Beach Roping and Blisters for Beginners – Yikes!
I’m in Cancun, Mexico right now, practicing my rope techniques on my new lariat. Watch out for the beach chairs! Yes, that’s right, I’ve been tying up every inanimate object in sight, from beach chairs to banana peels (I kid you not). And I have the blisters to prove it. Oh!
But hey, I’ll be in Cancun for five weeks and the series of rope clinics I’ve been planning with my pro-roper friends Dusty Healey and Mary Duke (from Stirrup Cup Farm) will start right when I get back to Colorado, so I want to be prepared. .
I brought my lariat with me and have been practicing for about 20 minutes a day. It’s definitely funny, and I get more than my fair share of comments, laughs, and outright stars! Oh well, being a zen cowgirl isn’t about being “normal” in any sense of the word!
lasso lessons
I really like learning (my husband calls it staying out of trouble). Learning keeps my mind and body sharp, which is important with horses. And if it’s cheap learning, all the better. So, what are the “lessons of lasso” that I have learned here in Cancun so far? Good…
* A lariat is a cheap horse activity (if you take the horse out of the equation of course)
* You can get rope burns in all sorts of places when you start out, especially if you’re wearing a bathing suit!
* Your hand-eye coordination improves at a rate directly proportional to the number and pain of your rope burns
* The arm can only handle this kind of work for about 20 minutes (so far, anyway)
* Blisters are a fact of life, so get used to them
* There is immediate gratification in tying something (can you say instant gratification?)
* I am finding a “sweet spot” in my rope, a defined place where the loop is the correct size, the rope is balanced, and I don’t hit myself or others on the head.
All of this, of course, can translate into some invaluable life learning opportunities. Roughly translated, the lariat lessons above equality:
* Save money where you can
* Learning can be painful
* Painful learning can speed up the process
* The turtle approach is often necessary for success
* Life sucks sometimes, be prepared for that fact
* Immediate gratification is a necessary counterpoint to turtle patience
* There’s a sweet spot in every part of life… you just have to look for it!
So who knows how these lariat life lessons will evolve as time goes on, but I have at least four and a half more weeks here on the beach in Cancun so I’ll be sure to report back on my progress. if for nothing more than entertainment value.