School of hard knots

WEEK 47

A couple of years ago at Burning Man, one of my campmates showed me how to tie an important knot. I sat by his side as he held the rope in front of him, moving effortlessly and with a steady and confident hand – one loop, the end up and over, another loop, down and through, tighten, under, around and back again. I was mesmerized.

As I watched my friend, I was taken by the certainty of the whole thing – that by knowing the properties of the rope and knowing the purpose of a particular knot and knowing how to tie the knot correctly, you would be sure of its strength for the intended function. Trust, right there in my lap.

It’s no surprise, then, that last May I scribbled “learn to tie knots” on my first list for this project. A life skill that somehow passed me by (as did learning how to light a fire without a match and jump-start a car).

Now, sadly, with lockdown extended yet again, I am out of luck to take the REI climbing knots workshop I had bookmarked for this Spring (not to mention the cool-sounding compass and topo map navigation class). I curse the procrastinator in me.

Homeschooling, here we come…

I start by foraging for supplies. Deep in our storage locker, I unearthed a four-foot stretch of rope, a bit beat-up with fraying ends and longer than desired, but acceptable. After rummaging around the burner bins, I found one thick-ish lace from an old boot. A misfit set of materials, but isn’t the current environment all about adaptability?

Next up, instruction. With an explosion of online learning you’d think a virtual live instructor-led knot tying class is on offer somewhere in the world, but alas no.

I spent my first hour of self-learning bouncing around a clever website with knot-tying animations (the ropes tie themselves!) for about 200 knots. The names are exotic and magical: Rapala, Stevedore, Monkey’s Fist, Icicle Hitch, Honda, Figure 9, Matthew Walker, Bimini Twist. I am both overwhelmed and intrigued.

Many of these featured knots are stunning, mini works of art, and, as it turns out, a mere sliver of the more than 3,900 knots on record. I imagine the knot-tying equivalent of a national spelling bee, with esteemed members of the International Guild of Knot Tyers (a real thing) dazzling the judges with their speed and nimbleness.

After accepting that personal mastery is a long way off, I tried my hand at a few from the site’s Basics collection. I let out a little snort-laugh when I saw that the only knot I know how to tie – and which I generically call a knot, as if all tissue is Kleenex – has an identifiable name, the Overhand knot. It even warrants a category: single-strand stopper knots. This gave me hope, and with one knot down, I then tied the insanely simple Double Overhand. A beauty.

When I moved on to tackle several other basics like the Figure 8, Half Hitch, Slip and Square, I came face-to-face with my (previously unknown) spatial limitations. Over and over, I struggled to make a connection between the animation on the screen and the rope on my table. I couldn’t easily envision the rope placement, let alone how one knot gets tied inside the other. And the terminology tripped me up – what’s a tail? A bight? A standing end? It took me an exceptionally long time, with bursts of profanity to counter my mounting frustration, to accomplish what I suspected– and after further practice confirmed – are simple steps.

At this point in my homeschooling, I realized that learning something new reveals how you learn.

I haven’t yet decided if I am a good learner. But I am almost certainly not a good self-learner, at least not at the outset of picking up a new skill. This surprised me. I put the rope away for the day and thought hard about learning.

When it’s all new, I concluded that I learn best with a guide and learning-mates by my side. I like watching a demonstration, then trying to do the thing by myself and then – this is important – watching others try to do the thing. The more senses engaged the better. A rhyme or mnemonic to go along with is heaven. And my brain needs context and terminology right at the start.

I am, however, a great self-practicer (my new term). So, I picked up the rope, and over the next couple of days, both with and without the images, I worked to get the movements and muscle memory into my fingers. The success was all mine: A working vocabulary of six basic knots.

The most fun is that I now see knots all around me. I pause and look, lay them in my palm if I can, spin them around, and admire the beauty in their function. I want to learn more. I’ll be the first to register when we can go to school again.