Throwing like a man

I went to ceramics on Monday after a long hiatus from throwing and it was wonderful to get my hands on clay again. Of course, the clay was so extremely gritty that I pretty much tore off the top layer of skin from my hands, and I am now suffering from chronic dry hands since Monday. But NEVERMIND. It was fun. Tom, my instructor, is a retired engineer, who also teaches kids. He's a great teacher. He also throws like my instructor in Malaysia.. keeping the arms and elbows close to the body. I'm surprised at how well it works. My Malaysian instructor, Bee-Him, was very well meaning, but i think she got frustrated with me because I could never get what she was trying to explain. Perhaps it was the linguistic differences. She had an amazing way of never getting dirty when she threw clay! Amazing! I remember the first time I went to class, and I was demonstrating how I used the wheel, the first thing she said was that I "threw like a man" since I had my legs propped up on bricks and elbows propped up on my knees for leverage.


In any case, I learned this time - what I've been doing incorrectly.. like locking my hands together when centering. The left hand is independent of the right hand. After I got that, throwing became fairly easy, and I centered four pugs of clay. I also remembered how to pull up and throw a tall cylinder. Now to bowls - I need to remember how to do bowls.