The Life List: Knot Tying

Author: tracysigler | Posted: August 12th, 2012 | | Tags: knot tying | No Comments »

I have a growing list of things I want to do sometime in my life. The sooner the better for most of them. Some are physically demanding, a few dangerous, and some more mentally challenging. All of them require focus and will power. I’m also realizing they need hard deadlines. I’m not going attempt to schedule out all my activities for the rest of my life. That said, I do think going goal by goal and always having a deadline for next one to conquer is a good idea.

The Ashley Book of Knots

A long time ago I read an interview with high-power CEO who had some esoteric hobbies. Doesn’t matter what they were. He said something that made an impression on me – “If you find something boring it’s because you don’t know enough about it.” If you think baseball, model trains, or maybe even accounting principles are boring I can almost guarantee you don’t know much about those topics.

This brings to me knot tying. Yep, it’s on my list. I know some basics, and last had a refresher several years ago when my son was in Scouts. I decided to find at least 10 interesting and highly useful knots to master. The more I researched and learned, the more I realized there is to learn.

I was somewhat surprised how many people are really into knots, full-on knot nerds. I might be turning into one myself. Post a video about tying a knot and if the Internet trolls don’t agree with your method the sniping will be intense. Of course, there are many ways to tie some knots. For the “Trucker’s Hitch” I found several different methods. I even came across videos of actual truckers tying the knot. They all did it differently. I picked the one that made the most sense to me.

The video below shows a dozen of my favorite knots, bends and hitches. It’s not a how-to video. It’s strictly for me, proof to myself that I got it done.

Below this video I’ve included some of the links and videos that I found either interesting or useful. Be careful. You might learn too much, and get interested enough to add The Ashley Book of Knots to your wishlist.

Enjoy.