What Does a Beach Ball, an Onion and a Dogs-Hind-Leg have to do with Haircutting...EVERYTHING!

When I was in seventh grade (my first year in junior high school) I was told that I had to choose an elective class to take. My choices were Mechanical Drawing (drafting class) Shop Class (woodworking) or R.O.T.C. (something to do with the military)…So I chose Mechanical Drawing…

At the time I knew nothing about Mechanical Drawing, I didn’t even know what it was. But I knew that I didn’t have to learn how to March like a Soldier outside in the Blazing Hot Florida Sun or listen to Bandsaws and Suck-in Sawdust for an hour every day.

As it turned out, it was a good fit for me and I had a Wonderful Drafting Teacher. His name was Mr. Allen and I believe he may have been the first African-American teacher at my junior high school at the time. This teacher gave me a love of Architecture that I still have to this day.

So, after taking Drafting Classes for 3-consecutive years with Mr. Allen at my junior high school, I continued on with this same path when I went to high school and ultimately by 11th grade, I ended up going to a Vo-Tech School where I was able to draw buildings and make model homes out of Bosa Wood 3-hours a day, every day.…

Well, as we all know now, I never did become an Architect of Buildings, opting for becoming an Architect of Hair instead. But I did learn enough about Architecture and Engineering to draw the initial Blueprints for a 4,000 square-foot custom home that I built in Bucks County Pennsylvania in the late 90s… But that’s another story.

So, when I took my first Advanced Haircutting Class in New York City at the age of 16 and the instructors (one of which was my brother) start talking about Holding Angles, different Degrees of Elevation, and Geometric Shapes such as Cylindrical, Asymmetrical, and Trapezoidal, I knew instantly what they were talking about. I truly believe this is why haircutting came so natural to me.

But Fast-forward a few years later when I started teaching these concepts to other hairdressers (while still in my 20s) I quickly realized that when I started using Geometric terms like these, many of the hairdressers in the class started getting bored and their eyes would glaze over and I could tell they were completely confused about what I was talking about.

So, I started coming up with simple, almost silly analogies and terminologies to describe what I needed to convey within the context of the haircut I was teaching.

I’m talking about Terms like:

~ Peeling the Onion

~ A Dog’s Hind Leg

~ Slats of a Barrel

~ The Houndstooth Pattern

~ Seems on a Beach Ball

~ The “Front-to-Back” and the “Back-and-Forth” techniques

~ The “Double-V” technique

~ The 3-Finger Method

~ Cigar Box Layers

~ Etc.

Over the years I’ve come up with tons of these idioms to help hairdressers understand the more complex concepts of haircutting and hair-coloring as well.

And I’ve discovered that by teaching haircutting this way, people are able to grasp onto the concepts much easier and retain the information they’ve learned in a more natural and organic way.

This teaching concept is not unique to me, it’s used everywhere. For example, while learning how to play the guitar, a good music teacher will never tell you to learn the names of the 6-Strings in descending order by trying to get you to remember them by their actual names like: Low “E” string, A, D, G, B, & High “E”…Instead, they’ll teach you this silly phrase: Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie… it may sound silly, but it works!

So, in my new Haircutting Course at VelascoHaircuttingSystem.com, I not only teach by using these idioms, but I also give you Icons, Photographs, Drawings, Animations, Infographics and various other types of Visual references to help you lock in the overall concepts I am teaching so you will be able to instantly recall the concept or method when the time comes that you need it. This makes learning to cut hair a lot easier and a lot more fun.

In closing, I would just like to say that if you’ve been struggling with haircutting, check out the Free information that I offer on my website at VelascoHaircuttingSystem.com and be sure to Download my Free e-Book Below……“The Path to Haircutting Mastery – A Hairdressers Journey into the Art of Haircutting“and let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers,

David