How Strong Can You Be?
Battling the Butterflies
Perspective on Winning
How Strong Can You Be?
Getting fit, mentally, takes training and is something we can work towards. But this type of strength is not something that you get from a one-time effort, any more than you get in shape with one lap around the track.
Mental strength is having the natural or developed psychological edge that enables you to:
1. Generally cope better than your opponents with the many demands( e. g., competition, training, lifestyle) that are placed on you.
2. To do a better job than your opponents in remaining determined, focused, confident, resilient, and in control under pressure.
Mental fitness training doesn’ t just help athletes to improve performance. It also helps people cope with everyday problems and prevents these problems from being overwhelming. The resiliency that comes with mental strength is a way of thinking that allows us not to fall into self-defeating traps.
Sometimes we put too much pressure on ourselves because we forget why we are out there.
Maybe you’ re a novice and unsure. Others show professionally and feel pressure to deliver wins for an owner. Others feel financial pressure to win.
Sometimes we let our urgency get us off kilter. We’ re ready- right now- to see results!
So, let’ s get this into perspective. Our job is to do the best we can. We will either win or we won’ t.
A great friend, Dr. Bud Siebenlist of Marshall, Texas, told us once.“ This is a really good horse. Be good to him and to yourself. You’ re going to win. It’ s going to happen. It may not be this run... or the next one, but it will happen. Just go do your best.”
Think of that before you compete. Tell yourself,“ I want to do my best with this horse, this run, and I know if I have prepared and my horse is capable, then I can win. Maybe it won’ t be this run or the next one, but it will happen!”
Battling the Butterflies
What works for you? As you battle your pre-competition butterflies, try to find what works for you, as different methods work for different people. Try different things and make a record of how you feel right before you compete along with your subsequent performance.
Once you’ ve isolated the time and situations that make you nervous, you’ ve taken a big step toward overcoming the problem.
The good news is, like any other competition problem, nervousness can be fixed. The not-so-good news is that the same cure doesn’ t work for everyone.
We are not cookie-cutter barrel racers stamped out from the same mode so it will take some work to find your best tactics.
For some, admitting to nervousness is a help. Telling your travelling partner that your nerves are bothering you and getting it out into the open might be helpful. Talking about it sometimes makes it seem less scary..
Others report that exercise, a few jumping jacks or running around the trailer a couple of times, seems to help them loosen up when they feel nervous or anxious.
Still others say that they like to have a whole agenda of things to do before the
Perspective on Winning
barrel race and they make a list of everything from cleaning out their horse trailer to actually warming their horse up.
Some people say they get nervous if they eat; some say they get nervous if they don’ t eat.
If you do feel you need to eat, don’ t eat something so heavy it makes riding uncomfortable. Also don’ t go without food for so long that it makes you weak and shaky. Avoid snacks that might give you a sugar high then let you drop about the time adrenaline hits you. For some people, caffeine is a“ no-no.”
One barrel racer says that chewing gum seems to help her for some reason. Another says singing softly to her horse relaxes her.
Try everything. Try anything. It may or may not work. Either way, you are closer to curing your problem, because you either eliminated something that didn’ t work or found something that had a positive effect. Something.
Martha’ s Comeback- Cont. From P. 1
my great horse Cebe Reed. But it actually took quite a while to get over the head injury. I had the drive and determination and want to because I wanted to win. I knew I had the great horse in Cebe Reed. I worked diligently getting my balance back – I would do everything from swimming to running to even thinking about doing walking on a tightrope- anything to get my balance back.
It was probably six months before I felt right again. I rode before then and actually made NFR that first year but I was not 100 percent for a while.
My second bad accident was in 1981 right after I had won the world and was doing a training video tape and I was using a young 3-year-old to show how to train a young horse. He had been very gentle but we had changed his headgear and he just dropped his head and started bucking like a bronc. He bucked me off so hard that it broke my right arm and my pelvis in so many ways that the doctors said I would never ride again and probably never walk again.
I was in a wheelchair for three months and at first I was partially paralyzed. We had a swimming pool we had built for the school so when R. E. would go to town, I would have our barn keeper, Andy, take me to the swimming pool and put me in because I knew I had to be able to move my arms and legs.
So I swam. I had Sonny Bit O Both at that time and at the same time I was swimming myself, we were also swimming Sonny.
I knew I had to keep him in shape as well as getting me back on track.
The last accident was in 2004. I had decided to make the NFR for the fifth decade and I was going to several rodeos and I had found the horse Red Man Bay that was certainly capable of making the finals.
We had not been to NFR since 1998 when I was on Orange Smash. But I felt we could make it that year so we started out with that in mind.
I entered Austin, Texas. For me, it was just the right kind of arena where you run in the alleyway. I had made a really good run and as we came out of alley the gateman had left the gate open by mistake. They saw it and tried to shut right in front of me.
Red Man Bay and I both went over the gate and we both ended up on the ce-