Childhood skills you either did or didn't have

[Ming the Merciless]

Able to click my tongue very loudly.

Able to tuck legs behind head.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Able to cycle sitting on handlebars

Able to do indefinite wheelies

 

[Ming the Merciless]

• Vulcan nerve pinch - Partially
• skimming stones - Yes
• whistling by putting fingers in your mouth and blowing - No
• cycling no hands - Yes
• wheelies - Not at all
• making fires by rubbing sticks together - Yes, also using cough sweets
• making fires with a magnifying glass - Yes. Didn't need one to hunt ants down
• making fires by banging stones together - No
• using a catapult - never had one, likewise. But I did the slingshot arrow
• making a decent go-cart - Yes, local champion in a competition
• skateboarding - No, never tried
• roller skating - No, never tried
• making a decent sledge - No, used a heavy plastic sheet. Also learned to slide standing up, on ice, for a couple of hundred yards downhill. Later went to "bobsleigh"

Other things:

• Keepy uppy - with a balloon yes, with a ball, No to both
• Making rockets with matchsticks and tin foil - Never tried
• Making wasp traps - Never tried
• Lego - Yes
• Meccano - Yes, over Lego any day
• Handstands - No
• Crouching on your hands with your feet off the ground - No, never tried
• Making daisy chains - shouldn't admit to it, No
• Making bird sounds by cupping your hands over your mouth and lifting your finger - No
• Mending punctures - Yes
• Holding your breath - Yes
• Swimming under water - could do a length, Similar
• Lighting your farts - Never Tried
• Recognising trees - only oaks, silver birch, copper beech, pine trees (i.e. all conifers) sycamores when they had seeds and horse chestnuts when they were dropping conkers. Yes
• Recognising wildflowers - only dandelions, daisies, buttercups and thistles, Not much better, but knew which to leave alone
• Curing nettle stings with dock leaves - Yes
• Smoke rings - No, never smoked
• Hardening conkers - Yes
• Piling coins on your elbow, then flicking your arm and catching them - No
• Solve Rubik's cube - No, Pyramid and other puzzles, Yes
• Play the recorder - No, Banned at school from attempting to play any musical instrument
• Use a pogo stick - Yes, including up and down stairs
• Work the clackers - Never Tried

Got some more:

• Catch stickleback in a jar - Yes
• Catch a fish with a self-made fishing rod - never tried
• Collect frogspawn - Yes
• Read a compass - yes
• Make a compass using needle, magnet and thread - Yes
• Read a map - Yes
• Recognise the constellations - Only the easier ones.
• Navigate from the sun - Yes
• Flick towels - Weekly competitions to knock something small off a table.
• Make a snowman - Yes
• Inflict dead arms - Yes
• Wiggle eyes like Lenny Henry - No
• Waggle ears - No
• Wriggle nose like the woman from Bewitched - No
• Rub tummy while patting your head - sounds like something Blue Peter or Why Don't You would suggest, No
• Skip - No
• Make model airfix kits - Yes
• Make models of aircraft out of balsa wood - Yes
• Be able to differentiate a Messerschmidt Bf109 from a Bf108 - No
• Be able to differentiate a Spitfire mark I from a mark V - No
• Kung Fu - No
• Build a cat's crystal radio set - No
• Do a Chewbacca or Darth Vader impression - No
• Do a passable Frank Spencer impression - No
• Do a Monkey (Chinese programme from the 80s) impression - No
• Recite any Monty Python sketch without killing it - No
• Fashion a working boomerang - Yes
• Throw a knife so that its point embedded itself in the piece of wood you were throwing it at - Yes
• Catch a wild animal in a trap comprising cardboard box, stick, string and bait - Yes
• Whittle pieces of wood into something decorative or useful - Yes, within limits
• Make paper chains of people using folded up paper and scissors - Yes
• Pick locks with paperclip - Only certain ones
• Differentiate a reef knot from a granny knot - to my shame, Yes
  A granny knot is any not that's not a knot

Making long lists is still one of your skills I see

 

[classic33]

Able to click my tongue very loudly.

Able to tuck legs behind head.

Could you get them back from behind your neck, on your own, though.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Could you get them back from behind your neck, on your own, though.

Yep

 

[gbb]

I used to make aircraft models from sheet balsa, using huge sheet plans that filled a table top. Used to take maybe 2 weeks from bare materials, cut every component, glue, attach tissue skin and dope to make a 3ft wingspan aircraft.
Air rifles, I could consistently pick out the pilots of air fix models that inevitably became a target from maybe 10 yards.
Strip bike hubs, freewheels, pedals, overhaul etc at maybe 14 yo.
I would climb local poplar trees until I was at the slender branches at the top and swing in the wind...always higher than everyone else.

Not so good...
School, hated it, probably because I was really introverted.

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

I had no skills at school. I was useless at everything, and have remained so.

 

[Cletus Van Damme]

I used to be good at fishing, living by a river with a lot of brown trout in it, until a factory polluted it. I've been watching Mortimer and Whitehouse Gone Fishing recently. I'd really like to try it again, but I don't think I could kill anything now. I guess I could do it with barbless hooks and put all the fish back. I just think it will harm the fish, so it puts me off. I'm getting really soft in my old age.

I used to think I was a good dancer at school disco's. Love Missile F1-11, by SIgue Sigue Sputnik was one of my favourites

 

[classic33]

I had no skills at school. I was useless at everything, and have remained so.

You ride a bike, on the roads.