, we tend to view it as failure. That’s kind of where the rubber meets the road. Only the strong survive, so being able to pick yourself up off the mat and getting back out there to butt heads again to give yourself a chance to overcome failure is crucial.
You have to ride in the next time expecting to succeed. How you view the competition and evaluate yourself is a psychological game that can be positive or negative. It’s all how you look at it, and the guys who rise to the top figure out how to manage the mind games. Because when it comes right down to it, roping is more of a psychological game than a physical game.
—TRJ—
