Ask HN: What are your favorite weeklong courses not related to work? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What are your favorite weeklong courses not related to work?

16 pointsKiranRao08 comments

My example is a scuba diving. The open water courses took about 5 days (2 in pool, 3 at sea) and was a great experience. I can now confidently go diving anywhere and explore areas I never thought possible.

Does have other similar style of courses they'd like to share?

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This isn't applicable to most, but swimming. The majority of people (as far as I know) get taught to swim as kids, but if you're in the self taught camp like me, the difference is night and day. I took about two weeks worth of swimming lessons with a private instructor, but you can see visible improvement way faster. Whereas previously I was careful not to swim in deep water, I now regularly go swimming and enjoy it immensely. The core idea is twofold, to overcome any fears you may have, and to fix your technique. The two feed back into one another in a positive feedback loop — the more comfortable you become, the more you can focus on your technique, and the better your technique, the more comfortable you are in water. For anyone who doesn't feel at home in water, I highly recommend it.

Even if you took proper classes as a kid, classes as an adult are incredibly useful because they can talk about technique in a different way. Like, I knew not to let my legs drop, but I wasn't mindful of it. Or about the motion of taking a breath. An emphasis on these details as an adult trying to become a more competent swimmer (among many other details) left me capable of fitness swimming, where before I'd be lucky to not exhaust myself after a few laps (while being able to run a 25 minute 5k and still feel ready to go do something else).

I took a weekend skin-on-frame canoe building class at Yestermorrow in VT [1]. Also, I’ve been working on wood carving with Mary May’s online school of wood carving. [2] It works better than you might expect because you can pause and rewind sections that you miss. I normally have my laptop on my workbench and work and then when she gets to the next step, pause and rewind slightly when I catch up.

[1] https://yestermorrow.org/ [2] https://www.marymaycarving.com/carvingschool/

I really want COVID-19 to be over soon so I can go do some adult ski camps. There is a park skiing camp I can’t go to right now in Europe and a steep skiing clinic at Whistler in Canada. Cannot do either with current travel restrictions and not wanting to catch anything going to or from the resorts.

I did a week of intro to cooking classes at ICE[1] awhile back. It was 4 hours a day for a week. I'm no chef, but I can shop and cook for my family with decent result. During the entire COVID, we only did take out once for birthday celebration.

[1] https://www.ice.edu/

Their chefs are great. A few of them do YouTube videos for Epicurious[0], and Frank Proto has his own channel[1]. It has created a fun little community and the videos the chefs are in are full of creative tips to do some more advanced cooking.

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t81529ANEhI 1: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC368WO9e4BWuPYAeSIuaUsg

Mostly outdoor: surfing, windsurfing, wilderness survival, off-road driving.

And not courses per see but ways to completely detach from everyday life: Vipassana meditation, Camino de Santiago.

NSFW is the furthest thing from work so, Kinbaku (Japanese Rope Bondage). The basics are quite simple. After one class you'll learn enough to apply in some form. After a couple you're able to get creative with it.

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