It’s all online! Spring, 91 rope practice activities, 13 foundational topics that takes you from the 1st basic knot to complex ties with detours in developing core skills and experimenting with different mindsets. There are different ways to build a learning program but I’m very happy with how this has evolved. First some core technique, a base to get your creativity going. Then some classic ties, progressively more complex and more restrictive. Then back to the basics, and then progress through core skills that allow rope to get sexier and sexier with each chapter.

Early January came the idea to post a list of activities each week, therefore building the program progressively ahead of the full writing. It ended up being a better idea that I thought. It’s a constant beat, it doesn’t require as much effort as writing a full activity, and I’ve been getting a lot of constructive feedback on it. Now that the summaries for Spring are complete, I can take a step back and take a look on the whole thing. I really feel like each week build on the previous.

Embarking on Summer means changing things up. I’m discovering that each season should have its own approach and the structure will need to change. The one line challenges worked well for spring, but Summer is more visual, harder to describe, pictures would work better than words. The whole content of spring already had some meat to it when I started in January, Summer is still very bare-bone. The idea of doing a body position study has been proven in a few classes that I have thought and attended, but I need to lab this out more to be able to publish. Good thing I’m finally back home, and have more time to tie.

Meanwhile, I’ve been struggling with writing the full content. This whole encyclopedia vibe and the desire to be complete and accurate is messing me up. I do feel confident with the current structure: Title – Concept description – technical tutorial – practical tutorial – practice time – ressources – Next! But the amount of work is just getting out of hand. If I manage to get “The Chest” out in March it’s going to be right on the finish line. I keep thinking the next chapter is going to be easier, and it never is. Ah ah ah!

Once I finish the full write up I always end up rewriting the summary. There is just to much learning that happen when writing it up that it can be upgraded, more work for the better.

To be honest, I also had less time to work on the project than expected so far this year, my record for consecutive days in Quebec City has been 12 days. Work travel, Europe trip, NARIX in Ohio, then NDC in Montreal, going back to my hometown for family emergency, attending a work conference abroad with a little detour to see some ropey friends. And it hasn’t been 3 full months yet. Lots of good stuff, lots of inspiring moments, which also mean more work. Because I absolutely need to include aspect from this gender empowering ties session in the chest tie chapter. How can I complain about having too many inspiring friends?!!

So big push this week-end, finish the chest chapter, get started with summer summaries, also Spring is getting close to 300 pages, it’s exciting to see everything come together.

Please keep on sending feedback! What is your favorite week from Spring?