See One. Do One. Teach One.

When I first joined CGC my Blender skills sucked. I still feel they suck, but I've learned a lot from this site and other tutorial courses out there. I'm not going to quit my day job, but I've got enough of the basics down that I can muddle my way through most things, even if it takes me much longer than I'd like.

One of my frustrations I was running into was I wanted to use my skills for 3D printing, but most of the courses out there focused on render-ready vs printer-ready. Even downloading free or purchased models often weren't optimized for 3D printing with awkward overhangs or intersecting faces and would sometimes need hours of clean up before printing.

I'm a believer that if the content isn't out there that you want, chances are somebody else wants it too so why not make it yourself. I'm assuming there is a bit of that in all of us here, we want to create something that didn't exist before. But the sound of my own recorded voice drives me insane so narrating a video for YouTube is not something I'm motivated to do. One on one coaching and live presentations are part of my day job so I've gotten comfortable with that and wanted to try teaching a live class.

After some digging, I reached out to our library and asked if they would be interested in hosting an introduction class on Blender and they were eager to have me come try out. It was a learning experience for everyone and the first class was a disaster. The laptops in the classroom were still running 2.79 so I was ill-prepared for everything trying to remember where everything used to be after months of working in 2.8 interface. I hadn't realized how much I rely on having a number pad which they didn't have. But by the second class things had gone much smoother. And now that we've worked through what works, what doesn't, and what to change we are planning for 4 more classes spread across March and April.

Just like starting to learn Blender, I'm just learning to teach and I suck at it, but it is going to get better through practice. The side effect  is it continues to make me better at Blender as well. You can learn from seeing somebody doing something and learn my by doing it yourself. You can learn even more by teaching it to somebody new because they are going to make you think about the things you don't think of on your own. 

If you are here you likely have knowledge others don't so I encourage you to seek them out. Whether it is a class of a single child/partner/parent/friend or creating a YouTube video that may not even get any views or putting on a class at the local maker space or library I encourage you to give it a try.