How to hold the leadrope.... danger free !

I hold my slack in a figure 8. Always have, even for showmanship. I understand that the large loop might by more in style these days and look better to some though. I saw a woman break all 4 fingers in her hand that way though. She was fixing the slack in her lunge line (horse was standing, she hadn't started lunging yet) and he spooked and took off. Now, with as much rope as she had, she SHOULD'VE been able to drop her loop (or loops I should say,) but she didn't and ended up hauling her horse with her to the ER that day. Off topic, but I also know a girl who left her lunge line slack on the ground while lunging. The slack got wrapped around her leg a few times, horse took off and drug her through the pasture and through a barbed wire fence. That was ugly!

Ouch! Ya, even if my life depended on it - I would never hold it in a loop. Unless there is so much of it it's impossible - but even then I would stop to think.

Zip interest in showing but after walking 5000 km on all sort of roads with my mare on a leadrope I find the best thing for me is to hold the rope (a rather thick, 4 m long rope) about 1 - 1.20 m from the halter and coil the rest neatly two or three times, so I hold either 3 or 4 thikness-es (?) of rope. It' comfy on my hand, comfy on the horse mouth, give the horse head some freedom, but allows enough control (mostly my horse walks quietly with her nose behing my elbow). And the loop is wide enough that you have some reaction time if something happens before you have to let go, or get your hand squished. I like the coil to be neat and hang slack and easy, not twisted about. And at this length, if things get twitchy I can quickly switch hands and grab the rope closer to the halter with my good hand.