There is a phrase used fairly often, though not as much as it used to be, called Jumping the Shark. It loosely means something that was very popular and trendy that is now losing its popularity and beginning to fade away. TV shows that were ground breaking in some way, sensational due to their unusual and surprisingly defiant approach to current norms, now are becoming stale and outdated. The exact point where the decline started is where they jumped the shark and became irrelevant.

What we have here is a new phrase born out of the rodeo community, Jumping The Bull, which is the exact opposite of Jumping The Shark in every way. When you Jump the Bull you are doing something that is so extraordinary there is no chance that it will become dated or boring. You can watch that over and over and not get tired of it. When a two thousand pound ferocious and dangerous animal runs by you and you decide to jump over it knowing full well what the catastrophic consequences are if you screw it up, that’s Jumping The Bull.

The participants in this event are one of the rodeo clowns and his angry companion, an American fighting bull. Having just ejected his original rider and still filled with the blood lust of the battle, wanting nothing more than to destroy anyone near it, the bull races around the arena looking for anyone to vent its fury on, especially the fallen rider. It’s the rodeo clown’s job to keep it distracted while the original rider gets to safety. In this case the rodeo clown felt there was nothing left to do to get the animals attention but to jump over it. That may sound like the least likely approach to handle the situation but then this is not your normal situation. Anything goes in a deal like this. So the message here can be if you find yourself in a similar situation of being in a hot dusty arena with a maddened two thousand pound fighting bull charging down on you, well, simply jump over it and go get a coffee. It worked for this guy.