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Paddy Roxburgh":1msswzwd said:
Tasky and DW, I have a challenge for you both. See if you can find any comments from the other one which might improve your own levels of knowledge. If you both stopped trying to "win" you might be surprised at what you can learn from each other.

I'm not trying to win, though it may seem like it. The game is over for me - I've been down the road that tasky is on, without having to go as far as bugbear is and turn chopping a mortise into making a violin bow.

Sometimes you have to think hard about correcting something, but there's no reason to go there before you've tried the easy stuff. This started with mortises - you can generally watch someone else cut one and duplicate the results. How it turned into the physics of pairadiddles, I don't know.

Bugbear mentioned needing to know the "why". Sure you do, that's what I'd refer to as owning knowledge - knowing why. The best way to own it is to understand why from your own experience, but sometimes that's practical. When we're talking about simple things like cutting mortises, we ought to know why already - and we don't need to talk about violin bows. If you're too the point that you're curious about watching professionals, you will know "why" they're doing things 90% of the time, or at least you'll be able to figure those out yourself. If something doesn't make sense, then you can try it and see if you can figure out why, and if you can't, you can actually contact the person who you're observing.

There are enough things in life that will be difficult. There's really no reason to make the simple things difficult, too, or behave in a way that makes no sense and then claim that it does. No sense in this case would be taking advice from someone who does something materially less well just because they're willing to explain all of it, whereas you might only get x% of the information by observing someone who is more competent than the loquacious instructor (perhaps x is 75%, maybe it's 90%, who knows).
 
re tradition and innovation: a healthy respect for tradition is entirely sensible since tradition is the result of lots of trial and error and therefore generally represents good solutions. But it is equally sensible to remain open to new ideas - "we've all ways done it this way" can be an excuse to avoid the effort and risk of trying something different.

One of my teachers used to recommend 'scepticism with your eyes open' - good advice!

PS Custard's summary above is a recipe for success in many different careers, not just woodwork.
 
phil.p":1pf2hfsz said:
Paddy, as you mentioned cricket - how would you teach someone to catch who can't catch a ball thrown slowly from eight feet away?

I don't know.
I think you may be missing my point however. I am not saying that everyone can do everything, for example someone with no arms is unlikely to be able to catch a ball and will not play test cricket. Someone with down syndrome will not become a physics professor. Most of us however are not at these extremes. All too often people use "I can't do that" as an excuse for not honestly trying. For example you say you cannot draw, perhaps this is true, I don't know, but have you followed a structured learning program designed for people who are learning to draw but have very little skill? Have you tried following the basics of such a course for a few hours every day? Or have you just internalised the negative feedback you received from teachers at your school? I do not know for sure, but I would be surprised if you followed a structured learning program dealing with the very basics and did not try to skip ahead or become demoralised, if you did not find your drawing improve.
 
Paddy Roxburgh":3ocgip9e said:
It is my contention that with appropriate guidance and hard work most people can achieve a level of competence at most things. We may not be able to be Newton or Einstein, but most of us could have been physics professors.

I never cease to be amazed at the human ability to believe things despite all evidence to the contrary.

I set out on an academic career in robotics. Had my nose in electronics and computing since I was 12. Built two robots by the time I was 16. 8 years at Uni. Never made it to Prof. Gave up on academia, my brain just didn't seem to get on with the more abstract mathematics. Presumably I was wrong and just didn't try hard enough :(

I did however do a bit of teaching. Computation and rowing. I've also more recently done "have a go" sessions with children on the pole lathe. That there is a difference in how easily people "get it" was to me very clear in all of those things.
 
I think you are both saying the same thing - a structured approach and hard work can get most people a basic level of accomplishment in most things, but having a natural aptitude or particular physical or mental impediment can speed you up or slow you down respectively.
 
Sheffield Tony":1539cdag said:
Presumably I was wrong and just didn't try hard enough :(
Nah, you just didn't spend time watching a professional professor profess his profession...!! :lol:
 
Sheffield Tony":1s3e1ptc said:
I never cease to be amazed at the human ability to believe things despite all evidence to the contrary.
I set out on an academic career in robotics. Had my nose in electronics and computing since I was 12. Built two robots by the time I was 16. 8 years at Uni. Never made it to Prof. Gave up on academia, my brain just didn't seem to get on with the more abstract mathematics. Presumably I was wrong and just didn't try hard enough :(

I did however do a bit of teaching. Computation and rowing. I've also more recently done "have a go" sessions with children on the pole lathe. That there is a difference in how easily people "get it" was to me very clear in all of those things.

