In Episode 7, Justin Maass takes Jimmie Smith and Kayla Graham off their horses and to the hay bale for some ground work, and it exposes one of the most common mistakes he sees from ropers at every level. Most people rope the dummy without ever releasing the first strand of their coil into their loop, and Maass breaks down exactly why that is costing them on horseback. He also gets into something almost nobody talks about: where the eye of your rope is making contact on the calf. Forget the ears, forget the tip. The target is the spot where the shoulder and neck tie in, and if the eye of your rope is hitting that spot, the loop has no choice but to go on. The banter between Maass, Smith, and Graham is some of the best of the series, and by the end of the session both ropers are starting to understand what focus on the right target actually feels like.