It can be a small skill.
The last thing I learned to do was whistle. Never could whistle my whole life, and tutorials and friends never could help me.
So, for the last month or two, I just sort of made the blow shape then spam-tried different “tongue configurations” so to speak – whenever I had free time. Monkey-at-a-typewriter type shit. It was more an absentminded thing than a practice investment.
Probably looked dumb as hell making blow noises. Felt dumb too (“what? you can’t whistle? just watch”), but I kept at it like a really really low-investment… dare I attract self-help gurus… habit.
Eventually I made a pitch, then I could shift the pitch up a little, then five pitches, then Liebestraum, then the range of a tenth or so. Skadoosh. Still doing it now lol.
(Make of this what you will: If I went the musician route my brain told me to, then I would’ve gotten bored after 1 minute of major scales. When I was stuck at only having five pitches, I had way more longevity whistle-blowing cartoonish Tom-and-Jerry-running-around chromaticisms than failing the “fa” in “do re mi fa”.)
So, Lemmings: What was the last skill you learned? And further, what was the context/way in which you learned it?
Okay, so the most recent skill that I learned - or am still learning - would be making chainmail armour (or just “maille” for the pedantic). In theory, I now have the knowledge how to start from an iron ingot, turn that into a wire and that into the little rings for the armor. But because I want to be done in less than a year (will be part of my wedding outfit), I started with pre-made riveted rings, which I simply bend open, connect to solid rings and then bend closed and press in the rivet.
But since I never get to talk about it in other threads, I also learned how to make super primitive candles. Just yesterday I made candles from pork fat chunks that I ground up in my mortar and pestle. You don’t even need the little fabric to catch fire, you can just literally start lighting up the fat itself if you hold it long enough to a lighter
And before that, about one year ago now, I started learning to play the Herdy Gurdy, which is a lovely instrument, with a very lovely tone. And I even built one myself from a little do-it-yourself model kit, so to speak, which is called the Nerdy Gurdy. I started learning that because I was playing Sea of Thieves and I really enjoyed the sound of the instrument in-game. And then I also thought “hey, what if I not only learn to play it, but also learn to play it for my wedding in 2025?”
Edit because I feel this has been just a year of learning so much stuff for me: ASL. I started learning ASL about a month after I played VRChat for the first time and been practicing ever since. The chance of me getting good use out of ASL anywhere that is not online is pretty much zero, though, because I live in Germany lol