Analogies

[primeideal]

Tower bells are like cars because I regularly surround myself with people who know how to operate them, whereas I'm going "this is hundreds of pounds of metal and you treat it with the reverence of a loaded weapon that could seriously hurt someone?? you expect me to control this??" and after things inevitably go wrong I freak out which causes me to be even more anxious and inept, and also I look like I'm about fifteen, which I'm not.

I don't know what handbells correspond to. I like handbells.

Comments

[isis]

Bicycles?

[primeideal]

Hee, that kind of works! I don't bike as much as I probably should, though.

[landofnowhere]

I totally get this! When I was learning to handle tower bells I was twitchy and anxious and it just made everything worse. I did eventually get through this, and now I like (and miss) tower bells.

I learned to drive a car at the age of 33 after moving to the midwest, and there were absolutely moments in my driving lessons where I was telling myself "I can ring Plain Bob Major, I can do this!"

Handbells I am not very good at, but I lack practice. ("I have to keep track of 2 bells now, and the bells don't have momentum?") When ringing on virtual bells (which is pretty much all I do now, I need to actually make plans to get to a tower sometimes) I'd rather ring 1 bell than 2.

Enjoy the AGM (assuming that's where you're at)!

[primeideal]

Aww, well that's reassuring! And yes, I am at the AGM and enjoying the opportunities to ring handbells. Some of my virtual friends are very picky about "when we're doing virtual handbells you need to do two at a time, this is a handbell group!" and like...we're on the computer.

[landofnowhere]

I've never been to an AGM (when the Boston AGM happened I had just moved away and was 2 months into my new job), but I've been to Quebec ringing weekends, and I think there's something about the combination of ringing on unfamiliar bells and being coached by unfamiliar people that can add extra stress to the tower ringing experience. (The ringing community is full of lovely people, but every so often I've gotten a stander behind whose style doesn't mesh with mine, and you never know when that's going to happen because you don't know those people.)

[primeideal]

The extra stress isn't helping, but I freak out plenty with familiar bells and/or people too! :p

(Someone, not me, dislocated their shoulder yesterday, which is not calming my nerves either.)

[landofnowhere]

Oh no! I got hit by a flailing rope and pulled a muscle in my left arm in my second month of learning to handle a bell.

I think it was good for me that my ringing trajectory involved learning to handle a bell first over the nine months I spent studying in the UK, at the end of which I was at the level of ringing rounds and call changes -- and then having to relearn everything when I took up ringing again 7 years later -- it took me a few months to get back to the level I left off at, and then a few more months after that until I was considered ready to ring without someone watching over me. I am not a fast learner for anything requiring physical coordination, but I am a stubborn one.

[landofnowhere]

(After seeing choco_frosh's (locked) report on the Raleign bells, it sounds like it's not just you, those bells are awful.)