[TheForge] Speaking of age...

[Grant Marcoux]

Folks:  Old geezer at 50...wow...I turned 50 this January.  I told my wife
that I woke up one morning and realized that I have a past.  I still feel
like I'm in my 20s.  The gray moustache tells the tale, but I can run 7.5
Miles at a stretch (52 minutes/treadmill), bench press 300+ and place my
palms on the deck from a standing position.  I have nothing to complain
about.  I'll be smithing for a while yet, I hope.  Gotta take care of the
machine.--

I have taught students as young as 10, and adults as old as 65.  Dan is
right about the numbers of "just wanna try it out" folks as opposed to those
who are hooked from day one.  Yes, and there ARE more places to learn
'smithing than ever before...I get many students from the tech world and
from medicine.-------Grant



-----Original Message-----
From: theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:theforge-bounces at mailman.qth.net]On Behalf Of Dan Crowther
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 6:53 AM
To: munlaw2 at hcsmail.com; Sponsored by ABANA
Subject: RE: [TheForge] Speaking of age...


My wife and I teach blacksmithing to the younger generation weekly;
partly through a program we run at a local art studio and also
through a summer program.  By the time a year is done we've taught
roughly 60-80 "kids" (ages 12-17) basic blacksmithing.  As Ron said
some of them keep at and some don't, just like any other "teen
interest".  We typically see about 25% keep coming back for more and more.

The biggest hindrance to these students (and even for our adult
students), is a place to practice.  We can teach, say, hammer control
for hours, but the student really just needs "hammer time" to
practice outside of class.  Parents are often not eager to let their
child build a forge so they can practice, for a variety of reasons
(some of which can be quite legit).

When I hear people talk about blacksmithing being a "dying art", they
obviously aren't taking a look around.  There are more opportunities
to learn blacksmithing NOW than there has been in the past 50 years!


Dan Crowther
http://www.oakandacorn.com
http://celticclans.oakandacorn.com

At 09:15 AM 2/2/2007, you wrote:
>Andy,
>It's a matter of perspective: To me, anyone under 50 is a "youngun". As for
>really younguns, there are kids in green coal or beginner classes 10 yrs
old
>who listen, do what you tell 'em, and have good hammer control, and some
>older one's who think it's fun to try to destroy everything. Yes, things do
>look promising for the coming generation; we have some really good kids in
>our group and a bunch of us old buzzards to teach 'em. Some will stick with
>it and some will lose interest as in every thing else.
>
>Ron C



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