It can be a small skill.

The last thing I learned to do was whistle. Never could whistle my whole life, and tutorials and friends never could help me.

So, for the last month or two, I just sort of made the blow shape then spam-tried different “tongue configurations” so to speak – whenever I had free time. Monkey-at-a-typewriter type shit. It was more an absentminded thing than a practice investment.

Probably looked dumb as hell making blow noises. Felt dumb too (“what? you can’t whistle? just watch”), but I kept at it like a really really low-investment… dare I attract self-help gurus… habit.

Eventually I made a pitch, then I could shift the pitch up a little, then five pitches, then Liebestraum, then the range of a tenth or so. Skadoosh. Still doing it now lol.

(Make of this what you will: If I went the musician route my brain told me to, then I would’ve gotten bored after 1 minute of major scales. When I was stuck at only having five pitches, I had way more longevity whistle-blowing cartoonish Tom-and-Jerry-running-around chromaticisms than failing the “fa” in “do re mi fa”.)

So, Lemmings: What was the last skill you learned? And further, what was the context/way in which you learned it?

        • Done.

          • How dangerous really is your job?
          • What happens if you get injured? Insurance/etc.?
          • What differences do you have when performing for adults vs. children? (since you mention child-friendly, I assume that means you don’t do things that might scare them)
          • What are your least tame skills?
          • How did you get into performing in the sideshow? Mentors, training, string of coincidences?
          • Favorite memory?
          • Any frightening memories?

          Sorry for the wall x)

          • How dangerous really is your job?

            Very. The name of the game is risk mitigation. Most acts put only the performer at risk, but fire puts the entire theater at risk, which is why I carry insurance and follow strict protocol. I perform at a historic landmark so they don’t allow just anyone to use fire there.

            What happens if you get injured? Insurance/etc.?

            I have a day job with insurance, but not everyone is so lucky and performers do get hurt sometimes. Injuries are bad because they mean taking time off to heal (a friend of mine is currently recovering from a broken rib and can’t perform). Minor cuts and burns are part of the job, you learn to manage them and move on, so we’re all covered in scars. Again, it’s all about risk mitigation.

            What differences do you have when performing for adults vs. children? (since you mention child-friendly, I assume that means you don’t do things that might scare them)

            Adult oriented shows often have more nudity/burlesque and more graphic acts, whereas kids get more traditional circus or campy horror. For example, children might see fire eating and mousetrap, while adults might get a bed of nails or human pincushion.

            What are your least tame skills?

            Tongue splits ALWAYS freak people out. So does anything involving a power drill.

            How did you get into performing in the sideshow? Mentors, training, string of coincidences?

            I started as a fire performer and got into it through fire eating. Eventually, one thing led to another, and I was invited to join America’s last permanently housed circus sideshow. Everything blew up from there.

            Favorite memory?

            We’re a close-knit group, almost like family, which is special since we’re a dying breed. My favorite memories are probably the things other performers have said about me while introducing me to the stage. We love to gush about each other.

            Any frightening memories?

            Earlier this year, one of my close friends tried to take her own life on one of my performance days. My phone blew up to the point where I couldn’t even see my GPS. My girlfriend stepped in to help thankfully. We got a group chat going, sent people to find her, got her to the hospital, and she spent a week in the psych ward.

            After that, I hosted a fundraiser show that raised $1k to get her back on her feet. The event also brought a lot of people together.


            If you read this far, here’s my IG

    • It’s places like that where “I don’t know what I don’t know.”

      • How did you realize you were squatting wrong?
      • How did you figure out the right way?

      e.g. dumbbell row-like exercises all feel odd and disbalanced to me but idk what idk (is it form? body type? ask a doctor/trainer? check an authoritative blog that isnt SEO-spicy enough for search engines?)

      • Well, I kept trying to squat like most people do trying so hard not to lean forward and kept falling over on my ass lol. That and also I couldn’t feel the work in my glutes, only quads. Are you familiar with the way little children squat? I still can’t do it but getting better every day by practicing.

        Turns out I have super tight hips and that prevented me of hinging correctly, plus the aformentioned femur/torso ratio.

        I hired a personal trainer in january of this year to help me out with stuff and she helped me correct my form. Now I use a pair of those foam wedge things under my heels to prop me up in a better position and I can squat way better. It was a game changer.

      • I’m kind of an electrical engineer by training. Experience taking electronics apart, but this was my first mechanical device. It was quite the journey and I only saw some general videos about people taking combustion engines apart. It’s a pretty simple device really, but still a new skill. :)

  • I’m in the middle of it right now but I’ve got an old plug in oil heater that I decided to pop open the cover and have a look-see before condemning myself to buying another for probably $100ish.

    I am so far from comfortable working on electronics or woodworking or traditional guy stuff, but this radiator is old in the sense of it’s built like a brick shit house and hooked up to a simple mechanical switch with 3 wires, one of which is the power cord that finally disintegrated from the heat.

    It’s so simply built even I can feel confident swapping out for a new mechanical switch and some new wiring.

  • Probably proper knife skills. I’ve always been pretty good with a knife, but I’ve been taking my time to really refine the skill as I do a lot of cooking for large groups so speed is extremely useful. I honestly learnt a lot of it indirectly by just watching how chefs use them, but for the theory and all that I started with Lan Lam’s video on knife skills over at the America’s Test Kitchen yt channel.

    I’m about to be going to an event where I’ll be cooking nearly a thousand meals a day for three days, so I’m going to be putting it to the test. The one nice thing is we’ll have a team of volunteers to help with ingredient prep, so it should be okay but daunting none the less.

      • I kept seeing more and more things in Cyrillic especially because of the war in Ukraine, so gradually learned more and more of it online, now I know at least all the letters used in Russian. Now I can read Cyrillic, although only very slowly, basically I do it like an elementary school child.

        I live in Austria for context, no neighboring countries with the Cyrillic alphabet.

  • I recently learned how to use DAX expressions in Microsoft Power BI and how you can use them in measures so you can do all sorts of changes to datasheets so that when you make dashboards and data visualizations, it all looks super pro without complicated workarounds to make your data present nicely.

    My employer didn’t read the description of the training and just signed me and a whole bunch of other people up. It was a certification course meant to train for the final exam but most of my coworkers who were there hadn’t even opened Power BI up before. I was just at the right experience level for this course though, as I’ve used PowerBI at an end user level for a couple years now.

      • I find it so silly. Compared to Excel, Power BI is so easy. Yet, fancy graphs that move other graphs when you click a specific bar is all any senior manager wants to see. They don’t even understand what the data is. They don’t even care! Pretty bars go brrrrrr in their minds. Whatever. I get paid.

  • I joined a climbing gym after learning how to climb, belay and rappel for a week. I love learning knots, so that’s fun, but also all the terminology and techniques. Plus there’s a whole social aspect to it (climbers tend to be pretty friendly). Turning out to be a healthy and exciting new hobby!

    Also @fool I remember learning to whistle as a kid–my dad was slightly annoyed he had shown me how to do it because I wouldn’t stop whistling the main themes from Indiana Jones and Star Wars

    • Climbing is great, because people tend to be friendly, and also competitive. But not competitive against each other, but rather against their own projects/goals. Makes for a super inclusive and comfortable social scene.

    • Cool! I’ll probably try climbing some day, since sportsball never motivated me to stick on. (And bc of the functional muscle vs. gym muscle stereotype.)

      As for infinite Indiana Jones… I’m trying my best to keep the songs I whistle different haha