My lad is good at physics (good enough that his teacher, who holds a physics doctorate said he hoped he made a profession of it) - I mentioned one day that he seemed good at and he said "dad, I see it, I understand it - just like that." I guarantee that even if I had his teachers I would still be in a scientific wilderness. :)
 
Sheffield Tony":2vda7dvd said:
I never cease to be amazed at the human ability to believe things despite all evidence to the contrary.
Presumably I was wrong and just didn't try hard enough :(

Personally I never cease to be amazed at the human ability to strawman a nuanced argument. I did not claim that everyone can be excellent in everything, just that most people could be proficient in most things and that in many cases (again, not all, but many) "can't" is an excuse for "won't" or indeed "don't enjoy". There is nothing wrong with not enjoying certain pursuits and therefore not wanting to do them, and real achievement is usually combined with someone enjoying that thing.
I may have been speaking out of turn when disusing high level academia, it is something that I have little knowledge of, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that most people could be a junior lecturer in a polytechnique than a professor in a top flight university.
 
nabs":1ern5r81 said:
One of my teachers used to recommend 'scepticism with your eyes open' - good advice!

That's a perfect way to put it.
 
Sheffield Tony":1rxjjgom said:
That there is a difference in how easily people "get it"

A farmer friend of mine just gave me an example of that - something as simple as backing a trailer. He hires people in harvest season (for obvious reasons) to drive truck on the farm, which doesn't require a commercial license. It just requires people to move corn (beans, etc) from the machines to storage on the farm, which requires backing up a truck.

He hired three people this year - two 18 year-old kids and a middle-aged professional who is between jobs. The two kids didn't know how to back a trailer (and if you've never done it before, I guess it's problematic, but if you get it, you sort of get it right away), but he showed them, and they just did it. The third guy questioned what he was teaching him and overanalyzed what he was doing and never got it, but he argued about how to do it while he was failing. Maybe a psychologist would be able to tell us what the guy was thinking.

In the old days, we would've just said "that guy should probably get a different job". Some people, no matter how open-minded and compliant they are, just never get the whole backing thing down. Even professional truckers.

Maybe the overanalyzing professional had microtensions when he was turning the steering wheel. I think he was just turning it the wrong direction or turning it at the wrong time.

Maybe he failed at making a violin bow at some point in his life and was sure that he didn't know the whys, and therefore couldn't succeed at moving a load of grain from a to b and dumping it at location c.
 
D_W":18r9c0ch said:
Maybe he had microtensions when he was turning the steering wheel. I think he was just turning it the wrong direction regardless of the amount of tension.
No, he just never watched a professional doing it... would'a learned all he needed just from watching. :p
 
D_W":1u3luxnr said:
Sheffield Tony":1u3luxnr said:
That there is a difference in how easily people "get it"

A farmer friend of mine just gave me an example of that - something as simple as backing a trailer. He hires people in harvest season (for obvious reasons) to drive truck on the farm, which doesn't require a commercial license. It just requires people to move corn (beans, etc) from the machines to storage on the farm, which requires backing up a truck.

He hired three people this year - two 18 year-old kids and a middle-aged professional who is between jobs. The two kids didn't know how to back a trailer (and if you've never done it before, I guess it's problematic, but if you get it, you sort of get it right away), but he showed them, and they just did it. The third guy questioned what he was teaching him and overanalyzed what he was doing and never got it, but he argued about how to do it while he was failing. Maybe a psychologist would be able to tell us what the guy was thinking.

In the old days, we would've just said "that guy should probably get a different job". Some people, no matter how open-minded and compliant they are, just never get the whole backing thing down. Even professional truckers.

c.

DW, I used to have problems reversing trailers. I understood the theory of it but would instinctively turn the wheel the wrong way. About 20 years ago I was scrapping a boat and only had a small trailer that was narrower than the van. As anyone who knows about reversing trailers will be aware not being able to see the trailer makes it even harder to do. Now I had to do 50 odd runs to the skip and I could have driven forwards and then u turned with the trailer, but I decided to reverse every time. Initially I messed it up, but after enough practice I could do it. For the last 20 years I have had no problem reversing trailers and can confidently reverse any trailer into any space that is possible. Now this is a task I showed little/no aptitude for, I could have just gone "backing trailers isn't for me", but I was determined that I would master it and I did. Once I had done this I was every bit as good as someone who just "got it" first time.
Disclaimer; I am fully aware that backing a trailer is not the same as becoming a top flight academic.
 
