My two are:
Making sourdough. I personally always heard like this weird almost mysticism around making it. But I bought a $7 starter from a bakery store, and using just stuff in my kitchen and cheap bread flour I’ve been eating fresh sourdough every day and been super happy with it. Some loafs aren’t super consistent because I don’t have like temperature controlled box or anything. But they’ve all been tasty.
Drawing. I’m by no means an artist, but I always felt like people who were good at drawing were like on a different level. But I buckled down and every day for a month I tried drawing my favorite anime character following an online guide. So just 30 minutes every day. The first one was so bad I almost gave up, but I was in love with the last one and made me realize that like… yeah it really is just practice. Years and years of it to be good at drawing things consistently, quickly, and a variety of things. But I had fun and got something I enjoyed much faster than I expected. So if you want to learn to draw, I would recommend just trying to draw something you really like following a guide and just try it once a day until you are happy with the result.
I agree with sourdough, I didn’t even buy a starter just made one from unbleached white flour and water, it been going strong or more than 15 years now. Other home fermentation projects too, many don’t really involve any special equipment. But the secret people don’t realize about sourdough is its EASIER to work with, than commercial yeast. Less fussy, less sticky, more robust, just slower. And slower is easier.
Gardening there was some cost involved for me but I have been consistently shocked because I used to kill plants but the food garden is doing great. Not idyllic, sometimes bugs eat all of something, or birds do, or this year my dogs are the late season watermelon (bitches!) but in general it doesn’t take a lot of knowledge, I look for sturdy heat tolerant hybrids or plants native to hot wet places, and have gotten fennel, broccoli, cauliflower, tomatoes, okra, collard greens, mustard greens, jalapenos, different lettuces, a few other veggies and the watermelon all this food for not much cost beyond what we are already paying to have a house with a backyard.
Combat Sports.
I got bored of the gym, so I decided to take BJJ. Grappling is really fucking hard, as in you have no clue what you’re doing, and no idea how to stop someone from fucking you up on the ground. It’s one of those sports that you can spend six months doing and barely get a feel of wtf is going on.
Two years later, I was somewhat capable, and got my blue belt. I then noticed that I was actually pretty good compared to the white belts. Things started to make sense, and while I got absolutely fucked up by everyone else, the positions made sense. I’m now a purple belt, and the other day I did an iminari roll and a rolling guillotine on a white belt during a spar, just because I could.
In the middle of this, I started doing MMA. Striking is also hard, especially when you mix with wrestling/grappling. I came in as the guy that was fucking useless with striking, but when we took 45 mins to do some grappling the coach was wondering why the new thirty-something idiot was tapping everyone. Eventually we found my level, and he gave me some solid pointers on how to work on my striking to bring it up to level with my grappling.
All in all, combat sports seem pretty scary, but getting into it is just a matter of turning up and giving it a try. You’ll feel like a useless idiot for months, but before you know it people will be asking you wtf you just did to them…right after you had had the same conversation with the person that’s better than you.
I posted here about getting into armored MMA. I can echo this sentiment. Feeling yourself getting better, and flooring the complete newbies from time to time is a wonderful experience. Or getting one good, clean takedown on your instructor, even if it was mostly a fluke. Having a good instructor makes all the difference, too. Someone that can explain the how, and the why.
It really does sound scary, and yeah - people get hurt. But that’s not the goal of the sport, at least not like, seriously. People look out, and at least in my sport, the first few classes were all how to be safe.
It also surprised me just now hard even striking can be, like you said. It sounds super easy, just got em with the sword. Or your hand. But there’s so much to just throwing a good hit, let alone while someone else is trying the same thing.
So yeah, 10/10, if anyone’s at all interested in a combat sport, take the dive.
Ham radio. The license is now just a multiple choice quiz–no morse code needed. There are apps that go through the questions in a flashcard style, and if you go through that for 30 minutes a day for a month, you’ll pass no problem.
Entry level radios have gotten cheap, too. $25 Bafangs are the butt of jokes around ham radio, and yet everyone seems to have at least one. The older models had harmonic transmission issues that violated FCC requirements, but there’s newer ones that clean it up and cost about the same.
no Morse code
Found the American, even before you mentioned the FCC. I’ve been wondering how much of an effect the different amateur radio licensing requirements have had on the airwaves. For myself, the main thing holding me back is my lack of confidence in passing the analogue electronics portion of the exam.
“Easy” being relative… 3d printing. Especially with modern printers. Leather working is easier than i thought although i won’t say I’m awesome at it. Probably the easiest thing i’ve learned is homebrewing. 90% is cleaning. Outside of that if you can boil water you can brew. Extract kits make it super easy. From there you can go all grain or stick ti extracts. Or if you want super easy, go mead. Honey, water, yeast. That’s it.
Weaving. I though I’d have to get a huge-ass loom and all that, until I found a guide for making a small cardboard thingy with notches for the warp threads to get started, and later got one of those small kids’ looms.
