Why chasing a “Win” isn’t going to help you Win anything
There are so many sayings with the word “Win” in relation to sports, but none of them really get down to the nitty gritty of why chasing that word in itself can’t make you successful.
The word WIN is either a Verb or a Noun.
noun
noun: verb; plural noun: verbs
1.
a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence, such as hear, become, happen.
verb
verb: verb; 3rd person present: verbs; past tense: verbed; past participle: verbed; gerund or present participle: verbing
1.use (a word that is not conventionally used as a verb, typically a noun) as a verb.
Insert eye roll. I can here you all now – you hated grammar in school so you sure don’t want a mini lesson in it now.
Insert that cute emoji lady with her hand up in the air right here. I hated that part of English class too, I groaned internally as I wrote it BUT the fact remains that the word “WIN” isn’t tangible.
The word Win is NOT something you can touch with your hand, it is not tangible.
A Win looks different with different ground, different set ups, different riders and different horses.
You cannot smell it, hear it or taste it. The feeling of winning might have some associations with these descriptive words I’ve used, but the word itself does not. The bottom line is, the word win, is just a descriptive word. There is nothing within it, it is hollow and empty.
To get the WIN at a barrel racing is to be the fastest person on that given day, in that given arena, who navigates the pre determined pattern we have without any penalties or going off course.
“How to Win a Barrel Race: Direct your horses feet, which carries their bodies, which carries your body, around the barrel racing pattern in a time faster than anyone else who is competing in that specific event.” Sam Winslow
That is HOW you WIN.
To get to that WIN, you must focus on what you are going to do, as in actual tangible actions, versus going after a word in itself.
Your horse cannot take direction to WIN, but he or she can take direction to move their feet and bodies around a barrel pattern.
I watch people try and WIN a lot and choke.
We talk about choking in sports and how to put all the pieces of a run together for a WIN in our course Putting the Pieces Together in a Run.
The lesson touches on a lot of different components in a run that can prevent you from winning, like choking, pressure and how many things you can actually concentrate on, before your brain will start dropping things off the list.
We also go in depth on Cause & Effect and learning to recognize WHERE your problems are happening.
The truth of the matter is, at least 90% of problems (tipped barrels, bad lines and time stealers) start WAY before riders think they do.
A bad line to the 1st barrel or an incomplete 1st barrel turn is the most common cause of a knocked second barrel. I can show you hundreds of videos and intervals that correlate with this, yet I watch people school their horses on second barrel after it is knocked.
Schooling your horse the effect you as the rider caused seems backwards to me, but I watch people do it all the time. They cannot recognize where problems start, because they don’t even know how to start looking.
Join our program to find out the steps to take to get you the Win you want, whatever that may be.
Originally published on the Take Time off the Clock site March 20, 2019
