Sarah Lolley
  • Mailbox Missions
  • NDG Walks
  • What's New
  • Intro to Cryptic Crosswords
  • CBC/QWF Writer-in-Residence
  • Contact Me
  • Puzzle Tutorial
  • Practice Puzzles

Partners in Cryptic

9/10/2015

10 Comments

 
Picture
One of the things I love most about practicing yoga is the absence of comparison. When I attend a class, there may be twenty or thirty other people there, but we're all working at our own pace. We have to: our bodies are all different. We are different ages and weights. We have different flexibilities and different amounts of muscle. Different things have happened to us over the course of our lives, and that changes how we move.

When my sister, my parents, my husband and I do the cryptic crossword on weekend reunions at my parents place, we all retreat to our separate spaces to dive into the puzzle. We work at our own paces and (unless someone accidentally cries out an answer in a fit of enthusiasm) respect one another's individual puzzle solving. In that respect, it’s a bit like being in a yoga class: we’re all working towards the answers in our own way.

Having someone call out "You don't have 17 Across yet? But it's so EASY!" would be akin to someone in a yoga class calling out "What do you MEAN you can't do full lotus position? It's SO EASY!” 


It would be judging someone else’s practice by the standards of one’s own experience. 
And what’s the point of that?
On the flip side, two weeks ago, I had a different and wonderful experience of cryptic crossword collaboration. My aunt, uncle and cousin, who have only attempted one or two puzzles in their lives, asked me to help them solve the Saturday cryptic crossword.

Now, I love to solve alone, relishing each and every “Eureka!” moment that accompanies a cracked clue. But I love teaching puzzles even more. And although I’m sure my relatives were motivated more by a desire to make me feel included than by a genuine interest in puzzles, we jumped into solving it together.

It turns out that my cousin has a natural instinct for identifying clue types. My aunt is a whiz at double-meanings, cracking them before the rest of us have gotten our thinking caps on. And my uncle offers up little-known trivia as if it were common knowledge.

Picture
We were halfway through the puzzle in no time and seeing their delight at solving a clue was every bit as good as those "Eureka!" moments I love.

It reminded me of one of my favourite parts of yoga classes—partner yoga—when you pair up with someone else whose participation helps you sink into a posture more deeply than you could have done alone.


10 Comments
Shuchi link
9/11/2015 07:38:56 am

Enjoyed reading the parallels with yoga. I never did yoga in a group, only with a personal instructor, and in the beginning I believed I was poor at it as I couldn't do the poses my instructor did with ease. With time I saw the point you make - that it isn't about doing better than anyone else or even doing it accurately, but finding what makes us feel great.

Don't we also develop a fondness for certain poses, just as we do for clue types? I love the rush of blood in the arms after Marichi's pose - it is like the thrill one feels when the penny drops on a tricky clue!

Reply
Nonie Little
9/11/2015 07:58:56 am

I think I have figured out who your aunt and uncle and cousin are. Very flattering! Thank you our dear Sarah.
I have loved yoga all my life and thanks to my yoga breathing techniques, I was able to experience natural birth with all five of my beautiful children. What a gift.

Reply
Sarah Lolley
9/17/2015 11:40:03 am

It's true: there are certain poses that I love because of how easy they are for me (e.g., tree pose) and others that I love because of how good they make me feel afterwards (e.g., pigeon). Just like cryptic clues!

Reply
Steve Dee
9/11/2015 05:52:55 pm

Yes, doing them as a team is wonderful; I spent many happy years doing this with my parents and my little sister. Usually they have to handicap me because of my skill, so I'm not allowed to see the grid. But yes, you discover everyone has a "super power" of a different thing. My dad and my best friend are great at seeing direct answers to the meaning. My sister is fantastic at thinking laterally. I'm a maestro of anagrams. And so on. When I teach people, I always tell them they'll discover their own superpower, so not to worry if they struggle with one type or another.

Reply
Sarah Lolley
9/17/2015 11:45:16 am

You're right about the "super powers", Steve. What an encouraging thing to tell the people you're teaching. Have you heard of the book "All My Friends Are Superheroes" by Canadian author Andrew Kaufman? A great little read.

Reply
Adriana link
9/11/2015 09:47:18 pm

Ha! Wonderful! I thought you were going to say that puzzle-solving has a meditative effect that calms the mind and helps you find more solutions faster. I especially like the bit about partner yoga!

Reply
Sarah Lolley
9/17/2015 11:41:20 am

Thanks, Adriana!

Reply
Anax
9/18/2015 09:36:26 am

Given responses here and those I’ve seen on Twitter, I may be in a minority of one! Perhaps my situation is different in that I was learning to write at the same time as – and probably more frequently than – solving, and solitude for the former was always vital.
I can’t remember what my first regular solves were but it was probably the Manchester Evening News at the time when Roger Squires set all of their puzzles, so I’m guessing mid- to late 1970s while I was still at school, and that was a period of my life when crosswords were as much an escape as a hobby.
Once I’d (sort of) mastered solving by myself I wouldn’t have even considered solving in a group, seeing as I knew it all by then (he says, tongue in cheek).

Reply
Sarah Lolley
9/18/2015 12:28:15 pm

How amazing that you learned cryptic crosswords so young! No wonder you're such a superstar. You say that they were an escape. What were you escaping from? And what were you escaping to?

Reply
Anax
9/18/2015 01:28:19 pm

The classic ‘orrible stepfather syndrome, coupled with being an outsider at school – when my mum remarried we moved to a different area, so none of my junior school friends were at grammar school with me.
Hey, it’s not a hard luck story. If the situation hadn’t been what it was I wouldn’t have had the opportunity (and determination) to plunge myself into crosswords the way I did. I don’t think superstar is quite right, but without that escape I wouldn’t be where I am now.


Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    About Sarah

    I'm a writer, adventurer, amateur setter of cryptic crosswords, lover of "ah-ha!" moments, and exhausted mom.

    Archives

    November 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    April 2019
    May 2018
    April 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    March 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    February 2016
    December 2015
    September 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    December 2013

    Categories

    All
    Accents
    Acrostics
    Amazement
    Bob Dylan
    Books
    Brain
    Certainty
    Choose Your Own Adventure
    Chris Hadfield
    Christmas
    Coincidence
    Creativity
    Cryptic Crossword Tutorial
    Editing Puzzles
    ELLE Magazine
    Epiphany
    Escape Room
    Family
    Finding Your Way
    Fraser Simpson
    Globe And Mail
    Group Solving
    Hero
    Hidden Messages
    Homophone Clues
    Horcrux
    Leonard Cohen
    Love
    Making Mistakes
    Maps
    Marriage
    Memory
    #MeToo
    Momentum
    Montreal Review Of Books
    Motherhood
    Music
    Mystery
    Nabokov
    Natural Phenomena
    Oliver Sacks
    Personal Essay
    Personalized Cryptics
    Politics
    Puzzles In Print
    Renovation
    Secrets
    Setting Puzzles
    The Committee Of Sleep
    The Coriolis Effect
    Travel
    Wes Anderson
    Wordplay
    Writer-in-Residence
    Writing
    Yoga

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.