What activity are you a natural at?
Asked by
jonsblond (
44214
)
November 30th, 2009
Have you ever tried a new activity that you excelled at and wondered what could have been if you tried at a younger age?
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74 Answers
I got really into basketball around 19. We had a team and did weekly games. I was pretty good at getting the ball in the hoop from a distance. My defense is shit. I could have been better if I started earlier.
And I kick ass at bowling. That came naturally.
I’m a really good listener.
I was apparently a prodigy at tennis when I was very young. I went to a beginner’s class when I was 5 or 6 with some of the other kids in my neighborhood. The teacher asked my mom if he could personally teach me because I was “incredibly good.” When we got home my mom asked me what I thought about tennis, and all I said was, “I don’t like it, it’s boring, I don’t want to go again.”
I don’t think I haven’t not been good at something I tried. I pick… walking in high heels lol
Drawing what I see.
My father told me that from about third grade, I could acurately draw anything he put in front of me. While they always bought me art supplies, I never took a single art class (there were none in public school and my folks never looked into it privately).
Years later, I passed on acceptance into Architectural College (long story) and decided at the last minute to apply to Art School. I slapped together an admissions portfolio in a month (25 pieces in slide format).
All late applicants had to stand on stage (in the college auditorium) while your slides were projected on a giant screen behind you. A panel of four professors shot questions at you regarding each slide.
Every other kid (about fifty) had an extensive resumè of art classes since they were little kids and knew all the proper terminology.
When it was my turn, I basically said, “Uh, I don’t know. I just draw stuff and read comics – and, ya know…stuff.”
Miraculously, I was one of the 30% of applicants they accepted that year. I still have no clue how that happened.
Writing.
Soccer.
Skiing.
Video games.
(In order of importance.)
I ended up be rather good in Archery. All those video games.
Driving. I wonder how good i would be if i started when i was a child?
I went horse riding for the first time when I was 27 and the lady couldn’t believe I had never been on one before, she said I was a natural – excellent posture, at one with the horse, good foot work… It all felt totally wrong to me and alien!! But was fun nevertheless!
Wood carving is my amazing talent. From the minute I picked up the angle grinder, I could see a creature hiding inside the chunk of tree and I can liberate them!
I don’t know how I know how to do it, it just happens.
I also inherited from my grandfather, an ability to handle animals. I have formal training as well, but an innate understanding of what must be done to achieve the desired result.
GQ by the way!
I know im good at learning any instrument but my parents never got me fully into it and i never put the effort too. I wish my parents put me into something atleast..
I’ve always been pretty good at basketball without ever putting too much effort into it, of course it helps that I’m 6’4”.
The only thing I would say I am a natural at is singing. I have had training for the past 10 years but the talent was always there. However, I have known about this ability since I was very small as I was always picked to sing for the school plays and concerts. I would love to discover something now that I am talented at.
I started making stone pipes (pipestone, soapstone, steatite and alabaster) on a whim about four years ago, am self taught and still come up with new tool ideas and techniques which often surprise me. If I had started younger there is little doubt in my mind that I could have made a nice living at making and selling pipes and could have avoided the stresses and long hours of my former high pressure job (tho I was successful at it). And, I probably would have branched out and done some sculpting (nudes, with live models, of course). See ya…..Gary/wtf
@lynneblundell Let’s get together. On second thought, maybe better not.:-)
I could always pick up a new musical instrument and figure it out pretty easily. I switched instruments every season in high school band just to try them all out. However, I wouldn’t say that I was really good at any of them. Just learned them intermediately rather quickly.
@ubersiren: I’m the same way. The only instrument I’ve ever picked up that I had NO aptitude for is the guitar. I can play a C-scale. The end.
@janbb: LOL4rl!! Me too!
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In college I took a course in Voice & Diction, where we learned the Phonetic Alphabet. Phonetics came naturally to me, and I aced every test without studying. This prompted me to transfer into a Speech-Language Pathology program, but Phonetics don’t have much clinical application, other than articulation therapy, which didn’t appeal to me. So that ‘knack’ is rather useless. However, it did lead me to Audiology, which was a required course in that program, and turned out to be a career to which I am very well suited, and which I still enjoy tremendously, 21 years after taking that first class!
Painting and most artistic pursuits. I’ve never had a minute of a lesson. But I take to it like a fishy in the ocean. Or so I’ve been told.
And I was pretty excellent at most gymnastics and dance.
@rooeytoo Woodcarving? I’ve always been interested in that.
Well, I think I’ve learned to ‘speak’ Dog reasonably well. :-p
Reading, spelling, and vocabulary. I guess this could have helped me if I wanted to become a teacher but fate had other ideas for me.
