ride a bull

I am a certified adreneline junkie. I’ve tried just about everything short of jumping out of a plane. Ever since I was young, I always wanted to try riding a bull and I finally got my chance when I met a guy a buddy of mine worked with. He had just moved to WV from northern Cali and was a semi-pro bull rider. I talked to him for a long time about bull riding as a sport and what it took to be good at it. I told him that I always wanted to try it and he looked at me and said “ok.” I didn’t think much of it until one day he called me up a few days after we went and saw a local rodeo and said that he found a rodeo he wanted me to ride in. Me, not being one to back down from a challenge decided to step up and take my chances in the buckin’ shoots. He loaned me his gear because he and I are very close to the same size and gave me a “crash course” in shoot procedures (tying/adjusting the knot in your bull rope, wrapping your hand, ect.). When I got behind the buckin’ shoots, to say that I was nervous was an understatement; I felt like I had a brick in my stomach. I drew the bull #55 “Smooth.” When my bull was moved into the buckin’ shoots I felt my heart race, and I knew it was time to put up or shut up. I climbed up into the shoots and screwed down on the back of the bull. At that point I noticed that I wasn’t scared anymore, my instincts had taken over and I knew what I had to do. I adjusted my rope and heated the rosin up on my glove. When I wrapped my hand in the wrope I turned my spurs in and took a deep breath thinking “this is it.” I looked down at the shoulders of the bull (chest out and chin down) and dipped my hat. The shoot slammed open and the bull blew out with a huge kick. It felt like I was tied to a sedan in a crash. I flet my hat fly off on about the 3rd jump and all I could do was bear down, grip with my spurs and pull up on the rope. When the buzzer sounded, i unwrapped my hand and rolled off the bull and ran to the fence like my hair was on fire. When I got back behind the shoots and I knew the ride was over I had a mix of pure euphoria and relief that the ride was over. I’ve never felt anything like that in my life. All I could think about when it was done was “I wanna do that again!” Now I do my best to ride every 2 weeks and I am trying to go pro. I would tell anyone with a thrill seeking personality that bull riding is something to be expierienced. You will never forget your first ride, and even if you never ride again, you will always remember what it was like.