I was wondering if other people had a preference between diagrams or video instructions?
A former member of our local origami group returned home to perform klezmer music today from his junior year at college . Over lunch, we both agreed we preferred diagrams to videos because most video's were too slow for us. We wish that You Tube had a fast forward. We understand that you can move the slide thing forward, but it is hard to control and we want to watch the whole thing. I believe that the slowness is an advantage for the less experienced folders - but not the more experienced folders, for the most part. The exception being when you are stuck on a "hard" spot. Sometimes these are just a comprehension thing, and once you understand them they become so easy or really neat to fold. Back when I was doing diagrams by hand, it took me 3 hours a page to do diagrams. I have heard that it takes some people that long on a computer diagram. Jeremy Shaffer said that he had cease making BARF magazine because it was easier to make a video than make diagrams. I do recognize that some models are easier to show via video than to diagram. I have notice that the younger folders have frequently started learning Origami from videos rather than books. We have a five year old, who attends Origami Sunday, learned his origami from Jeremy Shaffer videos. He now folds Jeremy's Flasher Hat from 12 inch paper. It is not the neatest but it is close to neat and works. He is now wearing tied-dyed shirts, too... A few years back, I was asked to teach someone a star that she saw on You Tube. She sent me the link. It was uncredited instructions on the Omega Star. I have been folding that for a few decades and I was not able to follow the instructions.. That leads to the question of how to direct new folders to "good" video instructors. Just a side note: This past Saturday, we had a small origami gathering at our house. Two of the more popular models were the Day of the Dead Skull from the video on Leyla Torres's Orgami Spirit website and the Momotani Skull from an old NOA magazine that it was based upon. Someone had learned the model from the video and I had learned it from the diagrams. Both are great models.
