Hindsight is a wonderful thing, because most of the time you never see change coming. . Sometimes it just kings leans on you and curves the trajectory you were on, sometimes it sneaks up in your blind spot and pushes hard, and sometimes it’ll walk right straight at you and punches you in the gut. No matter how it happens, or how long it takes to fully run it’s course, it’s only when you look back that you can see just how different things have become. Woodturning is a good example. The oldest bowl I have from when I started turning (excluding the one piece I made in High School) is dated 2009. That means I’ve been at this for about ten years now. Really? Ten years? It doesn’t seem like that long ago.

When I first started, I made a lot of really bad stuff. I didn’t know it at the time, but in hindsight, there were some really hideous projects: bowls that looked like dog food dishes, vases that had the ugliest shape imaginable, and projects so bad I eventually burnt them in the firepit. Funny thing is, I can remember making them and thinking at the time what a good job I had done. I know that I’ve continued to learn, that my skills have improved over time, and that there is a cumulative (positive) impact that comes from time spent standing in front of a lathe – BUT – I still see myself as an “ok” woodturner at best.

Fast forward to now and somehow I’m an officer in my wood turning club. Wait, what? Don’t you actually have to know what you’re doing first? I was at an officer’s meeting where I was harping about the need to make the club more accessible to new turners and suggested the club needed to do more to attract and retain new, younger, turners. I threw out the idea of creating a training class, targeting people who had just started turning, or had a strong desire to learn, with a secret expectation that someone who actually had skills would pick up the idea and run with it. Everyone agreed with the concept, but no one raised their hand.  Next thing I hear is my voice saying, “I’ll do the class”.

Wait! What did I just say??? They all agreed, ensuring that the village idiot was going on the stage.

The next day I was looking at a blank PowerPoint presentation, trying to figure out what the hell I was thinking in trying to pass myself off as some kind of “teacher”. Me. The idiot. The guy who’s marginal at best. The guy who’s only been turning for 10 years. The guy who still forgets to tighten the tailstock before cranking up the speed on the lathe. What makes me think I know enough to teach? The empty powerpoint just sat there, mocking me.

I took a break and decided to switch tactics. Rather than make one Powerpoint with whatever “wisdom” I had, I decided to make an outline of all the stuff I remembered having to learn back in 2009, then I could group the information into modules and work on just one topic at a time. I figured if I took an honest stab at the initial creation, I could get the guys from the club who were actually competent to help fill in the (many) blanks. That didn’t seem quite so daunting. 7 modules later, I sent the material to some much more experienced turners in the club for review, sat back, and waited for my work to be shredded. It didn’t take long. Very quickly, the responses came back, but all they came back with were minor edits, most likely caused by the English curriculum of my Heyworth public education. Not what I had expected. It made me realize a few things. I must have done a better job than I expected in grouping the information into logical chunks, since there was no feedback concerning the “flow” of the information I was going to present. There was very little feedback about stuff that was missing, so I must have a more comprehensive understanding of the craft than I thought. While I had braced myself for a steady stream of “you should add something on _____”, it never came. That was when I realized that I may not be an “expert”, but somewhere along the line I’ve learned enough to be able to offer a pretty strong overview on how to get started.

I put a blurb out on the club’s public Facebook group (which is open to the public) and was absolutely stunned when 7 people (6 of whom were not already club members) were willing to join the club just to take the class. This is exactly what I had hoped for when I was harping at the officer’s meeting, but it suddenly became “put up or shut up time”.

This class was this past weekend. We started at 9:00, right on time, and the agenda was roughly “I’ll babble on for a couple of hours, break for lunch, do some hands on stuff, and be home by dinner”. That was the plan, anyway, but the only part that held was that we started right on time at 9:00. I was still reviewing slides when we broke for lunch because there was a LOT more discussion than I had anticipated, and we didn’t even get started on the hands on part until well in the afternoon. We finally stopped turning at around 6:30, and I suspect there were a couple students who would have been ok with starting something else about then and continuing to turn.

Yes, it took many hours to get the content for the class created. Yes, it took several hours to pack up all the stuff that I needed to take for the class. Yes, it took several hours to get the room “ready” for the class. Yes, it was a very long day spend standing. BUT… it was absolutely worth it! Initial feedback from those who attended support that the class is going to be seen as a total success. The question from the students wasn’t, “why did you waste my time”, it was “when are we doing this again and how to I get signed up!”

Now, looking back at the journey – from turning a simple bowl with my mentor looking over my shoulder and guiding my efforts, to standing in front of a group of people who believed what I was telling them – it turns out I can add “teacher” to my resume. Who woulda thunk it?

It seems change isn’t always a bad thing!