My Favorite Hobby

Fabio Vinicius Dumaszak March 13, 2014

Prof: Hannah Griggs

Reading and writing

Dillard University

My Favorite Hobby

One of the most interesting and different thing in my life is that I grew up in a farm. I have developed different likes and one of them is my passion for horses and related things. This is one of the reasons I am interested in equestrian sports such as team roping. Team Roping is an equestrian sport involving two riders on their horses and a calf. The first rider is the header, he has to rope the front of the calf by its horns or neck. After that the second rider, called the heeler, ropes the calf by its hind feet. The two riders try to do it as fast as they can. I am really impressed with how  professionals do it in such a short time, it is a matter of 4-6 seconds, It is extremely fast. The pair which has the shorter time is the winner.

My first contact with this practice was when I was younger and I went to a championship for amateur categories. My brother was in it and he won a prize. I always liked it but I have never tried before. My city is quite small, about five thousand inhabitants, and we have a small club of about 10 people who practice this activity. Once we hired a professional to give us a small course in our city. It was when I learned how to rope well and got more fond of this sport. The course extended for a whole weekend, on monday, my shoulder was hurt for do the same movement for a long time spinning a rope. But it was worthy, I got much better and our group became stronger.

My brother and I became so fond of team roping that we decided to build our own arena. We faced some difficulties doing it, the most difficult one was convincing our father to give us a piece of land for it. We would occupy an amount of land used for agriculture, which is our means of livelihood.  However, we needed a small area to build it and it will not make impact in his income. Our second problem was raising money to buy the necessary materials such as wires, wood, and hiring somebody to help us make the boxes and gates. Some people in our city supported our goal and helped by giving us some materials, money or even helping to do the work. My father did not like our idea at the first moment. When he realized how focused we were and how people were interacting with us, he changed his mind and started to help us. One month later, our work was done, the arena was ready.

We finally could debut our own arena and start training at home.Our friends from the roping club came to see and train too. On the first days people from the city came every weekend to watch and drink some beer. However, we were so bad and we had no ability. We just kept trying and missing almost all the ropes we had thrown. The only thing we were doing was raising a huge cloud of dirt running on our horses. Our audience became bored of seeing our bad performance and to smelling lots of dirt; in three weeks, we had no more audience. Making shows was not our objective, we just liked to do it and we were trying to get better. We kept training during the whole winter break, which is one month, and at the end, we realized that we had not gotten any better. We were not disappointed because we do it just for fun and interaction with our friends. The most important was that we had a good time.

I developed this hobby as a good leisure activity, it is a mix of adrenaline, concentration, focus, and much training. On the other hand, it also has bad features. It is an expensive activity. You have to spend money with the arena, horses are quite expensive to buy and sustain. You have to afford equipments such as ropes and horse saddle. Another bad feature is that it is dangerous and you can get seriously hurt. It is difficult to get adrenaline in any sport without danger. I have fallen off my horse sometimes and gotten kicked. Fortunately, I have never suffered great injuries but I know some people who got a broken bone or lost a finger. It happens because the rope can tie your finger and the calf pulls it with great strength which can chop your finger off. You must be careful and attentive to these things. Otherwise, bad experiences can happen.

I am in the United States now, living in a big city. For about six months, I have not had a team roping day or even ridden a horse. My hobbies have changed and I have gotten used to living in big cities. I am still missing some basic things from my home. It looks very simple and maybe pathetic, but I miss the sight of different landscapes, the nature, breathing fresh air, and at night, seeing the starry sky. These things are quite simple but they have great impact on me and make me feel better.