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Dec. 18th, 2019 01:20 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sorcyress(written Saturday evening, only getting around to posting now, because life)
I rang Cambridge minor today.
One full plain course. Well, okay, technically about a half course which fell apart for mostly not me reasons says Ricky, and then we tried again and got a full course. It went well.
My ringing diary started just under two years ago, the last practice in December 2017. It was three months later I rang my first ever hunting in tower0. So it's been...about a year and three quarters that I've been ringing methods and in that time I've gone from hunting to Cambridge.
I don't have a baseline for this. I don't really have benchmarks, or rules, or specific milestones that should be hit at specific points. Truth be told, I think that would probably be worse, to worry that I'm not getting places fast enough, when the whole thing remains patience and practice. The only competition is with myself from the past, the only thing to measure against is myself and how I am doing.
Still though, 21 months seems...like something I can be proud of. I am working hard --to learn Cambridge I spent a lot of snatched moments in the last two weeks drawing it over and over again until it became closer to memory-- and that hard work is paying off. I won't say I rang it "gloriously", but I rang it recognizably, without a stand-behind or constant prompting.
(And Laura gave me a sticker after. She didn't say congratulations or holy shit or anything like that, she just gave me a sticker and carried on Doing The Work of organizing and keeping practice going and I feel very very honored for it. This was exactly right and makes me feel very pleased.)
So now I can ring three methods and a principle1, and I have shown twice that I can pick up something doubles and study briefly and go. I am beginning to resemble something I can think of as a real ringer.
And of course my brain can't handle it. I am beginning to realize just how little I can cope with feeling proud of myself, how much my mindscape rebels at the very idea. Not sobbing this time (like how I couldn't stop once I actually sat back and thought about a full year of words) but I was shaking so badly after we finished that I could barely tie the rope up. I was just...it felt like the same way I do performance, and started maybe around the half-lead, as I started to recognize that I actually was doing this that I actually could do this. Completely shatterly nervous, and genuinely shocked no one commented, for surely the trembling was that obvious right?
It shouldn't be that surprising I can do this, not when I've drawn and thought about the line a few dozen times. My handling is nowhere near smooth, but I'm getting to a level where it is frequently approximately close enough, and good enough for everyone else to ring around me. I can, actually, ring things when I know the line. That's what it takes, that's what I need to do (and there's an interesting side conversation here, that says "now we know how we're going to learn the rest of the PICKLED EGG methods, we're just gonna sit down and draw like a maniac.)
It shouldn't be surprising but it so is and that's...such a weird sad commentary on my brain. I have to be surprised at this because the alternative is actually thinking I can do it, and that's just not going to happen now is it?
Anyways, ringing continues to be a fascinating reflection of the inner stuff into the outer world. And apparently I can ring Cambridge minor now. I'm proud of that.
~Sor MOOP!
0: I've tracked everything I've rung since December 21st 2017, which accounts for all of my tower methods -I missed some instances of tenoring, rounds, and called changes but I doubt a lot of any of them, since the first few months are always handling and I only started at the end of August. But I know there were a couple instances of handbells, so like, probably plain bob and hunting and maybe even grandsire and very maybe Stedman from the tenors. (I learned the line for Stedman stupid early. This is like entirely Austin's fault.)
1: Okay, this is an exaggeration, but I'm not sure in which direction. I can ring Plain Bob and Grandsire and Stedman on expected stages2 up to 8, and I can ring Cambridge exclusively minor -I have not even looked at Major yet. But I can also theoretically ring Reverse or Double Bob (I've certainly rung both on handbells). And does hunting count as a method? Oh, and Bastow, and also the thing where everyone Treble Bob Hunts.
2: I cannot, for instance, ring Grandsire Major, though I have a sneaking suspicion that either Cally or Austin thinks it actually exists.
I rang Cambridge minor today.
One full plain course. Well, okay, technically about a half course which fell apart for mostly not me reasons says Ricky, and then we tried again and got a full course. It went well.
My ringing diary started just under two years ago, the last practice in December 2017. It was three months later I rang my first ever hunting in tower0. So it's been...about a year and three quarters that I've been ringing methods and in that time I've gone from hunting to Cambridge.
I don't have a baseline for this. I don't really have benchmarks, or rules, or specific milestones that should be hit at specific points. Truth be told, I think that would probably be worse, to worry that I'm not getting places fast enough, when the whole thing remains patience and practice. The only competition is with myself from the past, the only thing to measure against is myself and how I am doing.
Still though, 21 months seems...like something I can be proud of. I am working hard --to learn Cambridge I spent a lot of snatched moments in the last two weeks drawing it over and over again until it became closer to memory-- and that hard work is paying off. I won't say I rang it "gloriously", but I rang it recognizably, without a stand-behind or constant prompting.
(And Laura gave me a sticker after. She didn't say congratulations or holy shit or anything like that, she just gave me a sticker and carried on Doing The Work of organizing and keeping practice going and I feel very very honored for it. This was exactly right and makes me feel very pleased.)
So now I can ring three methods and a principle1, and I have shown twice that I can pick up something doubles and study briefly and go. I am beginning to resemble something I can think of as a real ringer.
And of course my brain can't handle it. I am beginning to realize just how little I can cope with feeling proud of myself, how much my mindscape rebels at the very idea. Not sobbing this time (like how I couldn't stop once I actually sat back and thought about a full year of words) but I was shaking so badly after we finished that I could barely tie the rope up. I was just...it felt like the same way I do performance, and started maybe around the half-lead, as I started to recognize that I actually was doing this that I actually could do this. Completely shatterly nervous, and genuinely shocked no one commented, for surely the trembling was that obvious right?
It shouldn't be that surprising I can do this, not when I've drawn and thought about the line a few dozen times. My handling is nowhere near smooth, but I'm getting to a level where it is frequently approximately close enough, and good enough for everyone else to ring around me. I can, actually, ring things when I know the line. That's what it takes, that's what I need to do (and there's an interesting side conversation here, that says "now we know how we're going to learn the rest of the PICKLED EGG methods, we're just gonna sit down and draw like a maniac.)
It shouldn't be surprising but it so is and that's...such a weird sad commentary on my brain. I have to be surprised at this because the alternative is actually thinking I can do it, and that's just not going to happen now is it?
Anyways, ringing continues to be a fascinating reflection of the inner stuff into the outer world. And apparently I can ring Cambridge minor now. I'm proud of that.
~Sor MOOP!
0: I've tracked everything I've rung since December 21st 2017, which accounts for all of my tower methods -I missed some instances of tenoring, rounds, and called changes but I doubt a lot of any of them, since the first few months are always handling and I only started at the end of August. But I know there were a couple instances of handbells, so like, probably plain bob and hunting and maybe even grandsire and very maybe Stedman from the tenors. (I learned the line for Stedman stupid early. This is like entirely Austin's fault.)
1: Okay, this is an exaggeration, but I'm not sure in which direction. I can ring Plain Bob and Grandsire and Stedman on expected stages2 up to 8, and I can ring Cambridge exclusively minor -I have not even looked at Major yet. But I can also theoretically ring Reverse or Double Bob (I've certainly rung both on handbells). And does hunting count as a method? Oh, and Bastow, and also the thing where everyone Treble Bob Hunts.
2: I cannot, for instance, ring Grandsire Major, though I have a sneaking suspicion that either Cally or Austin thinks it actually exists.