The Physics of Riding Bulls

1790 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Experience of bull riding

The Physics of Riding Bulls

Rodeo is a sport that came about by everyday work being made into competition.

Every event in rodeo has a practical purpose; all but one that is. There is no practical reason to get on a bull; only the thrills, chills, and rush of excitement. It¡¦s more than a challenge between riders. It¡¦s a challenge between man and beast. Legendary cowboy Larry Mahan had an even different way of looking at it. He said, ¡§It¡¦s not a challenge with the animal but with the weakness in one¡¦s self¡¨. At any rate, it¡¦s all about the challenge.

The challenge is simple; stay on the bull¡¦s back for eight seconds while keeping one hand fee from contact with the bull or your own body. Well it sounds simple anyways. Bull riding is a difficult challenge that involves overcoming many forces.

Bulls will try just about anything to get a rider off their back. This includes raring, kicking, spinning, jumping, belly rolls, and some unintended moves such as stumbling and falling down. All the moves produce some sort of force the rider has to overcome.

Fortunately the rider can produce a few forces of their own. Mainly, the rider only has a combination or leg strength and arm strength to counter with. But, there is a lot that a rider can do to overcome these forces through body positioning.

There are really two different types of bulls; fast bulls, and strong bulls. Fast bulls are the hardest to ride. Typically, a bull can move much faster that a human making it difficult for the rider to keep up.

There are basically three types of motions that a bull can make: linear, circular, and rotational. Linear motions include the rare, kick, jump, and just plain running. Circular motions include spinning. Rotational m...

... middle of paper ...

...ay at the center point of the circle. Some bulls can do so many random and different moves so fast that the rider may black out or loose focus. The only way to really get good is through experience. Experience trains the subconscious so that as the rider feels what the bull is doing he can react faster. A bull rider must also be in great shape. Much energy is spent in the course of a bull ride. The energy is equal to the force applied times the distance traveled. The forces are great and as fast as a bull can move they can cover a lot of ground in eight seconds. This adds up to a lot of energy being expended. Bull riding can be loads of fun. But it is definitely no picnic.

WORKS CITED

Kirkpatrick, Larry D., and Gerald F. Wheeler. Physics A World View, Fourth Edition.

1992. Orlando: Harcourt, 2001. p. 275.

http://plabpc.csustan.edu/astro/newton/cpetal.htm

Show More
Related

  • Pit Bulls Should NOT Be Banned

    1871 Words  | 4 Pages

    Pit bulls are believed to have originated in the late 1700’s, when the terriers, typically small dogs bred to catch vermin, were crossbred with bulldogs, a stockier dog whose duty was to catch stray cattle. This produced a dog with a high prey drive with a medium-sized, stocky build and powerful jaws. Contrary to popular belief, the dogs were originally used in the sport of bull-baiting, where dogs would attack the cattle - not other dogs. Since the sport was executed in a pit, the dogs were dubbed ‘pit bulls’ and that name has stuck since. When the sport was banned in 1835, the people who relied on these dogs for an income turned the dogs against each other.

    Read More

  • Rodeo Remedies in the Poem Slam, Dunk, and Hook

    545 Words  | 2 Pages

    The first virtue that can be obtained through the world wide sport of rodeo is patience. Because of the fact that rodeo is such a big sport, there are many competitors. With this in mind and the fact that events take more than a few mere seconds, rodeos can be an all day event. In a high school rodeo in Laramie this spring, there were nearly 200 runs or rides being made throughout the course of just one day. So you can imagine the...

    Read More

  • Sitting Bull Thesis

    513 Words  | 2 Pages

    Sitting Bull was a war chief in the Lakota tribe during the 1800s. He was born in 1831 at the Grand River in South Dakota. When he was a child, he was not called Sitting Bull. His name was Jumping Badger but everybody had called him ‘Slow’ at first because they believed that he lacked many skills. It wasn't until he was 14 when he fought in his first battle that they renamed him and started calling him Sitting Bull, like his father.

    Read More

  • Sports: Barrel Racing

    815 Words  | 2 Pages

    Barrel racing is categorized under the sport of rodeo and is most likely associated with the Women’s Professional Rodeo Association and the National Barrel Horse Association. The sport of rodeo also includes bull riding, team roping, and tie down roping and can be mostly associated with the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association. Even though the sport of rodeo is mainly dominated by men, barrel racing is the biggest outlet for women to show their skills in such a male dominated sport. Even though any breed is allowed to participate in barrel racing, the American Quarter horse is the most predominant breed in the sport mainly because it is the most versatile of all breeds and has the speed and agility to bend around the barrels. When it comes to the types or bloodlines of the horse, it is more of a personal opinion.

    Read More

  • How to Become a World Champion Bull Rider

    804 Words  | 2 Pages

    Have you ever thought or dreamt about making a living eight seconds at a time? Have you ever thought of crawling on a one ton bad bovine with horns the size of baseball bats? Have you ever thought about working all year at a sport you love so much and come away at the end with a million dollar check? If so, you are dreaming of being a world champion bull rider. World champion bull riders have to work out, eat right, drill, meditate, and love the sport.

