First - Get familiar with your fiber. Many spinners pick up their roving and just start spinning and then wonder why they either can't draft it out or why they keep breaking. Take a minute and examine your roving. Pull out a little pinch of fiber. How long are the fibers??
The length of your fibers, or staple length, will tell you a lot about how this fiber will draft. If you have a 3 inch staple length and you hold your fingers 2 inches apart, you won't be able to draft your fibers because you are holding both ends of each fiber. So if you can't 'pull' the fibers apart lengthwise, try moving your hands further apart.
If you keep breaking the roving or if your staple length is short, you need keep your hands closer together and not draft so far before backing up and drafting the next section. If your fibers are only 2 inches long, you can't pull them 3 inches at a time. You may need to "inchworm" your way through the roving.
This is very very basic drafting info. Not a comprehensive tutorial. There are a lot of drafting techniques. My goal here is to remind you to get aquainted with your fiber and draft intentionally, not just try to pull out what you can.
If you have trouble drafting, try pre-drafting your roving. Pre-drafting is where you draft your fibers before you go to your wheel or spindle.