Paddy Roxburgh":3lphvloa said:
D_W":3lphvloa said:
Sheffield Tony":3lphvloa said:
That there is a difference in how easily people "get it"

A farmer friend of mine just gave me an example of that - something as simple as backing a trailer. He hires people in harvest season (for obvious reasons) to drive truck on the farm, which doesn't require a commercial license. It just requires people to move corn (beans, etc) from the machines to storage on the farm, which requires backing up a truck.

He hired three people this year - two 18 year-old kids and a middle-aged professional who is between jobs. The two kids didn't know how to back a trailer (and if you've never done it before, I guess it's problematic, but if you get it, you sort of get it right away), but he showed them, and they just did it. The third guy questioned what he was teaching him and overanalyzed what he was doing and never got it, but he argued about how to do it while he was failing. Maybe a psychologist would be able to tell us what the guy was thinking.

In the old days, we would've just said "that guy should probably get a different job". Some people, no matter how open-minded and compliant they are, just never get the whole backing thing down. Even professional truckers.

c.

DW, I used to have problems reversing trailers. I understood the theory of it but would instinctively turn the wheel the wrong way. About 20 years ago I was scrapping a boat and only had a small trailer that was narrower than the van. As anyone who knows about reversing trailers will be aware not being able to see the trailer makes it even harder to do. Now I had to do 50 odd runs to the skip and I could have driven forwards and then u turned with the trailer, but I decided to reverse every time. Initially I messed it up, but after enough practice I could do it. For the last 20 years I have had no problem backing trailers and can confidently back any trailer into any space that is possible. Now this is a task I showed little/no aptitude for, I could have just gone "backing trailers isn't for me", but I was determined that I would master it and I did. Once I had done this I was every bit as good as someone who just "got it" first time.
Disclaimer; I am fully aware that backing a trailer is not the same as becoming a top flight academic.
People may get things at different rates. It doesn't mean they don't get good at it.
I had a problem paddling a kayak - I could do it on muscle strength alone but somehow was getting tired really quickly and dropping back from women and kids in the group. I just couldn't crack it, even with instruction and reading all the books. I had to be towed back in the Scilly Isles I was so knackered.
It must have taken 200 hours or so over a longish period and suddenly it clicked on the last day of an excursion in Croatia and I was cruising along as fast as the rest. I still don't know quite what I was doing differently but it certainly was different!
Last summer we did complete circuit of Menorca - no problemo! Lost nearly a stone in weight.
 
Paddy Roxburgh":1cj0xj09 said:
nitially I messed it up, but after enough practice I could do it. For the last 20 years I have had no problem backing trailers and can confidently back any trailer into any space that is possible.
Now try a trailer with a front axle!

fruehsch12_08.jpg


I grew up on a farm, which provides a gentle learning curve to trailer backing; tractors have a very tight turning circle, excellent visibility, and agricultural trailers are long (backing a small box trailer with a car is very much harder). I could accurately back a trailer round a corner onto a tipping pit first time, every time.

But I never mastered the multi axle trailer. we had

BugBear
 
Paddy Roxburgh":l0xxaju4 said:
oat and only had a small trailer that was narrower than the van. As anyone who knows about reversing trailers will be aware not being able to see the trailer makes it even harder to do. Now I had to do 50 odd runs to the skip and I could have driven forwards and then u turned with the trailer, but I decided to reverse every time. Initially I messed it up, but after enough practice I could do it. For the last 20 years I have had no problem reversing trailers and can confidently reverse any trailer into any space that is possible. Now this is a task I showed little/no aptitude for, I could have just gone "backing trailers isn't for me", but I was determined that I would master it and I did. Once I had done this I was every bit as good as someone who just "got it" first time.
Disclaimer; I am fully aware that backing a trailer is not the same as becoming a top flight academic.

I think for everyone who learns to back, that's it. It's sort of like riding a bike, and it requires "subtlety" from practice rather than outright thought or overanalysis.

There are a lot of things the same way in woodworking. They don't require microanalysis of everything, just experience and refinement. As tasky is talking about, understanding (perhaps its mortising or perhaps it's carving, whatever) the tension that someone has while they're working might be interesting, but it's a lot more instructive to desire a result (first in standards and then in time, or the reverse) and work to it than it is to stop in analysis paralysis and assume that lack of result is due to lack of information or ability to glean it from repetition. Nobody rides a bike and thinks.."listing 0.1% to the left, shift right leg 0.14 inches to the right to compensate", and we don't tell people how to ride a bike like that, either. Lots of the little details that we acquire aren't really that important to be able to verbalize, some don't verbalize well (thus, we have forums with 17 page posts arguing about whether or not we're going to be obligated to make victorian low-level piece rates if we want to learn to mortise faster).

