What "talents" do you have that others would be surprised about?
 

I'm a great singer. I've always been into sports and played in high school and college, but most people don't know that I have one helluva voice.

I'm a Tarot card reader.

I'm a poet with some pretty legit publications and readings to my name.

I'm one belt and a stripe away from getting my black belt in kickboxing. Many people wouldn't even suspect it. ;)

With most dojos, I would have already earned it.

I have an amateur radio license (HAM operator) and yes, I used to know Morse code.

I'm a pretty good dancer. I took studio classes beginning at age three, danced in middle school and in high school. I did a few solos at state competitions along with performing with my team. I took home quite a few trophies and ribbons.

I thought about continuing in college but was worried about the time commitment. I still love to go to the studio in my hometown and dance, though. I love dancing and the feeling it gives me.

You a baaaaaaad girl. :cool:

Sometimes, I wish I had continued training. My (eldest) daughter and I trained together when she was in jr/high school.

Who knows, perhaps I'll revisit my dojo again. Those were some good times...

Cake decorating, although I haven't done it in a while. Now that school and kid raising is done, I'd like to take it up again. Thing is, I don't need cakes very often..lol.

I wouldn't have guessed that either.

How would you have already gotten a black belt?

People become surprised when they ask me what I do for a living because it's a rare, specialized field.

But I'd say one other talent outside of my career and my ability to draw/design was as a kid, I was able to dance like Michael Jackson. I remember as a kid, I would watch him and practice every day for over a year until I finally got it. I was in a talent show in high school, and college. I performed his Billie Jean act that he did for Motown's 25th anniversary.

In the high school talent show I was in, there was one guy and his band who did "Guns & Roses Welcome to the Jungle". They actually played their own instruments, and actually did the singing. They sounded just like the real group, but they got second place.

I won both talent shows in high school and college with that same routine LOL. I had it perfected, from the hat, to the stroking of the hair, to his spins, all the way to his moonwalk, and the lip syncing. I also did the same act when I was 13 at the MLK center near where I grew up. I can do it to this day. I still have it in me LOL.
http://youtu.be/kXhy7ZsiR50 :D

You should go back to it, Tony. It's so much fun, and a really good way to stay in shape. :)

Because most kickboxing dojos don't have stripe rankings. After you have earned a brown belt, the next rank is black. I have a private instructor and in his dojo, he uses a stripe ranking. There are other dojos that use a similar ranking system.

As soon as I saw your username, I knew exactly what you posted. :):)

I really am giving it a lot of thought. After 12 years of basketball officiating, a bad ankle and 2 bad knees make me think, sometimes, about shifting away to something else.

I still have a lot of my old shotokan katas and a heavy bag in my basement.

Awww, dang, CG, see what you may have started??! lol

I shared this video and I was surprised at the stir it caused. Apparently no one outside of my sisters knows I can sing at all.

I have stupidly good balance. I think my near-phobic fear of falling helps.

For example, I can do this:
http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view5/256...ng-trick-o.gif

I can also balance across things to get to some pretty neat places, like this island out in a nearby nature preserve.

I'm very good at learning languages and copying accents.

I speak 4 languages and can converse in 2 more.
Once I hear an accent I can mimic it, and adjust to a specific region or country.

Comes in handy since I've moved across the world and currently live in a region where several languages are spoken in a 100 mile radius.

I'm going to pretend that you're actually the canary pictured because it makes me laugh, WhiteRose. I'm imagining you hopping and pecking across the keyboard to type on here.

My talent isn't so much a talent, per se, but I still think it's interesting. I have synesthesia, specifically music->color synesthesia. When I hear music I immediately associate it with a specific color, and every note and key has a different color. I equate it to imaging an apple in your mind's eye; your eyes are not actually visualizing an apple, but you knew that it was red.

I am trying to imagine this with the 1812 Overture. Is it lots of colors exploding in rapid sequence like a musical Jackson Pollock painting?

lol
Hilarious!

Tony, are you still a basketball official now? I mean, I was just asking because with a bad ankle, and 2 bad knees, that should be the very reason for getting back into martial arts. It will do more good than harm. Have you ever thought about Aikido? There isn't much movement in Aikido, at least not like it is in kickboxing. I eventually want to mix the two.

"Miyagi heal Tony"... lol :p
http://youtu.be/5UUyVz2DISY

I'm a violinist. In undergrad, I had a nearly full ride as a non-major to play in the university orchestra. Picked it up after about 10 years of not really doing anything. Joined the community orchestra, play in the first violin section now.

There:

http://www.okorchestra.org/

I also have been playing in an annual Haydn Festival. Played in a featured quartet this year (2nd violin part). So I'm getting pretty good with it.

Goodness no, otherwise I don't think I'd be able to listen to it! Each note has it's own color, but those are superseded by the chords they make and the key itself. For example, the ending sequence of the 1812 Overture is normally played in E flat major, which I register as a light blue. So when I think of the 1812 Overture I know it's light blue, but if you pulled out an individual note or chord it would be a different color. Most of the colors I perceive are varying shades of either blue or orange; not sure why that is. Major and minor keys and chords also differ greatly from each other.

Oh, I also have perfect pitch too, which is almost redundant because I can already tell what note is being played by the color it produces in my mind's eye. It made AP Music Theory listening tests super easy:D

Yep. Still love the game. The feel of a big game and a gym full of people is still electric to me. I'll likely reduce my schedule a bit this season, though.

If I get back into training I may do it 1-on-1 or find an all adult dojo. Previously, I always trained with my daughter (there were a few other dads on the floor, but it was a kids class.) The cool thing is the sensei's top assistant was a brown belt (and a policeman). He and I usually trained/sparred together, and he'd share control/self-defense techiques they didn't teach the kids.

