Help me learn to tie a #&*(@! slipknot

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve searched the web and have found all kinds of “hitches,” but the common slipknot eludes me (not that the same-named band does, dammit, despite excluding “music,” “band,” “rock,” and “lyrics” from the search).

Why? Because I take horseback riding lessons, and part of my responsibility is to take the horse from its stall to a hitching post and tie them safely before grooming and tacking them up. A slipknot enables a horse to feel securely tied, but will slip undone should the horse panic and pull jerkily away from it.

After a month, I haven’t figured the damn thing out. I’m a college-educated, post-graduate-course-taking-genuinely-intelligent-person, but I am a MORON when it comes to tying the damn horse up. I’ve got everything else figured out…but UGH. My instructor is always in a lesson while I’m doing this, so it’s not like she’s going to walk over and bail me out. AND on top of that, because tying has to happen first, I am CONSTANTLY being late for my lesson. She’s shown me how, but it’s been quick and I’ve almost had it…and then a week passes before my next lesson and I forget. Hell, I go home that night and try to practice with my cat’s leash (yes, my cats go outside on a leash) and find I’ve forgotten.

I went to my Horses for Dummies book…no specific instructions. Just a REALLY annoying 4-step diagram of how to tie a safe knot. Step one: Loop the string. Picture of one little simple loop. Step two: WTF is that??? Loops and knots and frickin’ French twists…someone pleeeeeease tell me steps 1A, 1B, and 1C-F! Criminy. Apparently I need Horses for Really Big Lame-Os.

So…um…

Help?

[sub](Teachers note/Teacher’s note: I am a visual learner, as well as tactile, which is what has made this such a nightmare. The instructor talks, talks, talks through it, or I read it, but I can’t make the words translate into the image or the action. I feel like a complete moron. But hell, it’s good for me…helps me better understand my students!)[/sub]

2

err… I could show you easy enough, but I don’t think I could tell you :frowning:

3

Here is a sorta decent diagram. The idea is if the horse panics, a quick tug on the end of the rope (the loose end) will undo the whole thing - leaving the end of the rope in your hand, and the knot undone.

4

Thanks, Boscibo. I’ll give that a whirl tonight and will likely be back later…

5

Tie a square knot. Then take the loop in one hand and the rope end on the same side of the knot and pull them away from each other. The square knot turns into a slip knot.

6

I’ve taught five year olds how to do this.

Use the guaranteed Scylla Method:

  1. Think of tying your shoelaces.

  2. Tie your slipknot the same way you tie your shoes except only make one loop.

  3. Make the loop end on the side that doesn’t go to the horse.

It’s

just

that

easy.

7

Also mumble people “People equal shit” to yourself whist you do it.

[sub]Sorry for the bad joke, I just had to link it to the band one way or another[/sub]

8

I should also learn to preview, so anyways I’ll shut up with the hijack.

9

In that diagram, step 2 does not lead to step 3. (the long line on the left is underneath all the other strings and never interweaves with them.)

I did find instructions here which seem to tie a knot that is actually tied to something and will release on pulling the free end. Whether that’s the actual knot you need, I’m not sure.

10

I’m sorry, but I simply refuse to wear a halter and lead rope when working with my horses. But maybe that’s just a guy thing. :smiley:

11

auuuuuuuugggggggghhh…voice…of…instructor…echoing…in…head…

“It’s just like making a bow…just like making a bow…[sub]just like making a bow…[/sub]”

And to prove how much a moron I am, your guaranteed Scylla method made no sense to me.

I

suck

Here’s what I hear: It’s like tying your shoes, but not the knot part, the knot part is wrong. It’s like the bow part, sortof, except you only make one loop. (What secures that loop eludes me.) So, make a knot, but don’t, and loop the string once even though it will come undone because nothing is securing it.

Repeat:

I

suck.

Going to try Boscibo’s diagram now. It’s larger than what was in the book I have, but scarily enough is reduced to three steps.

AUGH! HOW CAN SOMETHING THIS SIMPLE BE SO CONFOUNDING TO ME! SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH MY BRAIN!

[sub]whimper[/sub]

12

Ropework in general is useful for a lot of things. Go to the library and try to find a copy of the “Ashley Book of Knots” which will tell you how to tie all the knots you’re likely to ever need. The diagrams are simple and easy to understand, and you’ll enjoy the book.

b.

13

Long end tied to horse (imagine it to the left). Short end dangling (imagine it to the right) Like this: HORSE___/\ <–short end

Take the short end and make a “c” OVER the long end:



         / \
        |__|
      C|__      <--short end
        |
    HORSE

Make a loop in the dangly end of the short end, and the loop through the C, but from underneath. So basically, the"c" is part of a circle which includes the long end(HORSE), and you are putting a loop up through it vertically. I am NOT going to try and draw it, but suffice it to say that this is that really freaky part of the diagrams!

Now that you have the loop through (make sure that some loose end is still dangling) pull on the HORSE end. This will squeeze the C around the loop, and there you go!

Practise makes perfect. I just ran through it a couple of times myself using a cat5 cable and my chair - though a real rope is better, because that plastic rope dont knot! :slight_smile: I also had my SO try it, and although he used to sail and was vaguely familiar with the knot, he thinks you should be able to figure it out. Also, I think my version is different from the one in the link, maybe an inverted form. But it’s worked for me in the past, so go ahead and try it.

14

Here is a better online description - again, a little different, but it seems to work (at least for tieing my purse around my foot :slight_smile: )

  • Hold both sections of the rope in your left hand.
  • With your right hand, take a section of the tail end of the rope and make a fold in it.
  • Cross the fold (which in knot language is called the bight) over the two ropes you are holding in your left hand.
  • Bring the bight up through the middle of the loop you have just formed.
  • Grab the tip of the bight with your right hand and pull, tightening the knot.
  • To undo the quick release knot, pull on the loose end and the knot will come undone.
15

Ok, my explanation seems fairly straightforward to me, so I offer it with hope that it works for you:

  1. put rope around the post, or whatever you’re attaching horse to;
  2. take the short end (the part still in your hand, closer to you than the post) and pass it over the part connecting horse to post;
  3. but rather that passing the end of the short rope over, make it a simple loop that goes over instead;
  4. then pull the loop back out, toward you, having passed it over and then under the rope connecting horse to post;
  5. pull the horse’s end tight, while keeping hold of the loop in your other hand.
  6. the end.

A slightly different (better) slipknot can be made if you put a half-twist in the loop before you pass it around the rope connecting horse to post.

Good luck.
Ride 'em!

16

mnemosyne, I used that knot (which, I take it, you copied and pasted from amarinth’s link) before my lesson last night. It worked beautifully and my instructor was very impressed (and somewhat amused) by it.

Thanks all SO MUCH! Even if it DID take waaaaaaaay too much effort IMHO, I finally have figured this thing out and no longer feel like a moron. (What I did is a quick-release knot, which is a simpler version of a slipknot…my instructor said I was just two steps away from doing what she does.)

Hooray!