a new hobby

 

 
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 I've decided that I'm going to learn how to do some trick roping. It's going to take some time. But that's okay. It's already - after some 5-8 hours of practice - become something of a meditation thing. Spin the rope over and over again, trying to figure out what is different about the few times that it works more correctly than the times when it hits my leg or the ground. Tonight it appeared as if I will indeed be able to spin a flat loop, the most basic of tricks. I got it to work quite a few times, and even accomplished rolling the rope over in my hand while spinning, so that it doesn't become hopelessly tangled.

It's been a long time since I decided that I would take something up that I know nothing about and determined that I am going to succeed at it. Of course the definition of "success" has to be measured in terms of low expectations.  The first two or three hours were pretty hopeless, and even now that it's going better, I can't say definitely what I'm doing differently. What surely is different, is the determination to accomplish something totally alien to most of my body of knowledge and accomplishments.