I owe everyone a demonstration of dimensioning as I know it now. I know the average workman 200 years ago could've dusted me, but I doubt that anyone at any woodworking show would be able to do the same block of work that I could sawing and planing in the context of work in 4 hours, and i'm not really in very good shape - like running or sport shape.
My point with this is that I think workmen found like farmers, a position that they could work in expending the least they could on themselves, holding themselves up, and the most on whatever they were doing.
This means relaxed legs and an upright position whenever able and switching when not stamina is needed as switching is generally pretty easy. For example, if shoveling something it's all leaning or rotation and little hard squeezing or arm-like moves. If you have to lean, so be it, but you can shovel left handed or right handed.
Sawing is the same way. Chris Schwarz and other folks demonstrate sawing as a one armed thing with a bunch of arm motion, and then holding up his or their bodies, whoever is demonstrating. This is dumb for anything more than the shortest of cuts. The power for the saw comes from leaning or twisting, originating at the shoulder and being upright wherever possible, sitting at the work, standing astride a bench or on-knee on a saw bench and upright holding the wood down with a knee instead of a hand. As soon as you lean over on a hand, you'll be holding up your body and restricting the ability to create power by twisting.
Whatever position you may be sawing in, figure out a way to generate power with shoulder, twisting, whatever it may be and see if you can do it in a position that's upright enough that you don't have to strain leaning over or holding yourself up.
frequent but fast saw sharpening for rip sawing is necessary - just so that the saw is cutting on its own without bearing down on work but not so aggressive that it's catching or stopping abruptly at the end of the cut. Sounds very prickly and like a narrow window to operate in, but it becomes easy pretty soon.
If you're doing something like resawing moderate sized wood in a vise, it becomes pretty easy then just to use one arm, and then switch sides and use the other. If you like to rip one armed, you can also saw with your off hand without much practice. Fine crosscutting....a little less safe to just go at it, but it'll be uncommon that you wear yourself out crosscutting anything.
the only time I ever have a hand on a piece to be ripped when it's on a saw bench is just to start a cut. After that, it's never necessary to do anything other than get back upright and leave a knee on the wood, or sit on it and saw with both hands from head height. You'll get blisters on your hands before the rest of you tires.
if a saw is aggressive in a certain position, you have the whole handle to work with - the saw will be much milder gripping the bottom of the handle. When I saw sitting, to avoid the saw grabbing, I usually go with one hand through the handle, but backwards resting on the inside of the loop, and the other on the bottom of the handle on the outside. the same saw that saws nicely with one arm will saw nicely like that. And you're sitting on the wood, so there's little effort in keeping it still.
I think to see all of this stuff demonstrated would look boring, and of course, it assumes that you have materially conquered tool setup and maintenance and controlling the tools without having a death grip on them. Everything is small adjustments. The same way, I always imagined myself as a kid outworking my grandfather, who was already in his mid 70s. It looked like he did all of the work with a turn or by using his "butt". he was a farmer and he retired to fall, cut and split and sell firewood 3 days a week. nice retirement. he always looked to me like he was just going through the motions and not trying very hard, but I doubt I was working as fast as him or could've worked nearly as long - I just didn't get what he was doing at the time. He spent a lifetime figuring out how to do as much work as possible.
If you measure what you get done, you'll be surprised to find that you can probably figure out ways to get a volume of work done faster without feeling like you're working as hard, and the opportunity to find something never goes away, which is one of the draws of working by hand.
While I feel like I owe organizing and showing it, regardless of who would like to criticize what (I don't care), I also haven't been in that big of a hurry, because I think, like the magazines present, people are looking for entertainment and just enough of a taste to practice escapism. The share of folks who are going to stick it out behind observation is small. The share of the share left who are going to go beyond observation to really getting after things and having the physical sense of doing things and doing them well to the point that they are natural seeming is probably smaller yet in proportion.
The only shame of it that I can think of in terms of how good it feels to work entirely by hand without it being painful or punishing is that if it were done for gainful purposes in the past, people would've gotten to the point where I am now and then still progressed to "ok, now that I can do this easily, let's see how fast I can do it to torture myself to get just a little more". "and then a little more after that". Before my grandfather was old, that was him.
My comment about nobody outworking me doing this was a nod to him. My dad recounts him hiring a dozen men during hay season and then declaring "there isn't a man alive who can outwork me", treating the men well, but not standing around while they did his work, rather showing them he'd be in the mix with them and none would be able to criticize him for slacking while others took the punishment. I stop at the lazy pleasant part. I think many others would love that part, too. You can get really fast at things just keeping it extra lazy and pleasant. The cap iron needling came out of laziness. The fast sharpening came out of laziness. All of it did.
I'll try and remember that if I ever feel the need for a shooting board!