Do you compete in tournaments? If so, how often? I've never done Akido. I was comfortable with both Taekwondo and then Karate. We'll see. :p

Cool! I started training with my kids two years ago. After I joined, several other parents (including 1 other mom) joined, too.

Other talent: I'm a really good open water swimmer. I have won age group swims at open water races. It's a weird sport to like if you live in the Midwest.

That's great, KDCat! Madd congrats to you. Doin' is better than talkin' ....and it is a heck of a workout! (what art do you train in?)

That's wonderful. I had no idea that you're a basketball official. :)

Nah, no tournaments. My sensei thinks I'm ready and wants me to compete in tournaments, but I told him that tournaments aren't for me. I'd never be "ready" for anything like that. It's strictly for staying in shape, and having fun.

One of his requirements to earn a black belt in his dojo is to put into practice/reality what he's taught by fighting an opponent. He also gives us the option to opt-out of it. Of course, I will be opting-out of it. :p

It's a mixed class that focuses on karate, tae kwon do and jiu-jitsu.

It's hard. OMG. It's so hard. I just pour sweat. I am a lot stronger than I was than when I started, though.

Good. Between you and CheerfulGreek I know who not to mess with. :p How old are your kids? I'm sure they're having fun with it.

You've got to be good to be playing in an orchestra. Do you volunteer as a hobby, or is it a hobby you get paid money to do?

@ my frat. Bruh, is this high school basketball/college? That's good stuff.

It's a community orchestra, so I pay dues annually. I have, since taking it up, been paid in an ad hoc thrown together quartet where we played a couple's 50th wedding anniversary party. I'm good enough to play gigs, but don't really pursue that so much because my day job is lawyering, so it's not an efficient use of my time if profit is the objective. I'm not good enough to be a professional violinist or audition for the OKC Symphony, but I could probably make a smaller town's orchestra though where I'm not competing with PhD performance majors.

high school.

They are 9 and 11. Both boys. Both higher belts than me. They think sparring with mom is really fun, but they'll only do it if they can go 2 against 1 (me).

CG, I'm sure you'd do fine. I saw tourneys as a way to see how my training measured up in a "live" situation. But, like any parent, I was way more nervous watching my daughter compete than for myself. :eek:

Sparring was a big part of our dojo structure, so it was no big deal for tourneys. Everyone wore head, hand/foot gear (women also wore chest padding).

So, if you opt out of going against an opponent, how will you earn the black belt? You've come so far. You've got to finish this off, right? lol

Yes, there's head gear, foot gear, and all kinds of padding, it's just that it's just padding. Still, there are exposed body parts, and one round-kick to the head, and guess what?... I don't want to experience that, nor do I want to give it to someone else. I'm all for sparring, but in my experience with my sensei, the tournaments are so much more different, and much more involved. I've been at it for almost 7-years, and it works great for working out and staying in shape.

I can still get my black belt when that time comes. Fighting an opponent is only one part of earning a black belt in his dojo. The other part is breaking two bricks with one piece of wood. He prefers both, but gives the option of opting-out of the fighting. The bricks and wood are mandatory. I know when that time comes, I'll be nervous about that alone. But fighting someone? Uh, uh, no way.

Would scrapbooking be considered a talent? lol

Absolutely. You have to have an eye for design to do that.

I can tie a maraschino cherry stem into a knot with my teeth. Yep.

I don't so much now but I used to do a lot of creating writing. I have won a couple of poetry contests and one of my pieces won a national competition in college.

And it's not a skill per se but my long-term memory is pretty awesome. It's close to what would be called a "photographic memory" though some debate if that's actually a thing or not. My job at B&N was awesome because I remembered where just about every book was. I haven't worked there in years and still remember Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance was in the last row, 2nd bay to the left, 3rd shelf from the bottom.

It also came in handy during intake for Delta-- I got my line name from being able to master history. If I was asked any information, I could spit it verbatim and tell you the page number where I found it. I'm a bit of a Hermione Granger in that way...sounding like I swallowed a book. :o

I have completed all of the RAD Vocational (professional) ballet exams, save for Solo Seal!

I am fluent in Latin, and have a basis in Old Irish, and have read Harry Potter in Latin.

I have a weirdly good memory for specific details, so the history thing makes sense :)

I can walk on my hands for a long time. To take in account my age, I shouldn't be doing this.

I have won awards for hula hooping. (And it's a great waist-whittler.)

But I think my doberman has the best talent ... she poops directly into a plastic bag!
(People on the street STARE when she does this. Taught her the 1st week I got her.)

I am really great at reading out loud and making a story come alive. Seriously. I've read Harry Potter out loud twice, when my youngest and oldest were each in kindergarten 7 years apart. (Usually we get to the second book in the series when they are starting first grade and they quickly tire of having to wait for Mama, so they pick up the book and read it themselves.) I read Hamlet out loud to all three of my kids a couple of years ago, and even the pre-schooler was enthralled.

I love volunteering at my kids' school when they have parents in to read out loud, but rarely get the chance. I read a chapter of "The Sky Inside" to my daughter's 4th grader classmates last year. The next time I visited the classroom, one of the kids told me that their class kept all three copies of that book checked out of the school library for a month because they wanted to hear the rest of the story. That made my heart sing!

Most people know that I enjoy cooking and I'm wicked good at it (especially Indian cooking). What most people don't know is that I'm also really good at baking. I can make a nice flaky pie crust, savory or sweet. And my challah ... I seldom bake challah, but when I do, it comes out perfectly. I recently learned how to braid a six-braid challah. It was nummy. :)