(no subject)

[darchildre]

For Christmas, my Dad decided to give all of us a Group Experience and, it being my dad, that Group Experience was an entry-level blacksmithing class where we made a knife out of a piece of rebar. The class was yesterday and was completely rad. I don't know that I'm ever going to do anymore blacksmithing but doing it once was really cool. And now I have a knife I made myself!

However. Today, I am sore in places I did not know could become sore. I had assumed that my biceps and shoulders would be sort today? But no - the muscles in my right hand are sore, and the inside of my wrist. Not debilitatingly so, but enough that picking up my big breakfast tea mug one-handed was a little tricky.

Fortunately, I have the day off today for recovery.

Comments

[soemand]

That actually sounds like great fun!

[raven]

Ooh that sounds great, I’ve always wanted to do one of those courses!

[sfred]

Cool!

[silveradept]

How was the experience? It sounds like it was both fun and exhausting.

[darchildre]

It was really enjoyable. I was pretty nervous going into it, both because of safety reasons and social anxiety/performance anxiety reasons, but the instructor was really good and all of my nerves wore off pretty quickly. I always enjoy learning how to do new craft things, especially if they produce something useful at the end. (There's nothing wrong with completely decorative crafts, of course, but I don't personally enjoy them as much.)

It was tiring, because it's hard work and work that I'm not accustomed to, but there's frequent breaks that are mandated by the nature of the craft (metal only stays hot enough to be workable for about 30 seconds and then you have to heat it again). In general, I would definitely recommend the experience, if it's something that interested you. Our class was at Lawless Forge in Seattle - they have a bunch of classes that look fun.

[silveradept]

Thanks. It's something that I've been casually interested in, at on "casually interested in all kinds of new experiences," so it'll get into the folder of "things I might be interested in and should try if I get the opportunity."