Team USPA sends 3 young players to Argentina for a season of training, check back for exclusive updates from Zach Grob, Will Tankard and Jorge Estrada!
| Having been very well received by everyone at the club here in Argentina, we still did not know what to expect going into our first practice. We did not know how intense and competitive the players would be, how good natured they will be regarding fouls, and how forgiving they will be when one makes a bad play. The level of scrutiny regarding timeliness was something else that we had no idea how the other club members felt about.
The players that participate in the practices are everywhere from players that have won the Argentine Open to local farmers who play on weekends as a hobby. On a typical weekend practice there can be up to three practices happening simultaneously, with each being six or eight chukkers long. The members pick which one they want to play in. Thus there ends up being a practice oriented more towards kids, one with players that may be on green horses and one where everyone wants to and can play at speed. The practice that we have been playing in is the one more oriented towards playing an open game and at speed. This of course varies if we are playing greener horses. The atmosphere during there’s practices is very relaxed. The players are generally very good natured regarding fouls and all but the worst kind are ignored. People do get competitive and if the field conditions and horses permit, the speed of the plays increases as the chukkers go on. When someone makes a bad play there is usually not much of a response from teammates other than positive words of encouragement and advice on how to do better next time. Most people would be surprised in how relaxed the exact start times of both the practices and games are. The practices during the week which are scheduled to start at 4:30 can be expected to start closer to 5, especially on a hot day. The same goes for weekends. The tournament games did start a bit closer to their posted time, but all the players prove very willing to wait on someone and there is no big deal made about only getting to the field 15 minutes before the supposed start time. Check back for more updates soon! – Zach, Jorge and Will |