Team Roping Heading Drills To Build Muscle Memory
Krece Harris has always believed Fundamentals are the foundation in which you build off of to win. Team Roping is no different than any other professional sport such as football, basketball or baseball. In all of these sports, you go through drills everyday to create muscle memory. These are all fundamental drills that make you better every time you do it, if taught the correct way. Kids start playing baseball at a young age and learn to hit off of a tee and professional players still practice and warm up hitting off of a tee.
Why would we treat our sport of Team Roping any different than learning the fundamentals before creating bad habits?
Krece Harris breaks it down for us
On your warmup when you’re open the head of the dummy, make sure that you’re out, you’re a little bit wider, you’re in your lane. Take a step back and work on being balanced with your feet. I don’t care if you’re right foot forward. Again, right here, right foot forward, I still have to rotate my hips and my shoulders to my target. Not always going to run the perfect steer, be in the perfect position to rope, but I still need to be able to rope. So, I don’t like to get set to where I’m always the same foot forward when I’m doing my groundwork.
If I’m left foot forward, it makes it a lot easier… It makes it so much easier for me to get my shoulders to my target, so all of the beginner clinics that I do, we have those headers left foot forward just so it makes it easier for them to get their shoulders square to their target. A great drill is just practicing swinging, swinging out and matching that tip all the way across. If I get up close enough, that tip should be hitting that dummy in the back of the head. That means, again, I’m pushing my tip out to 3:00, reaching back out. It’s already loaded at my target. I don’t have to work the catch. All I have to do is slow down and let my loop open. The horns just get in the way of a swing.
Another drill
Whenever you’re roping, again, stop yourself. You’ve got it all set up to catch. Whenever you got it on, stop. Make sure your left hand is forward right here. Your slack is at the end of your thumb, so your delivery is right horn through the left horn. Everybody wants to talk about whether or not your loop goes on the horns at the same time or if it is a right to left delivery. Your swing is always right to left. So, what we have to do is allow that tip to come back around, but your left hand needs to be in place. And from right here, you can pull your slack two or three times. What you’re doing is you’re training your left hand to be in position for your slack to ride your horse.
Walking to the dummy
I think everybody needs to practice walking to the dummy and roping. Again, you’re going to match your swing to your horse’s stride. Once you get to position, your left hand’s going to match the speed of your horse to the speed of the steer. You need to be ready to rope. Your horse’s momentum will help you deliver your rope and open your delivery up. So, if I’m not ready and I get there and my tip is up, the first thing that’s going to happen when I get to position on live cattle is I’m going to pull on my horse. And when I lift on my horse, my tip goes up as well. That’s the key factor of being ready to rope when you get there. Again, I’m not trying to go faster, I’m just trying to be more efficient. So, as I walk to this dummy, I need to be ready. So, as soon as I get to position, my horse is helping me guide my rope to the horns.
