Against the Grain

There’s no doubt about it: left-handed heelers don’t exactly have the same resources to improve their craft that right-handed ropers do. The articles that populate this magazine every month are targeted at right-handed heelers, and most professionals and clinicians can only theorize about swinging a rope in their non-dominant hand. The intricacies of heeling left-handed can only be truly mastered by those who do it—something the lefties we surveyed emphasized again and again. Another lesson they repeated, though, is that roping left-handed doesn’t have to be an uphill battle if ropers work on finding the right help, learning to ride the correct position, buying or making the right horses and keeping a positive mentality.

Finding Help

Left-handed heelers might run into trouble when it comes to finding help to improve their roping. They can’t just show up at any school or clinic to get advice, and, often, their best bet is tapping other left-handed ropers—a subset of the population that is rare at best.

“Roping left-handed defies all of the rules and laws of physics,” Kurt Hall, who once carried an 8 heel card roping left-handed, said. “You’re