    Read More

  • Bullfighting Research Paper

    1215 Words  | 3 Pages

    A matador is a bullfighter whose task is to kill the bull. Although most may think Matadors are men, there are also many women who have become matadors and are killing bulls for a living as well. The matador wears a ceremonial outfit called traje de luces, or suit of lights and a montera, which is a traditional folk hat. The red cape that the bullfighters wave is a muleta and the sword used to kill the bull is called the estoque. Six bulls are to be killed by three matadors during the bullfight. Each encounter lasts about 15 minutes. The three matadors, each followed by their assistants, the banderilleros and the picadors march into the ring to the accompaniment of traditional march rhythm music. When a bull first comes into the arena out of the bullpen gate, the matador greets it with a series of manoeuvres or passes, with a large cape. Fighting bulls charge instantly at anything that moves because of their natural instinct. Unlike domestic bulls they do not have to be trained to charge nor are they starved or tortured to make them savage. Ticket prices for bullfights can range from just a few euros to over 100 euros, depending on the seating area. Shaded areas (Sombra) happen to be more expensive than sunny ones (Sol). However, the better or more popular fights, and especially those during the San Isidro festival, are often sold-out almost

    Read More

  • The Art of Calf Roping

    665 Words  | 2 Pages

    It’s 2:00 a.m. Sunday morning. Jake and I are headed down the longest stretch of road in Texas. We have just pulled out of El Paso and are on the way to Fredericksburg to participate in the Frontier Days Rodeo. We were fortunate to have put together a decent run on our last draw and win enough day-money to keep us going for a while. Jake and I are rodeo-bums, to be specific, calf ropers. I am the one who tries to throw the loop of a rope around a calf’s neck and Jake is my partner, the best roping horse a cowboy ever mounted. By the way, how many understand the art of calf roping? I thought so. Let me walk through the steps of what it takes to put together that perfect run, not that I can do it that often.

    Read More

  • The legend of Lane Frost

    1138 Words  | 3 Pages

    Lane Frost was born in La Junta, Colorado on October 12, 1963, while his dad was still competing in the rodeo circuit. Lane grew up with a desire to ride bulls. He was showing an interest in the sport as young as 5 months. His mom, Elsie Frost, said that whenever they went to rodeos Lane would always fight to stay awake to watch the bull riding. If they tried to leave before it was over, he would scream and cry and throw a huge fit (Frost 1). At the age of five Lane started riding dairy calves on the family dairy farm in Vernal, Utah. He rode calves and steers when he was younger, entering and competing in any rodeo he could. In 1978, when Lane was 15 years old, his family moved to Lane, Oklahoma. There he began to compete regularly in bull riding, and in 1981 he won the National High School Rodeo bull riding championship. Lane graduated from Atoka High school in 1982. He was offered rodeo scholarships from many different colleges, but he turned them down and decided to pursue a professional bull riding career instead...

    Read More

  • Rodeo Cruelty: What Do You Think?

    1295 Words  | 3 Pages

    One sport of rodeo that raises the eyebrows of many anti-rodeo activists is Team Roping. Team roping was used for the purpose of catching live cattle on the range to perform vaccinations and to treat injuries. Team Roping is defined as on cowboy ropes the steer around the horns and turn left, so that the next cowboy can come behi...

    Read More

  • Sitting Bull

    1674 Words  | 4 Pages

    His father gave him a pony for his 10th birthday and he named it Flying Hawk. (Garst, 14) Once, he went to a battle on his pony, and he hit the opposing Indian tribe leader with his coup stick (a coup stick is a stick that Native Americans use in battles). He knocked the gun out of his hands and the Hunkapapas won the battle and he was the hero. That’s when he was given the name Sitting Bull. (Black, 14) Other say he got his name by jumping on the back of a buffalo and getting it to sit down. (Garst, 14)

    Read More

  • Rodeo Animal Safety

    1244 Words  | 3 Pages

    Rodeo is a sport with long American traditions and loved by many spectators and participants. Past history has shown that rodeo needed to make way for a new era of riders and trainers with a larger emphasis on the welfare of the animals and not be discontinued or banned entirely. Today’s rodeos do not present a danger to the animals because the animals are well-cared for and protected, rodeos have strict rules and the stock are treated as prized animals.

    Read More

  • Amazon Case Study

    1751 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although Amazon has been active trying to find the perfect strategy to make profits, the numbers in its financial statements had not shown the most optimal results. We have discuss that even though its strategies have been right according to supply chain and logistics methodologies and theory, something had been missing to represent this successful strategies into financial results. It is seen that Amazon had spent too long time finding the right strategy which the last might be the one because in the financial statements profits started to come up. Amazon still have a long way to go to mature its strategy and represents it into profits for its shareholders.

    Read More

  • How to Train a Horse

    1527 Words  | 4 Pages

    Training a horse to ride is hard work, it involves ground work, riding, and in both patience is very important. In the next few paragraphs I will be explaining the steps needed to train a horse.

    Read More

  • Theories Of Ethics Of Amazon

    1351 Words  | 3 Pages

    For many years, Amazon has been held as a gold standard of product distribution. They are highly efficient at providing quality products to their customers. According to Amazon, they are able to do so ethically. However, their history has not been without controversy. Most recently, the New York Times released a report that called treatment of their employees unethical (Kantor and Streitfeld). The purpose of this paper is to determine which of the four ethical theories Amazon would claim to be using as a guide to their social responsibility practices. I will begin with a brief description of Amazon and its company values, and an explanation of each ethical theory. Then, I will use Amazon as a case study for these theories. The last question I will address is whether Amazon’s practices are sustainable over time.

    Read More

  • Relationship Between Color and Sight

    1410 Words  | 3 Pages

    Color is perceived by the human eye and brain together by translating light into color. Light receptors within the eye transmit messages to the brain, which produces the familiar sensations of color. The retinas in the eyes have receptors for color called cones, iris color is actually the result of the amount or density of pigment cells in the iris. Pigment cells, called melanocytes, produce the pigment known as melanin. The amount and density of the melanin determines what colors of light are absorbed and what is reflected. In retrospect, the higher the concentration of melanin in the iris, the darker the iris color.

    Read More

More about The Physics of Riding Bulls

Open Document