Hammer that nail.

 I'm currently watching a show I like called "Tough as Nails."  As part of this episode one of the competitors' individual challenges was to build a wooden ladder, 30 feet high.  The top and bottom rungs were already in place and they had to climb the ladder as they built it. using precut lengths of 2x4s.  This challenge brought back memories of my father.  He was a carpenter all his life, starting by helping his father build many of the barns that still stand around the Woodburn area.  He quit school at 16 which wasn't unusual at that time, but rather sad I think, because he loved to read and was really quite intelligent.  He finished his career by specializing in interior finish work and always had plenty of jobs lined up.  But what I thought of as I watched this show was how he hammered nails.  When my brothers and I were young, if he was working on a project around the house (our 100 year old house always needed something) he would give us chunks of scrap wood, hammers and nails, and we would hammer away taking forever to get a nail even a little way into the wood.  Then he would show us how it was done.  Wham, wham, wham!  Three strokes of the hammer and the nail was all the way into the wood.  Every time.  He would tell us how to do it flexing our wrists, but I'm pretty sure it had a lot more to do with years and years of practice.