There are many things I can't do at all well - throwing is one of them. I was always well below average at throwing a ball, a stone or a javelin; and easily prone to hurt my shoulder if I tried*. I am distinctly sub-par at foreign languages. I have an aesthetic blind-spot for sculpture. And so on...
But I have sometimes discovered a built-in natural ability in some activities.
The thing is, you don't know you have this, until you try the thing. And, even then, the ability does not always go along with an interest or drive to succeed in that domain.
I had a natural ability as a journal editor and a genuine interest in the job.
While I was put in charge of Medical Hypothesis, I found the work congenial, could do it efficiently, and the journal did very well - such that I was awarded two significant performance related salary increases.
(Of course, ability and success did not stop me for being sacked when I transgressed PC taboos!)
Another thing I seemed naturally gifted at, was clay pigeon shooting - which did not interest me as a sport, and which I did only once, on holiday in Ireland.
Clay pigeon shooting uses a double-barrelled shotgun to blast ceramic discs - shaped like saucers - of approximately five inches diameter.
These discs are fired out of a spring-loaded device two at a time; so they can fly away from the shooter, across his vision from one side to the other, or from in-front and passing backwards over his head.
I had never touched or fired a shotgun in my life; but I achieved almost perfect results in this weird sport. I even managed to hit both discs (one after the other, with each barrel) when they were going sideways, or backwards (which was apparently the most difficult, in that nobody else managed to hit any of the clays, during this procedure).
I've no idea how I accomplished this feat; especially the "deflection" aiming - which is pointing the gun the right amount ahead-of, and above, the thing aimed at, to allow for the elapsing of time before the shots arrive, and their gravitational drop of the shot.
But then, as I mentioned, it just came naturally.
I never did the sport again - partly because of indifference, partly because it was way too expensive to be affordable or worthwhile. But the experience illustrated how people sometimes have some very strange natural aptitudes and I never would have imagined this was one of mine except for the accident of going on holiday to visit a friend, who had a friend, who was all set-up for clay pigeon shooting - and generous enough to let the rest of us do it for nothing.
*Interestingly, I inherited this deficit from my father, who was (in most respects) an exceptional all-round athlete - PE teacher, A1-fit infantryman - top performer of his basic-training intake, and a semi-professional football (soccer) player in the highly competitive Northern Alliance League. But he couldn't throw. Unfortunately, I inherited the deficit, but not the all-round sports ability.
