Trick roper presents physics lesson

Rodeo performer presents physics lesson

Rider Kiesner, a trick roper from Ridley, Okla., jumps through a lasso during Wednesday’s performance at the Rodeo of the Ozarks at Parsons Stadium in Springdale. He explained he relies on centrifugal force for his roping tricks.
Rider Kiesner, a trick roper from Ridley, Okla., jumps through a lasso during Wednesday’s performance at the Rodeo of the Ozarks at Parsons Stadium in Springdale. He explained he relies on centrifugal force for his roping tricks.

SPRINGDALE -- Rider Kiesner is a four-time world champion trick roper and a two-time world champion gun spinner. He's also a master at cracking the bull whip.

photo

NWA Democrat-Gazette

Rider Kiesner took his act to fans sitting in the Buckle Club at Parsons Stadium during Wednesday night’s peformance of the Rodeo of the Ozarks. He is a two-time world champion gun spinner, recreating the kitsch of old-time cowboy movies.

photo

NWA Democrat-Gazette

Saul Hurtado, 8, of Rogers gets a roping lesson Thursday from 2015 Miss Rodeo of the Ozarks Kaci Starkey, 17, of Gentry during the Super Cowboy and Super Cowgirl Rodeo at Parsons Stadium in Springdale. The annual event is a Family Support Program of the Arkansas Support Network and Rodeo of the Ozarks.

Kiesner, of Ridley, Okla., appears nightly at the Rodeo of the Ozarks, which continues through Saturday at Parsons Stadium.

72nd Rodeo of the Ozarks

• Rodeo: 7:30 p.m. tonight and Saturday, Parsons Stadium, 1423 E. Emma Ave. in Springdale.

• Parade: 10 a.m. Saturday, downtown Emma Avenue in Springdale.

• Fireworks: After the rodeo performance Saturday.

• Information: rodeooftheozarks.org, 877-927-6336

Kiesner used his bull whip Wednesday night to rip the petals off a rose clenched in the teeth of Tori Miller, Miss Rodeo Arkansas.

Then he whipped a bottle cap off his head and set the whips on fire.

Above it all -- the bawling of the rodeo animals held in pens just outside the arena, the Charlie Daniels Band's Devil Went Down to Georgia blaring from the sound system and the cheers of the crowd -- the sharp crack of Kiesner's bull whips could be heard.

That crack is the result of the movement of the whip breaking the speed barrier, traveling faster than the speed of sound, a mini sonic boom, Kiesner said.

Kiesner throws the whip out in one direction and then pulls it back very, very quickly -- 761 mph or 1,100 feet per second, according to a NASA website.

Claire Small of Fayetteville, a physics teacher at Springdale High School, explained the movement creates sound waves that pile up and compress in front of the whip's tip. When the whip's speed is faster than sound, it passes through the compressed air (sound waves), which push back on the whip with high pressure.

"Cracking a whip is very cool -- to nerds anyway," Small wrote in an email.

The physics lesson doesn't end there.

"Roping is all about centrifugal force," Kiesner said of his main act. "The movement forces the loop outward. The faster you spin it, the bigger it gets."

He showed that Wednesday night when he spun a 50-foot rope into a loop big enough to encircle himself and the horse on which he was standing during his rodeo performance.

Kiesner later took his ropes, whips and pistols into the stands after his act in the arena.

"It was really better up close," said Patricia Sparks, who attended the rodeo. "You could really see what he was doing at that point."

Kiesner uses his fingers rather than his arm to rotate the rope, he showed fans.

"Just a slight manipulation of the hand and wrist can lead you to different strokes," he said.

"And you can manipulate it wherever you want it to go," he added, before throwing the loop over a bystander. "You concentrate on the rope all the time."

Kiesner swung his rope horizontally, vertically, and above his head in a demonstration Wednesday morning. He begins each swing by simply "throwing it out there."

A bigger loop is easier to swing because the finger movement is slower, he said. But a smaller loop requires more finesse.

Kiesner wants his fans to know "there's no trick in my rope. There's no trick wire in it. There's no on and off switch. It's just a piece of fabric you're moving around."

He swings a polyester rope -- the same thing the cowboys use, he said.

Kiesner started trick roping when he was 9. He received a Will Rogers trick roping kit for Christmas.

"I moved back furniture and watched the instructional video that came with it over and over again," he said.

Kiesner's other showcase recalls the spinning of guns in old-time cowboy movies. He spins polished Ruger Vaquero .45-caliber pistols, weighing 2.5 pounds each. He places his index fingers inside the trigger guards, holding his others out of the way.

"You just spin them the way it looks in the show," he said, explaining it's similar to bartenders juggling glasses and bottles when they put on their own shows.

"It's not hard when you understand the basics," Kiesner said of all his tricks. "But if you believe a fairy godmother sprinkling you with magic dust is helping you, well, that just makes it harder."

NW News on 06/24/2016

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