Lessons from the forge #2: Learning from each blow.
Thought blacksmithing was for people with big muscles, smashing their way to creativity? Think again. Just like any skilled endeavour it's about careful attention and sensitivity.
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The most common thing people say to me when I tell them I practice blacksmithing is: “You must have a really strong right arm.”
I think this comes from equating metalwork with masculinity - a certain version of it, at least, where the blacksmith is a kind of 'Netflix Vikings’ character, tousled hair, stripped to the waist, greased-up muscles bulging.
If you’ve met me, you’ll probably already be laughing, but if you haven’t let’s just say this - Thor, I am not.
The second most common thing they say is: “It must be great for getting your anger out.”
Again, this implies that blacksmithing is about unbridled strength and force, magically transforming your pent up feelings into handcrafted objects.
Sure, if you’re trying to punch and drift the eye of an axe - which means trying to drive one smaller bit of metal through another, enormous lump of metal - you have to be putting some serious welly into your hammer blows.
I would know - I hand-forged a pretty hefty carving axe last November and I’m certain the work involved contributed to a back injury that had me wincing and groaning every time I tried to do up my shoelaces.
A hundred years or so back, most forges would have had a few ‘boys’ working alongside the smith, and one of their jobs would be sledging - taking it in turns to wield sledgehammers for the heavy work, while their boss held the piece and called the shots.
These days, that work tends to be done by a hydraulic press or powerhammer, not least because in a world of Amazon-everything, it’s just not feasible to be taking hours (or days) over a small number of objects that can be picked up for next-to-nothing online.
All of the above is just a very long way to say: working a piece of steel, skilfully, is not about using tension and excessive force.
It is how everyone starts out, of course. Through the way we’re taught to think about physical effort - through PE lessons at school, for example - most of us think that when we perform an action we do it in a very controlled manner, using only the limb closest to the object (more about that particular fallacy in a future post).
Instead, over time you learn that you have to hold the hammer lightly. Gripping too hard as you work puts unnecessary tension through the muscles and tendons, which is referred through the elbow, shoulders, back and hips.
You learn that instead of holding the hammer tightly and forcing it down on the workpiece, you set the direction of it at the top of your swing and then let it go.
If you’ve lined it up correctly and you’re holding the hammer at just the right angle, then gravity will do the rest of the work for you.
But here’s the thing: the only way you know if you’re doing it well, is by carefully watching the results and asking: Is the metal moving in the way I need it to?
At first it seems almost impossible to tell. You’re trying to adjust your eyes to see small changes in the surface of a material that’s rapidly cooling and changing colour, in a dimly lit workshop, all while mentally holding on to what it is you’re trying to make in the first place.
Each strike leaves a mark and spreads the metal outward from wherever you have hit, literally having a ripple effect.
This is what makes it different to other materials, like wood. Hot metal moves much more like plasticine and I sometimes get people to hit the gooey stuff with small hammers at the kitchen table, before coming to work with me in the forge.
For any beginner, it feels very hit or miss. You just swing the hammer, hope for the best and when you inevitably make bit of a mess, carry on whacking it until it’s roughly how you need it to be.
This is where force and tension gets in the way, again - if you’re swinging too hard, you’ll move the metal too quickly and inaccurately. That will that mean you’ll have thinned it out too much in some places, which you might not be able to ‘make good’.
As you work on smaller and more delicate pieces, the stakes get higher and you have to develop a better sense of the impact each blow makes and immediately use that visual feedback to alter and adjust the initiation of the next hammer strike.
It’s not just the effort put into that initiation, it’s the careful shift of the hammer face backward or forward and from side-to-side that dictates what happens when it strikes your hot steel.
Watching my teachers and mentors, you can see that this becomes intuitive. The feedback loop is still there it’s combined with their experience of having done the process thousands of time before.
They are so used to the work that their whole body knows exactly what to do to get the result they need although still, whether working at my skill level or theirs, the odd pause is usually required. Every so often you stop striking, carefully looking at the piece, possibly cocking your head to see it from another angle, in a different light before adjusting your next few blows.
Using that information, off you go again.
This has to become an intuitive, not intellectual process because every second you take to think and weigh up what to do next, the work is rapidly cooling.
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When I’m approaching any situation at home or in my work coaching and training, holding on too tightly always leads to unintended and unwelcome consequences. Sometimes with an impact that can’t be undone.
Say that I think my son has been inconsiderate and has to understand how his behaviour affects others, or I can see a client would benefit from gaining an insight that I think they need.
I set out with the idea that I’m one step ahead, that I already know what needs to happen and the best way to make that happen is to force it myself - usually having fooled myself into thinking that it’s the ‘right’ thing to do.
It turns out my son wasn’t being inconsiderate at all - there was much more going on than I was aware of and he had good reasons for his behaviour.
My client doesn’t fully relate to my insight but feels they ought to - they nod, write it down, feel like there’s something useful there but has had no opportunity to discover what they needed to, for themselves.
So my child ends up hurt and angry, and I feel bad. My client gets the sense that this is less about them and more about me - or gets the idea that I’m the one holding the wisdom, they are there to be taught.
Neither outcome is good for me, or for the other.
What’s more, exerting my control - hard or soft - all the time over the different parts of my work and life is exhausting. Eventually some part of me wears out and gives up.
What I aim for, and becomes more intuitive the older I get is to set the intention - like that moment the hammer is at the top of it’s swing - and let go.
I recognise the frustration boiling up in my parenting situation and instead of feeling like I just need to fix that, I focus on my next best step.
I ask my son what’s going on, and I leave it there.
Instead of telling my client what I think is going on, I ask them for their sense of it.
I shut up, and I listen.
The hammer hits the metal, the question sinks in, and I do my best to tune into what’s happening now.
I recognise that each action I take has an impact and influence - one which I can’t anticipate but I can get ever-better and noticing.
I listen, I watch, I pay careful attention and then I respond.
Recognising that we only have very little influence over every situation I find myself in, particularly when someone else is involved, prevents me from making the mistake of trying to take it under my control.
Because people are endlessly complicated and unpredictable - despite our shared humanity and common behaviours.
What I say or do to one person will have a completely different impact on another.
The alternative is going in with the blinkers on, realising it hasn’t gone how you imagined and just raising the hammer to smash the steel again, in the vain hope you won’t end up with a ugly lump of metal.
Which I will.
This is not only a much more measured and discerning way of relating in any given conversation but it’s far more enjoyable.
I recognise that what we are doing together is a sum of both of us. I act, you react, I adjust. And we go again.
It becomes something creative and sensitive, allowing me to explore things that I could never have anticipated, rather than putting myself in a position of the person who knows what needs to happen and the person who will make it happen.
Just like developing your skill as a blacksmith, parenting, coaching (or whatever you do) in this way allows me to develop greater intuition about how my actions land. I don’t have to spend so much time slowing myself down, weighing up what I do next and then giving it a go. I can become ever more sensitive and responsive.
And, like the blacksmith, from time-to-time I do need to pause and look at what’s happening from all angles before deciding what’s next.
Whether its steel or people, everything moves in its own way. Life - and work, whether in the forge or over a table (or Zoom, these days) - is far more fun when it becomes a piece of creative work we do together.
If you’d like to come and learn the fundamentals of blacksmithing and bladesmithing while working through your big questions, or you’re just looking for coaching support or to learn about working with conflict, drop me an email: hello@maxstjohn.com