Nothing. I’ve never been a “natural” at anything.
I’ve always been able to pick up most new things rather quickly, but tend to get board with them and move on to the next thing. I would have to say sports when I was younger.If I would have stuck with them I may have been great
Beer drinking. I’m really good at that.
Is sarcasm an activity?
See what I did there? Yeah.
*spelling
oh…I see what you did there :)
I took to French kissing very naturally… I was a Freshman in High School, and my bf started making out with me and I just followed his lead, thoroughly enjoying the experience… a couple of my bffs walked past, and I overheard one say to the other, “When did she learn to do that?” In the 29 years since, every time someone exchanges smooches with me, they compliment me.
—@deni: Is there often a need for you to herd cows (or other mammels)?
I am being completely serious when I say slacking. Other than that I do have a great sense of humor and I am a natural at cracking jokes.
@deni That is so cool! My husband is running cows today but he hates it.
@IBERnineD….It has to be the Catlinite (pipestone) I buy from Native Americans who quarry the stone from the Pipestone National Shrine in Pipestone, Minnesota. Pipestone deposits are also found in Arizona, and I believe Utah, in the United States (a black pipestone, called steatite, is found in the eastern U.S.), The shrine is actually a possession of the National Park Service, but is administered by the Pipestone National Shrine Association, in essence a group of Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux who seek to further the historical use of pipestone as a carving material. The stone is quarried by hand and only a few tons are quarried each year (the stone is not in danger of depletion at its present rate of quarrying). See ya….Gary/wtf
I can back up whattherfluther on his pipe making ability. He mailed me one….
One day I go out to check the mail and there is a large padded envelope from someone I didn’t recognize. I open it on the street since I am curious. First thing I pull out is a stone pipe. I was totally confused as to why someone would send me a pipe. I shove it back in the envelope and run back into my RV.
And then once I looked in the rest of the stuff and saw all the CD’s of classical music and the note it clicked that it was from Gary.
Lovely pipe. I have only smoked weed a few times in the last ten years. And one of those was with his pipe.
@johnpowell…..Well, since you “outed” yourself, for your information, you were the second of fourteen fluther recipients (all names confidential with me and each a one way gift) to date, with two more going out very soon and two more pending. I’m pleased you had an opportunity to try it and trust it functioned well. See ya…..Gary/wtf
Computer games. I seem to pick them up rather quickly, much to the dismay of friends I play against.
Languages.
And if it counts, my Logic class. I’m pretty good at that.
The most useful thing that comes naturally to me is directions. I can’t just give directions, but if you have me with you, you will never get lost. Or if you do get lost, it was your own damn fault, and I will happily get you un-lost very quickly. I just have this preternatural sense of direction, even in places I’ve never been before. My dad is exactly the same way. Neither of us has any idea how it works; it just does.
My skill with anagrams tends to impress people. Not really useful, but still a lot of fun. In the same sort of vein, I can’t recall ever meeting a logic puzzle I couldn’t solve. Often I really can’t explain to anyone else how I got the answers because my mind just zips around while I’m doing them and if I slow down I wind up confused. And I’m also a bit quicker than most people when it comes to sudoku, because I’m a synaesthete and numbers have color for me, which gives me a little advantage.
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, the most useful thing that comes naturally to me is probably, um… using semantics to my advantage. That, combined with just a little diplomacy has made people comment that I can tell someone to go to hell in a way that makes them look forward to the trip.
Also, I’m really modest and humble.
Another back-up for @whatthefluther‘s pipe making skills! He does beautiful work!
Organization
Eavesdropping/Memory
Like @facade, I’m a natural for walking, running, climbing and whatever else in high heels
I feel my greatest skill has been as a sideline player, positioning and helping to advance others. Sometimes I’ve been well paid for it.
I would probably kill myself in heels. I can hardly even walk in sneakers.
Wasting time on the internet.
finding humor in the worst of situations.
I’m a natural at procrastinating!
i’m a natural at being interested in other people. :( i hate it sometimes honestly.
i’m also a natural at posting on internet msgbrdz
There is quite a call for herders in western pa…but really I help my friend sometimes. They have a huge dairy farm….those cows love me
@whatthefluther I have heard of your pipes! I don’t smoke anything, but I sure am good at admiring them! The catlinite sounds lovely! I’m always interested in materials.
Public speaking, and cooking
I can pick out melodies of a song on a piano pretty quickly. I wonder how I would have turned out if I’d been able to take lessons as a child.
@MacBean: Well, the name I was christened with is Rip (as in Rip Van Winkle), so I might have an edge.
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