Break It Down

Time and time again, I have left the herd feeling all the way from terrific, to close to suicide watch.

We’ve all felt the pain after a poor run.

One time during a clinic, a woman said to me, “I bet you’ve never cried like this.” I said, “Are you kidding? I have the corner on that market. You are an amateur crier.”

It’s easy to lump the whole run together as really good, or really awful, and not think another thing about it. (Well, maybe you ponder it a bit longer if you experience the low end of the totem pole.)

I once had a friend suggest that I should make a decision about how long I was going to feel badly about something based on how truly wretched or slightly off my error really was. She was not speaking about cutting. Her advice applied to any poor performance or social faux pas. Hiccupping in church might be a one minute embarrassment, while crunching your car in a parking lot might be three or four hours. Set a timer. When the time you set is over, let it go. It’s great advice.

I have always known that I am not particularly talented on a horse. Now my sister Nicki, who never really pursued riding, is a natural beauty on a horse …. seat, hands, the whole thing. However, I have used my apparent weaknesses to my advantage. I have worked to figure out (and still do) all the bits and pieces every step of the way. I know that way of thinking helps me continue to learn. It can benefit you enormously, too.

What really matters over the long haul, to take your cutting to a world-class level, is your ability to see your experience in very distinct segments. This includes everything from how mentally focused you were, to how well prepared your horse was, to your ritual before you went in, to watching (or not) cattle, etc., etc. You get the idea. I have only just started my list. Any ONE of those I have already listed could be out-of-whack and you would be riding below your potential. Ignore this fact and your progress will crawl at a snail’s pace.

And just as importantly, if you don’t acknowledge what you did well, you will take the looooooong road to getting confident. So few people say to me first thing after their run, “Boy, my herd-work was so good! Did you see that second cut? And also, I FINALLY sat still through the turn.” Most people shake their head and lament everything that went wrong. It’s easy to wallow around in beating yourself up. Some are so stuck on their mistakes they refuse to even see one good aspect of their run.

You might say, “Well, Barb, if I don’t mention those negative things, my trainer sure will.” Here’s a revelation. Obviously you have no control over your trainer or anyone else. But you can still mentally or verbally acknowledge all your good stuff. You are in charge of your own confidence building.

I see learning to ride and show a cutting horse as consisting of seven large skill sets. Each one of these has many, many sub-skills. I don’t say this for you to feel like, “Geeeez, I’ll never get all that.” Instead I am breaking it down so you can figure out where you are within each one and then take the next step from there.

All of us (I don’t care if you are a multiple world champion) have a spot somewhere along the continuum from 0 (I don’t know anything about this) to 10 (I have nothing more to learn). Every one started at 0 and no one ever gets to 10. Since you are never going to be finished learning, a HUGE secret is to enjoy where you are as you enthusiastically look forward to learning the next step.

So here are my seven categories. It’s not that I feel these have to be everyone’s absolute seven. They have just worked for me in my own learning and in my teaching:

1. Mental and emotional skills to perform at your peak under pressure as well as make the best out of difficult times.

2. Horsemanship knowledge and skills to be able to effectively communicate with your horse in and out of the herd.

3. Herd-work skills to maneuver well in a herd, choose the best cow in a particular situation, and earn credit for your score.

4. Ability to be accurate and in the correct position as you work the cow; anticipate and counter a cow’s moves with grace and speed.

5. Ability to school your horse so you can maintain his correctness and become pro-active instead of a vulnerable passenger.

6. Showmanship skills to escalate your competitive advantage and be consistently successful in competition.

7. Ability to design your own program and your horse’s program according to what you enjoy and stay compatible with your personal standards.

In the future I will often refer to these categories. I will break the skills down within each section.

Sometimes as you master one seemingly small element, many other things will fall into place.

It doesn’t matter so much about your God-given talent. What does matter is your willingness to build your confidence by improving your technical abilities within the skill sets, giving yourself credit for what you have learned (and can do with relative ease), and then taking the next step to improve.