But even further back from that, if someone is visibly doing something entirely different than you are and achieving better or faster results (or both), you might as well look at what they're doing and try it. Even if you can't figure it out.

Totally different than backing a trailer, where all you can tell someone is that with a trailer with a fixed axle will go the opposite direction of the one you're turning. Even then, it's more of a subconscious skill to learn - the bit of information that you can't expect the trailer to go in the direction that you're turning is pretty useful to start, but then you have to turn to practice, trying to duplicate what you see someone else do and reliance on something other than point by point analysis to learn to do something well.

I have a bad habit of anticipating how something will turn out. For years, I didn't use the double iron because I anticipated that it would be similar to other setups, and confirmed it by trying it a few times, back to 2006 or so before anyone other than a single person talked about it. I have a personal two week rule now - when I think I'm making no progress at something after a session or two, I force myself to do it for two weeks, anyway - and then see how it turns out. In a pre-video environment (before that japanese video came out), I banned myself from using scrapers, sandpaper or high angle planes to learn to use the double iron - for a month (not two weeks), but it only took a week to get far better at it than I was using the very good single iron planes I had. I wanted a result and figured that repetition might teach me things that are more subtle and less perfect to verbalize into a paint by number list.

I get emails and video comments from time to time about the double iron and about half of them are "i tried it and it didn't work for me". I always respond that people should try it for two weeks instead, have a result they'd like to see and suspend all judgement other than that in the interim. I never hear back from them, and assume that they either got out sandpapers, scrapers/scraping planes or their favorite high angle plane and gave up.

A whole lot of woodworking is that way - tolerate the period where you don't know everything and aren't getting the results you want rather than settling for overly safe and slow. Suspend conclusion of failure for a while and don't allow yourself to think it and only allow it later if you go through a period of "subtlety by trial" and find your results the same at the end of it.
 
D_W":1orpse4y said:
As tasky is talking about, understanding (perhaps its mortising or perhaps it's carving, whatever) the tension that someone has while they're working might be interesting, but it's a lot more instructive to desire a result (first in standards and then in time, or the reverse) and work to it than it is to stop in analysis paralysis and assume that lack of result is due to lack of information or ability to glean it from repetition.
Having a goal is fine, but of little further use unless you also know how to get there, or more importantly what is *preventing* you from doing so.

D_W":1orpse4y said:
Nobody rides a bike and thinks.."listing 0.1% to the left, shift right leg 0.14 inches to the right to compensate", and we don't tell people how to ride a bike like that, either.
Actually, we do - The biggest mistake most motorcyclists make is gripping too tight.
While they themselves may not need to know the exact effects and how that translates around the body to throw their riding completely off... and indeed, that's what your instructor is for... being able to recognise if and when they're doing it will massively improve both their riding results and their further potential.

But even in that environment there are stubborn riders who refuse to believe Counter-Steering exists at all, even when you make them do it themselves on their own bike. This further proves that you may be able to do something without knowing how or why, but the how and why still exist and still govern you just as much. Being aware of them just means you can do more with it.

D_W":1orpse4y said:
But even further back from that, if someone is visibly doing something entirely different than you are and achieving better or faster results (or both), you might as well look at what they're doing and try it. Even if you can't figure it out.
And yet it's more efficient to just find out exactly what they're doing, and save wasting time trying to figure it out (unless that's the fun part for you)... :p

D_W":1orpse4y said:
I never hear back from them, and assume that they either got out sandpapers, scrapers/scraping planes or their favorite high angle plane and gave up.
Interesting that you neither hear back, and that you assume they gave up...

Also, that won't work for everyone - Not all of us can afford the time or the wood for weeks of trials and practices and need to get things right first time, or as close as we're able. We might strive to be better next time we undertake a similar project, but that's what makes it a hobby instead of a career.
 
Tasky":1o45cgi3 said:
And yet it's more efficient to just find out exactly what they're doing, and save wasting time trying to figure it out (unless that's the fun part for you)... :p

Also, that won't work for everyone - Not all of us can afford the time or the wood for weeks of trials and practices and need to get things right first time, or as close as we're able. We might strive to be better next time we undertake a similar project, but that's what makes it a hobby instead of a career.

You, me and everyone else can afford to take two weeks and force ourselves to try something. You can deviate from your personal rule if it is preventing doing anything at all, but it rarely works that way. There isn't a static decision tree that locks you in those two weeks.

As far as asking someone exactly what they're doing, you assume that they have some verbal composition to explain all of it. Plenty of folks don't, and the point is the person who accommodates you with volumes of material could give you advice that leaves you far behind watching the practitioner who you can only glean 75% from if watching.

