Muscle memory
I am a slow physical learner. Not unteachable, but my handwriting will never be something to write home about, and it took me 5 years to learn to serve a volleyball overhand, and 2 to learn to do a roll. I can probably still do the roll, but I weigh 50 pounds more than I did in HS, so it might hurt more. I am thinking about volleyball a lot now because when the weather is changeable like this, I kind of wish I had listened to the doctor who said I was wearing away my already-marginal knees. But in high school, I was in awesome shape, and my thighs supported and hid a lot of the knee problems. Anyway.
When I was in high school, I also learned to touch type at a perfectly respectable 68 WPM. It took a while, but was not as hard to learn as gross motor skills. In college, I switched to Dvorak-style keyboards because they were supposed to be better at preventing RSI* and might give a person a small speed increase. I wanted both those things so I spent a month or so relearning all the key positions. Mostly this doesn't come up, except that I am the most horrifically slow typist you have ever had a training class with.
Now it's knitting. The way I knit "naturally", the way I taught myself (and my teacher cannot be blamed, as she knits English) involves a lot, a LOT of needle-rubbing. As in, I have rubbed the coating of a few sets of needles in ways that no one I have shown has understood. My tension is great, my hands do not report being tired, and if it weren't for the fact that I am destroying my needles, I would be pretty content to leave it. But I am, and I am hopeful that if I learn a more "finger-up" style, I can also reteach myself purling so it is slightly less onerous. Of course, the way one does this is to just knit the new way, and accept that it will be slow and painful and horrible and the tension will be terrible. I am practicing on my first-ever seed stitch washcloth. I have been working on it for two days and I may be about halfway through it. My hands are all tight from clutching and twisting and being unsure of what i'm doing. And I hate it, because it's so hard. I just hope it's a good decision.
In other knitting news, my local-est LYS is hosting a class with Franklin Habit. The class on lace edgings costs $60 for 3 hours and has 10 openings left. And lace edgings are sort of on my radar because of the Pirate Cuffs. I want to go, but $60 is also a sweater's worth of yarn. Hm.
* An article in Reason magazine (which has an admitted slant, but still), outlines why the statistics on the superiority of the Dvorak layout may have been exaggerated. Arg. But I'm not switching back anyway.
Queued posts:
Book reviews
Trickster God
Impending MIL
When I was in high school, I also learned to touch type at a perfectly respectable 68 WPM. It took a while, but was not as hard to learn as gross motor skills. In college, I switched to Dvorak-style keyboards because they were supposed to be better at preventing RSI* and might give a person a small speed increase. I wanted both those things so I spent a month or so relearning all the key positions. Mostly this doesn't come up, except that I am the most horrifically slow typist you have ever had a training class with.
Now it's knitting. The way I knit "naturally", the way I taught myself (and my teacher cannot be blamed, as she knits English) involves a lot, a LOT of needle-rubbing. As in, I have rubbed the coating of a few sets of needles in ways that no one I have shown has understood. My tension is great, my hands do not report being tired, and if it weren't for the fact that I am destroying my needles, I would be pretty content to leave it. But I am, and I am hopeful that if I learn a more "finger-up" style, I can also reteach myself purling so it is slightly less onerous. Of course, the way one does this is to just knit the new way, and accept that it will be slow and painful and horrible and the tension will be terrible. I am practicing on my first-ever seed stitch washcloth. I have been working on it for two days and I may be about halfway through it. My hands are all tight from clutching and twisting and being unsure of what i'm doing. And I hate it, because it's so hard. I just hope it's a good decision.
In other knitting news, my local-est LYS is hosting a class with Franklin Habit. The class on lace edgings costs $60 for 3 hours and has 10 openings left. And lace edgings are sort of on my radar because of the Pirate Cuffs. I want to go, but $60 is also a sweater's worth of yarn. Hm.
* An article in Reason magazine (which has an admitted slant, but still), outlines why the statistics on the superiority of the Dvorak layout may have been exaggerated. Arg. But I'm not switching back anyway.
Queued posts:
Book reviews
Trickster God
Impending MIL