Roll one or two cigars a day, until you get better at it.
The process of learning to hand-roll a smokable cigar is a sensory-motor skill, like learning to play a guitar. When you read about how it's done, or watch an on-line video of an experienced torcedor, you may acquire all the essential steps to follow, yet still roll loose, leaky cigars that won't burn, or cigars so tightly packed that they will not draw air.
There are numerous approaches to rolling a cigar, and most of them can be used successfully, if done correctly. I would suggest you pick one or two techniques, and stick to those until they work. As with learning to play guitar, progress is made by improving the sensory-motor coordination required by the process, until your fingers "know" how it's done. What this involves is a notion of the firmness of the compaction of a bunch, the amount of tension a binder or wrapper can survive while being stretched in the rolling (at a specific degree of moisture), and the angle at which the bunch should be rolled in relation to the outer edge and the veins of the wrapping leaf.
Some of this is "knowledge" (What am I supposed to do?), but most of it is your sense of touch coupled with motor action.
We have known for over a hundred years that learning by "cramming" (as for an exam) is not as effective as spaced learning. When you first begin to roll cigars, if you roll ten or twenty at a time, you will most likely end up with ten or twenty equally faulty cigars. If, instead, you roll one or two cigars a day, smoking those to understand their shortcomings, then your skill will steadily improve by the time you've rolled twenty. It's mostly in the "feel" of it.
An interesting study (of mice) has documented the significant difference between "cramming" vs. spaced learning of sensory-motor skills. Those who "crammed" and those who were exposed to spaced learning performed equally well, but by 24 hours, the crammers had lost much of their learning.
As an aside: Nearly 40 years ago, when I was engaged in gymnastics, I competed "All-Around," meaning that I had to enter competition on every piece of apparatus, rather than specialize on one. What I noticed at the time was that my skills at each apparatus seemed to improve more rapidly if the practice of those skills was interrupted by training on any other apparatus--since I had to move from one to the next throughout practice each day. It was spaced learning.
So, to end a windy post: Spaced learning will advance your cigar rolling skill more rapidly than rolling many at a time. Purchasing a cigar mold may encourage you to do the latter, since they typically have room for 10 cigars per mold. Ignore the cigar mold until you can consistently roll a good cigar free-hand. They won't be as pretty, but they'll become better, faster. Photogenic is not as important as smokable.
Bob
The process of learning to hand-roll a smokable cigar is a sensory-motor skill, like learning to play a guitar. When you read about how it's done, or watch an on-line video of an experienced torcedor, you may acquire all the essential steps to follow, yet still roll loose, leaky cigars that won't burn, or cigars so tightly packed that they will not draw air.
There are numerous approaches to rolling a cigar, and most of them can be used successfully, if done correctly. I would suggest you pick one or two techniques, and stick to those until they work. As with learning to play guitar, progress is made by improving the sensory-motor coordination required by the process, until your fingers "know" how it's done. What this involves is a notion of the firmness of the compaction of a bunch, the amount of tension a binder or wrapper can survive while being stretched in the rolling (at a specific degree of moisture), and the angle at which the bunch should be rolled in relation to the outer edge and the veins of the wrapping leaf.
Some of this is "knowledge" (What am I supposed to do?), but most of it is your sense of touch coupled with motor action.
We have known for over a hundred years that learning by "cramming" (as for an exam) is not as effective as spaced learning. When you first begin to roll cigars, if you roll ten or twenty at a time, you will most likely end up with ten or twenty equally faulty cigars. If, instead, you roll one or two cigars a day, smoking those to understand their shortcomings, then your skill will steadily improve by the time you've rolled twenty. It's mostly in the "feel" of it.
An interesting study (of mice) has documented the significant difference between "cramming" vs. spaced learning of sensory-motor skills. Those who "crammed" and those who were exposed to spaced learning performed equally well, but by 24 hours, the crammers had lost much of their learning.
As an aside: Nearly 40 years ago, when I was engaged in gymnastics, I competed "All-Around," meaning that I had to enter competition on every piece of apparatus, rather than specialize on one. What I noticed at the time was that my skills at each apparatus seemed to improve more rapidly if the practice of those skills was interrupted by training on any other apparatus--since I had to move from one to the next throughout practice each day. It was spaced learning.
So, to end a windy post: Spaced learning will advance your cigar rolling skill more rapidly than rolling many at a time. Purchasing a cigar mold may encourage you to do the latter, since they typically have room for 10 cigars per mold. Ignore the cigar mold until you can consistently roll a good cigar free-hand. They won't be as pretty, but they'll become better, faster. Photogenic is not as important as smokable.
Bob
