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  • I'm Lucie Fink and this is Five Days Of Learning New Skills.

  • Hey fam, welcome back to Refinery29's YouTube channel.

  • If you are new here be sure to click on the little subscribe box in the corner, and if

  • you are interested in following my personal YouTube channel, check me out at youtube.com/LucieBFink.

  • I was listening to a podcast recently where I learned that focusing your attention on

  • learning a new skill, or trying a new activity

  • something that maybe doesn't come all that naturally to you or is a little bit challenging

  • actually trains your body to be able to deal with stress over time.

  • So this week I choose five skills that I can each dedicate just one day to.

  • And I intentionally choose skills that I can learn very easily at home because I wanted

  • you all to be able to learn alongside me.

  • So let's get into Monday.

  • I wanted to start the week off with something that's been frequently requested by my audience

  • and something that I always wanted to try.

  • My friends over at Fender, challenged me to try learning how to play the ukulele, and

  • they even sent me this beautiful ukulele in the mail.

  • And they even gave me access to Fender Play, which is their digital learning platform where

  • you can learn chords, basic finger placements, and you can take courses online.

  • Nice!

  • I once learned from a YouTube video that when you are tuning a ukulele and you play the

  • strings from top to bottom, it should sound like this:

  • So I made sure that each string was tuned up with the online tuner and then I just practiced some chords.

  • Up, down, up, down.

  • Great, I did that successfully.

  • A standard guitar has six strings, whereas a ukelele only has four and compared to the

  • standard guitar, a ukelele has a much smaller fretboard which is a lot easier for people

  • that have small hands like I do.

  • Because this video is for Refinery29, we just didn't have the copyrights to play real

  • songs in the video.

  • So you better believe I would've been jamming out to Jason Mraz and Ingrid Michaelson, and

  • I would have liked to play some real songs for you, but I wasn't allowed to play any of those songs on camera.

  • So instead I practiced singing a song written by one of my favorite YouTubers.

  • We are the moon, the stars, the water and the sun.

  • And then I tried writing my own songs.

  • I wrote a song about playing music.

  • I'm sitting at home, having some fun, just making some music, talking to no one.

  • A song about tofu.

  • Do you like tofu, cause I don't really.

  • One about pizza.

  • As long as there's sauce, and there's bread, and there's cheese, it's a pizza to me alright.

  • Pizza.

  • Pizza.

  • Pizza.

  • Pizza.

  • Pizza.

  • Pizza.

  • Pizza.

  • After just a couple of hours, my comfort level with the ukulele improved immensely.

  • My fingers hurt, when I strum like this, so maybe I will strum like that anymore.

  • Right now I'm almost bleeding on this finger.

  • It hurts.

  • And the best part about this skill is that it's now been about a week since Monday, and

  • I've continued to practice on my own.

  • I even shared a little clip on my Instagram story of me singing Ingrid Michaelson's song,

  • You and I.

  • And Ingrid Michaelson reposted it on her Instagram story.

  • And if you want to follow my growth and progression with the ukulele be sure to follow me on Instagram,

  • @luciebfink and check out my stories.

  • If you are bored, with no coffee left to brew, try learning something new, 'cause it's the right thing to do.

  • More so than ever in this past year, I've been hugely invested in my physical health.

  • Especially after having my gallbladder taken out last year, maintaining a healthy gut microbiome

  • has become a major priority of mine.

  • Kombucha is a fermented tea that's a great source of probiotics.

  • It gives your gut that healthy bacteria that can aid in digestion, reduce inflammation,

  • boost your energy and so much more.

  • So I thought a fun skill for Tuesday would be learning how to make this drink at home.

  • But first in order to make a fresh batch of kombucha you need a Scoby.

  • So what's a Scoby?

  • It stands for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast, Scoby.

  • It's essentially a living slimy blob that kind of looks like a mushroom, and it's floating

  • inside this liquid that's a starter liquid for making kombucha.

  • These Scobies grow, and they multiply, and they make little baby Scobies

  • So if you have a friend that makes kombucha at home you can just take a baby Scoby and

  • some starter liquid from them.

  • I wanted to challenge myself to do this from scratch, which meant I needed to grow my own

  • Scoby, and create my own starter liquid so that probably in two months down the line

  • I'll be able to make my own kombucha.

  • First I boiled water and then I dissolved white sugar in it, and then I drop some teabags

  • in it, and I basically made a giant batch of sweet tea.

  • I used organic black tea.

  • Once it's cool to you pour that tea into a large jar, and you add kombucha.

  • It's very important to use raw, organic, and unflavored kombucha for this, and what you'll

  • notice is that those store-bought bottles typically already have some filmy floating stuff in them.

  • So you want to make sure that when you pour the kombucha into the tea, that you're transferring

  • over those floating guys.

  • And then you cover it with a cloth, or as I used some coffee filters, you tie it off

  • with rubber bands make sure it's really secure and basically you just put it away from direct sunlight.

