lab sessions

Finally!! got in some practice with the ropes. Spent a few hours yesterday with a new friend in his sky-high apartment, riffing on the things that Max taught me. Photos of a couple of sweet results are forthcoming (they’re in my friend’s iPhone so I have to wait until he mails them to me).

It helps a lot (okay, it helps ENORMOUSLY) that my lab partner has a ton of climbing experience and so is well-versed with knots and ways to use them–he has been totally coaching me. Very cute, too, when I am working on him and he says, “Here, like this,” and takes the rope in his hands and turns it or knots it the way he wants.

Although I am still working on the very basics, it was fun to veer off on some ideas that I had–a certain line or look that I wanted to accomplish with the rope.

I am learning through trial and error, and that is good. I learn so much more when the rope is in my hands and I am doing things with it; it is very hard for me to really learn anything just by watching.

We watched some of the Jay Wiseman video, and frankly it was a little disappointing. Maybe it was the production quality–we were certainly distracted by the funkiness of the backdrops and the overdub. And maybe it was just that we were really done for the day–having already had a good dose of our own (creative) fun with our ropes.

Today I poked around some and played with some fun knots at Tying It All Together’s YouTube channel. There was a Celtic Heart knot–that I would like to work into a harness somehow–and a Thumb Cuff–which I think could be quite fun to play with, especially because I could sit so innocently idly fumbling with a bit of rope–like a lady mindlessly knitting–and then “presto”–a device of restraint.