If the person with the best method for you also likes to talk about it, great. That's not usually the case.

In terms of time, the forums are full of people who don't have time to learn anything that they're not spoon fed, but those folks have time to post on the forums and time to watch 2 or 3 hours of TV a day.
 
D_W":8n653qo9 said:
I have a personal two week rule now - when I think I'm making no progress at something after a session or two, I force myself to do it for two weeks, anyway - and then see how it turns out. In a pre-video environment (before that japanese video came out), I banned myself from using scrapers, sandpaper or high angle planes to learn to use the double iron - for a month (not two weeks), but it only took a week to get far better at it than I was using the very good single iron planes I had. I wanted a result and figured that repetition might teach me things that are more subtle and less perfect to verbalize into a paint by number list.

The two week rule is very good and ties in with another interesting generalisation. This is, that in order to learn a motor skill (which inevitably needs use of the brain as well as the hands or whatever), one needs to repeat it about 20 -30 times. Martial arts instructors say this about various hand/wrist motions involved in the sport. Linguists say you have to repeat a new word on average 20 - 25 times before you learn it. Musical instrument teachers and players say this when a new transition between notes, or a new chord, has to be learned.

It can get longer when complex groups of muscles are involved (such as wind players who have to learn mouthpiece pressure and oral cavity control as well as the fingering). It is convoluted with the forgetting curve as well, which says that the rate of forgetting decreases with each revision, so multiple small revisions over a period of days are better than one big learn. But it is not a bad rough guide.

The 10,000 hours would be composed of lots and lots of these. And the more one can decompose the task into bits like this, the more efficient is the learning process.

Keith
 
D_W":3c93xmj2 said:
You, me and everyone else can afford to take two weeks and force ourselves to try something.
Then you can buy me two weeks worth of wood and YOU can explain to my wife why she's not getting a holiday this year...!!!

D_W":3c93xmj2 said:
As far as asking someone exactly what they're doing, you assume that they have some verbal composition to explain all of it.
They might, or they might not... and if not, then fine - It's up to you and what you can figure out yourself.
But either way it's still quicker than just watching them for ages and agonising over possibly trying to maybe see if you can figure out what's going on in their head as well as with their hands... and if they are able to give you any kind of insight, then it will still help when you're then watching afterward!!

D_W":3c93xmj2 said:
Plenty of folks don't, and the point is the person who accommodates you with volumes of material could give you advice that leaves you far behind watching the practitioner who you can only glean 75% from if watching.
And you wouldn't even ask first, juuuuuuust in case they might have the articulative capacity to convey that extra 25%??

D_W":3c93xmj2 said:
If the person with the best method for you also likes to talk about it, great. That's not usually the case.
I agree, since the best method for 'one' is probably a mixture of several other people's, plus your own personal spin on it... but it all contributes. This is why I like people who present things as how they do it rather than as the 'right' way to do it.

D_W":3c93xmj2 said:
In terms of time, the forums are full of people who don't have time to learn anything that they're not spoon fed, but those folks have time to post on the forums and time to watch 2 or 3 hours of TV a day.
Lucky them, then... not only because they have that amount of free time, but can also find anything interesting to watch for 3 hours a day on TV!! :lol:
 
MusicMan":1sb9ew0y said:
....... And the more one can decompose the task into bits like this, the more efficient is the learning process.

Keith
Emphasis on technique can put people right off and defeat the object.
There is masses of detailed info on how you should play the classical guitar, including theories about fingernail shape, books full only of finger exercises but no music. Not unlike the modern woodwork phenomenon - there are loads of people out there who want to tell it's difficult and things have to be done in certain ways.
My experience says ignore (nearly) all this and just get on with it. By all means take note of what people say and look closely at what people do, but remain severely sceptical - they are control freaks out there to spoil it for you! Or sell you gadgets on the woodwork front.
A friend wanted to start playing clarinet - she's very nervous and has picked up on the supposed difficulty and talks about being "too old to develop her embouchure" and similar b44llox. She's owned one for three years now and is too nervous to take it out of the box. Another mate with a sax talks similarly. A group of classical guitarist beginners are working their way playing some very boring exercises in unison, all with their left legs uncomfortably perched on little rocky stools in the Segovia fashion.
Non of this is efficient - it's the opposite, its aversion therapy! It also reenforces the notion of innate talent - lack of which is their excuse for not being able to do it, but actually it's the joyless and over-technical teaching punishment they are subjecting themselves to.
 
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