I never was a Boy Scout. As a kid, I leaned heavily toward papers, screens, and other indoor pursuits.
Despite this, I was always drawn to camping. Setting up in the forests of British Columbia for a few days, surrounded by trees and fresh air, always felt good. Worthwhile. Right.
While camping was always joyful, there is one aspect I long struggled with: I was bad at knots.
Okay, that is too charitable. I was incompetent at knots. All I could really do is tie the basic learn-it-when-you’re-five knot, repeated twice for good measure. Knot connoisseurs call this a “granny knot,” and it is an objectively bad knot.
These bad knots got me through most of life – they tie a garbage bag until it’s out of sight and out of mind – but when it comes to camping, they are not very helpful. They don’t stay tight, but they’re also hard to untie. They’re not adjustable for tarp lines, and they’re not useful when you only have one end of a rope to work with. They’re just generally bad, and they should feel bad.
I kind of knew this. I had camped every year for decades, and my knots were always a source of frustration. But I was never a Boy Scout. I missed the knot-tying part of life! And my dad moved out when I was a kid. And… I dunno. I’m a computer guy, don’t make me learn knots.
I mean, obviously I could learn knots. I learned long ago that we can learn anything at any age! Being bad at something is just the first step to getting pretty good at it.
But if you try to get started with knots, it’s… a lot. The Ashley Book of Knots documents 3857 of them. I downloaded the Knots 3D app, hoping it would give me some guidance. It explains 201 knots, but specifically calls out the “essential” knots: the mere 18 knots one must learn how to execute in order to survive.
You see, there are knots for binding an object down, hitching a rope to an object, adding a loop to a rope, joining two ropes together, stopping a rope from going through a hole, and making an adjustable tie. The ideal knot can vary depending on the direction of tension, the kind of rope, and the relative size of the ropes you’re using. Plus, many knots can easily be done incorrectly, resulting in a problematic bad version – like our cursed double-tied shoelaces.
But… I just wanna quickly tie tarps. And do basic camping stuff. There are a lot of things I’d rather spend my time mastering than knots! So I went back to ignoring them.
A couple years ago, after one particularly frustrating battle with a large tarp in the rain, I finally realized I’d played myself. By avoiding knot practice for so long, I’d let it become a gremlin in my mind. A thing I was bad at, not as a transitional phase towards being good, or even because I was happy to be bad at it, but because I’d let being bad at it become part of my character.
So, when I got home, I set myself down and learned one single knot. Something that would help with tarping. I spent a couple hours and learned the adjustable Tarbuck Knot.
The Tarbuck Knot. There are many others, but this knot is mine.
The Tarbuck Knot isn’t an ideal knot in any sense. But it’s adjustable, it’s reasonable, and I like it. And by going from knowing nothing – other than “I am bad at this” – to knowing literally anything levelled up my vacation every year. I now have nice little adjustable tarp lines everywhere.
Sure, I sometimes have things tied together with adjustable knots that don’t strictly need to be adjustable. But it’s quick and useful.
I guess the thing I learned – other than how to tie a knot – is that there is nothing so outside your wheelhouse that you can’t go 0 to 1 with it. It’s too easy to dismiss a topic or discipline as not your domain and let your ignorance slowly hinder you. One of the miracles of being human is that we can learn a little bit about everything.
I suppose there’s one other thing I learned. When it comes to the plain knot – the “I’m gonna tie my shoelaces” right over left knot – you should never double-tie it. Instead, tie the second one in reverse, left over right. That upgrades the bad knot into a Square Knot: stronger and easier to untie.
Little things can make big differences.