Practice techniques?

[RaindropRising]

What are good ways to practice, both when you are away from the torch and at the torch?

I always spin my pencils and pens around like they are punties in odd ways to build up muscle memory.

Anyone have any practice techniques? I need some...

[petto]

hours and hours behind the torch............give it time it will come.

[AWhiskeyDrunk]

I always spin my pencils and pens around like they are punties in odd ways to build up muscle memory.

When I started out, I got into the habit of spinning anything and everything I got my hands on while not on the torch. I still do it to this day. I think it's good practice.

[lucidvisions]

I remember making different sized marbles on the end of 6,8 &10mm rods to spin at home while watching TV.

Josh

[Frankie Hess]

I took a stick of 1", cut it in half and put small eye loops on the end. Then tied string between the two and practiced rotating them simultaneously with and without tension on the string. This help for pulling points, which is something that will serve you well as a technique whether you end up pulling a lot of points or not.

[Icarus]

One thing that I spent a lot of time with is making bales. At first, when I would make pendants, my pendants would be alright, but I'd mess it up at the end with a wonky bale.

So I just started making clear tear drops and practiced making a bale on them. The nice thing about that is, you don't spend a long amount of time to get your piece done (just to mess it up with a bad bale), clear is cheap compared to color, and you can easily do 15-20 of them in an hour. Now most of my bales come out much better, and I've also learned how to fix wonky ones (reheat slowly, pull out a bit, recondense, repeat if needed).

Plus, the teardrops look cool enough that you can give them away or sell them for a few bucks.

Also, learn different techniques to do the same thing. For instance, with bales, there are at least five ways I know of on how to make them. Three are different ways to pull one out (by either heating your pendant and pulling it out or adding a stick of glass, and pulling it out that way). The other two are making a bead and welding that on, or poking it with tungsten. I tend to prefer pulling out the bale, but each has it's own application, and the end result of each looks different, so I'm glad I spent the time to learn both (especially since most of my time is spent making pendants).

[nicko0]

recently i started weight training my spinning muscles and training spinning switch and reverse.

(i overused those muscle groups over the years and developed scare tissue in the muscles, mild tendonitis, and some old skateboarding repetitive injuries are starting to come back on me.)

blowing glass to me is like a sport and i should have been training to be in top physical shape.

i am just following basic muscle building and training techniques and applying them as best i can to my needs.