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| Fun traveling on the road! |
This summer run was a lot of fun.
My family got to come with me a great deal and I got back to just me and my
family and riding bulls. It seems to help me ride better when it’s nothing else
other than just me and the love of bull riding. Then everything else just disappears.
I put on two bull riding schools
this summer one in Lane, OK and one in Mission, SD. The one in Lane OK called
the Lane Frost Memorial Bull Riding School. I have been doing it for several
years now and this year was a good year. Plenty of kids and several that were
really motivated to ride and learn. We all went running up and down the gravel
roads in the Oklahoma hills and a few of the kids even beat me back to the
arena. It was a great few days and I got to see a lot of talent in these
students. I hope the school had an impact on them because I push them hard and
make them think outside of the box and push them out of their comfort zones.
And not just an impact in bull riding but in other parts of their lives too.
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| Putting up tepees with the Lakota Tribe |
The school in Mission South Dakota
was for the Lakota Tribe there. It was a lot of fun getting to learn about
their culture and the family that put on the school. It’s really pretty country
there with great people who took care of me and my family like they were their
own. We got to work a lot on the horses, more than I normally do, because of
their natural ability to ride a horse. And believe it or not if you can ride a
horse trotting around bareback in a round pen with no hands for 8 seconds then
you can probably ride a bull.
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| Lancaster, CA event. Mike won it and got 2nd and 3rd place riding all six of his bulls. |
I got on a lot of bulls this summer.
Decatur was good event and California was really fun. I got to get on Bushwacker
and he felt really good and really fun. In the past he hadn’t felt that good
because I was out of time, but it seems to be easier to believe it’s possible
now. God is helping me believe that things are possible. Not because I deserve
them but because I trust and have faith in his plan for me. It seems to be that
sometimes you quit trying to hold onto everything, you just let it go, and trust
in your instincts and live bull by bull and day by day and there seems to be
more freedom in that and more fun.
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| Mike Lee and Brendan Clark with their sons at the Salinas, CA PBR event. |
This summer I pushed myself to the
limits by entering several times at each event. This might not be for anyone
else but it really helps me. When I get exhausted and I don’t have anything
else left in my tank is when I find out who I really am. Things slow down and I
feel alive.
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| Calgary Stampede Down Time |
I got to spend time with my son Peter
who is 7 months old and just kind of getting to watch and be with a baby again
makes you kind of slow down and think about life. Think about “what am I living
for?” And if everything was taken away from me, if my money, my bull riding, my
family were all taken away then what is it if
you lose everything that you live for?
It comes to mind that we’re all
going to lose everything. We’re all going out the way we came in, naked and
with nothing, just as my son peter did. I’m kind of experiencing the world in
his eyes. It just makes you slow down and think what am I riding for? What am I
living for? And at the end if you have no faith and no hope to meet your maker,
and to meet Jesus, it makes no sense. All this work, all this effort, good,
bad, what is it for? What is it worth? Without God without our maker then it
seems pointless. And when things are pointless I lose hope.
This summer I found my hope again,
and my belief that things are possible. I had told my wife I was feeling
anxious this summer about a particular bull, it was a really good bull and
there was a lot of pressure and I was getting a little bit of anxiety about it
not wanting to mess it up. My wife turned towards me and said “that’s good,
enjoy that feeling, enjoy the pressure, enjoy the moment. Don’t run from it,
don’t try to escape it, take it all in, feel it, let it come over you. Bask in
the greatness of that moment and rejoice in the mere fact that you get to
experience it! Take note of how hard you worked to get there and how blessed
you are to be there. Those are the moments to live for, the moments that you
will remember the most. You tried your hardest and you didn’t let the fear take
away your faith in the gift that God has given you.” When my wife told me that
God whispered in my ear “just let it go and trust your instincts.”
Sometimes I forget I have a Father
in heaven and that he leads my paths. As long as my spirits right I can trust
and have hope and belief in things that seemed impossible. Sometimes I just have
to remember to try to just enjoy the moment.