  • I tucked it into the back of my cabinet and in about 20 days or so I should have my own Scoby.

  • One thing that's very important here is cleanliness so you want to make sure you're not getting

  • any bad bacteria in the jars.

  • So I made sure to wash my hands really well, and I also boiled the jar in boiling water before I did any of this.

  • Just trying out this skill for one day really opened my eyes to the giant world out there of Kombucha,

  • and fermentation, and Scobies.

  • And in the meantime be sure to follow my Instagram stories for some Scoby updates alongside

  • my ukulele videos.

  • Thursday's skill is something that I've been wanting to learn for a while now:

  • It's an extremely important topic, and there's so much to cover here, so Thursday was really

  • just a brief intro to it.

  • Luckily my best friend's fiancee, Stan is a martial arts and fitness coach.

  • So on Thursday he came over and taught me the basics of self-defense.

  • We started off with some boxing just as a warm-up, so I could practice throwing some punches and kicks.

  • Give me a fighting stance.

  • Left straight jab.

  • Yep, don't lift your elbow first. I want you to extend and twist at the last second.

  • Yeah exactly.

  • You got it.

  • But of course as Stan quickly taught me, when it comes to self-defense, it's not about throwing

  • punches and kicks, and fighting, it's about quickly debilitating your attacker, so that

  • you can run away and get out of there.

  • You should look for a couple of kind of weak points.

  • Okay.

  • And that's the nose.

  • That's the throat, the groin.

  • You're trying to create enough of a chance, of an opportunity for you to get out of there.

  • He taught me the best way to get out of an attackers grip if they come at you from different angles.

  • I'm so scared to hurt you.

  • I appreciate that.

  • Yeah if they grab you from the front by the arm.

  • Grabbing you by the arm, I am getting close.

  • See ya!

  • From the side over the shoulder.

  • You're grabbing, yes exactly.

  • It's the force of your entire body that's putting my arm in this position, not just

  • your arm pulling me there.

  • Or if they come around you from the back.

  • I am grabbing you here.

  • Elbow.

  • Good.

  • I learned how to spin someone around and put pressure on their shoulder to take them down.

  • Grabbing your opposite arm, yep.

  • I also learned how to make some space between myself and the attacker by pushing my arms

  • together like this, and actually making myself smaller.

  • Gonna create that space.

  • Good and exacly.

  • So that I have that room to kick them in the groin, or just slip free from their grasp.

  • By the end of our session I honestly had a moment where I thought to myself, how have I been

  • walking around in the world for 26 years without knowing this information.

  • So now that I know the basics I'm definitely going to explore this topic more and take

  • a bunch of classes.

  • When I woke up on Friday I was feeling a little bit sore from Thursday's twists and kicks.

  • So I wanted to take on a more relaxing skill.

  • Did you know that I come from a long line of bread makers?

  • The Fink bakery was started by my great great-grandfather in 1888.

  • It was basically a giant commercial bakery in Long Island City, that provided fresh bread

  • and rolls to local restaurants, delis, schools, hospitals, sports stadiums, and more.

  • And I realized on Friday that I myself have never actually made a loaf of bread, but it

  • turned out to be pretty simple.

  • I dissolved yeast in warm water, I added sugar, salt, oil, and flour.

  • I mixed it all together.

  • Then I cleaned off my countertop, put flour on the surface, and kneaded the dough.

  • Once I was done I put it in a bowl, I covered it, set it in a warm spot, and I just let it rise for an hour and a half.

  • When it was done I came back to it, I punched it down, cut it in half, and then put each half in a loaf pan.

  • I covered that again and let each of those loaves pans rise for another 30 minutes and

  • then I baked them for about a half an hour at 375.

  • The smell in my apartment immediately transported me back to childhood.

  • And as soon as I took the pans out of the oven, I was shocked at how perfect they came out.

  • Perfect.

  • Yes.

  • Truly can't believe I did this.

  • I immediately popped on my jacket that has Fink embroidered into it, and I facetimed

  • my dad to show him what I had made.

  • Hey dad!

  • So I'm in my Fink shirt and I just made this whole loaf of bread.

  • With your Fink baking shirt on?

  • Look at that white bread.

  • Yeah, that looks good.

  • This week of trying new skills reminded me just how much you can learn, and absorb when

  • you just give yourself the space and time to do so.

  • Even if you just give yourself 30 minutes a day to learn something new, you'll become

  • a more well-rounded person with so much more to offer the world.

  • Comment below to let me know if any of you have tried these five skills before, and also

  • let me know what you want to see me try next time for five days at a time.

  • Bye!

  • Hey, YouTube, thanks for watching. Click here to watch another five-day challenge video,

  • here to subscribe to Refinery29 on YouTube, and right here for my personal YouTube channel.

  • Bye.

I'm Lucie Fink and this is Five Days Of Learning New Skills.

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