Jun 11, 2024 — Complete Website Overhaul

Most of the software behind this website hadn't been updated in almost a decade. This past week, I released a complete overhaul of the site, with a new design and up-to-date frameworks behind the scenes.

The overall goal of the new design is to arrange the content here into more of a book-with-videos sort of format, with both a clear linear progression, and a table of contents that allows easy navigation. Now that the technical piece is released, I'll be spending some time working on the organization of the content itself. My hope is that this new format will be easier to use while learning, and also make Crash Restraint a more useful resource for instructors.

Apr 6, 2019 — Support Crash Restraint via Patreon

Now and again people have reached out asking if they could help support Crash Restraint financially -- I've finally finished setting up a Patreon page where you can do just that. While I never expected to make any money from my videos when I started creating them, I absolutely appreciate donations to support the project, and if we can build a big enough steady income it could allow increases in the scope of the site (e.g. more content, support for additional languages).

Feb 3, 2019 — Video speed controls & SF classes

Vimeo now has support for watching videos at double speed! I don't know when they added the feature, but it should now be enabled for all my videos when you watch them on this site. The speed settings are under the gear icon that shows up when you hover over a video. I'm pretty exciting about this because I love watching rope videos at 1.5/2x speed and really missed that feature from YouTube. You can also do 1/2 speed if you're tying along, or just want to listen to the creepy sound effects.

Also, if you missed the posts elsewhere and are in the San Francisco Bay area, make sure to check out my in-person instructional program for 2019. The 2nd class is this coming Thu and still had 1 spot left as of this posting.

Nov 18, 2018 — Banned from YouTube; no more 3D video

As some of you may have noticed, my YouTube account was suspended (again) a few months ago. It looks like I'm not going to be able to get it reactivated this time, so I've disabled the 3D video feature (which relied on YouTube). Most videos continue to be available on Vimeo, with the exception of a few older ones that I'll try to replace as time allows.

Jan 30, 2018 — Linear curriculum as default goal

You can now follow my standard teaching curriculum by using the new goal that shows up automatically, "Core Rope Curriculum". While the offline version of CRC is more extensive than what I've filmed so far for the website, now there's an easy path to follow through the most essential online content on Crash Restraint. As new content is added, it will automatically show up as part of your CRC goal.

I've also added a new homepage (which you'll only see if you're signed out), providing a brief introduction to the site for those new to rope (or just new to Crash Restraint).

My hope is that with these changes, Crash Restraint will be much more intuitive and inviting to use, particularly for brand new users. I'd love to hear what you think.

The online curriculum itself is also due for a bit of updating and pruning, which I'll be working on over the next couple weeks.

Jan 27, 2018 — Placeholders hidden by default

This site has always served two purposes; it is a free online educational resource for all, but is also a database of notes that I use in my offline teaching and to track progress for in-person students. Probably the most common cause of frustration/confusion I've heard from online learners was running across ties that didn't have enough content to learn them from the website. As of now, ties without substantial online content are hidden by default; so as you click around and explore the website, everything you run across should be an actually-useful article.

If you'd like to see all ties in the database, including those with little or no content, you can enables "Show Placeholders" on the new user preferences page.

Jan 16, 2018 — Changelog, login improvements

Added the changelog feature on the user dashboard, so that it's easy to see when ties have new content. Added this page, which will be used for general site updates/announcements moving forward.

Also made a couple improvements to the login process today:

• You can now log in using your Crash Restraint username instead of your e-mail address.
• When you click "Remember me" you will stay logged in for 2 months now (previously was 2 weeks).