You can move this picture: drag it, press and hold then drag on a touch screen, or use the arrow keys.Printable guide 17.01

The Clay Hole University · Thoughts from Dan

Let Yourself Be Bad at Something AgainPrintable pottery guide

Dan Pearce’s open letter about being new at something as a grown adult, printed so you can hold it, tick the permission slip and sign one of your own.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • An open letter
  • 14 printable pages
  • 8-term glossary
  • 5 questions for you

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any home printer
  • The full lesson stays free online
The printable, at a glance

What is the printable edition of Let Yourself Be Bad at Something Again?

It is the free open letter of the same name, printed. It is about the most common word in a pottery studio, which is “sorry”; the gap between what you can do and what you have watched somebody else do well; what getting good cost; what being bad at something buys you; and the part where you quit. It includes the letter’s own permission slip as tick boxes. On paper it adds a blank permission slip to write on and sign, a short glossary, five questions to answer for yourself with what the letter says about each, and three related lessons. It is a letter, so it has no dashboard and no reference card.

Prefer to read it online first? “Let Yourself Be Bad at Something Again” is free to read, and always will be.

  • 14printable pages, US Letter
  • 5questions to answer for yourself, with the letter’s own notes
  • 7QR codes, each on a short Clay Hole address
  • 8glossary terms in plain language
  • 1workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

The most common word in the studio is “sorry”

Somebody sits down at a wheel for the first time, makes a lump that leans hard to the left, and apologizes. To the instructor, to the wheel, and every so often to the clay, which does not care.

Nobody apologizes for being bad at something they have never seen done well. The apology was never about the pot. It is about the gap.

This is Dan Pearce’s open letter on that gap, printed so you can read it in one sitting with a pen, and end it with a permission slip you write and sign yourself.

Look inside

Real pages, from the letter itself

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark. The full guide has none.

  • Page 3 of the “Let Yourself Be Bad at Something Again” printable guide: the most common word in my studio, shown with the sample watermark
    The most common word in my studioHow the letter opens, and the gap it is about.
  • Page 7 of the “Let Yourself Be Bad at Something Again” printable guide: what i actually want for you, shown with the sample watermark
    What I actually want for youThe last part of the letter, where the jokes stop.
  • Page 9 of the “Let Yourself Be Bad at Something Again” printable guide: your permission slip, shown with the sample watermark
    Your permission slipEight blank lines to write on, and a place to sign and date it.
  • Page 11 of the “Let Yourself Be Bad at Something Again” printable guide: the self-check, shown with the sample watermark
    The self-checkFive questions about being a beginner on purpose, with no right answers.
Flip through the free sampleSeven pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

A letter is better held

Some things are easier to do once somebody has said them out loud. A page you can write on helps.

  • Read it in one sitting

    It is a letter. It reads start to finish, with a pen in your hand.

  • A permission slip to sign

    The letter’s eight permissions print as tick boxes, and there is a blank one to write your own.

  • A page to fold up and keep

    Put it where the guitar is.

  • Honest about the studio

    Prices and rules it mentions are dated to this edition, September 2026.

How the guide is built

Lighter than the rest of the series, on purpose

The rest of the series is workbooks. This one is a letter, so it is lighter:

  • The whole letter, in Dan’s words

    Six parts, from the most common word in the studio to what he actually wants for you.

  • Two permission slips

    The letter’s eight, as tick boxes, and a blank one to write and sign.

  • A short glossary

    Eight terms from the letter: the gap, the can pile, shopping, beginner on purpose, and more.

  • A five-question self-check

    With a page on what the letter says about each. It is about you, not a test of the letter.

  • Three related lessons

    The ones Dan points to in his P.S., each with a QR code.

  • Codes that keep working

    Every QR code points at a short Clay Hole address, so a printed copy keeps working when a video moves.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Let Yourself Be Bad at Something Again” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Being a beginner on purpose, as a grown adult, in a room full of other beginners, is one of the few things I know of that hands you back a piece of yourself. The letter is free, and stays free.

The University is free and stays free. The guides are the version rebuilt for paper with an unreasonable amount of care, and buying one keeps the free side going.

Thank you. Genuinely.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
Collect them

Build a little pottery library

Every guide carries a permanent number. This one is 17.01, the first guide in Thoughts from Dan. The series is designed to live together in a binder, section by section, so the craft ends up on your shelf in the order you learn it.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

See every printable guide, or every printable we sell on one page.

  • 5guides in your cart1 on us
  • 9guides in your cart2 on us
Where this leads

Where the letter points next

These lessons pick up where this one leaves off. Each one is free to read now.

Good questions

Before you buy

Is this different from the free letter?
The words are the same. The printable adds a blank permission slip to write on and sign, a short glossary, five questions to answer for yourself with what the letter says about each, and three related lessons with codes.
Is it a workbook like the other guides?
No. It is Dan’s open letter, so it has no learning dashboard and no reference card. It has one page to write on.
Do I need to have taken a class?
No. It is for anyone who is out of the habit of being bad at something.
Are the prices in it current?
They are as of September 2026, the date of this edition, and the guide says so. Anything about the studio’s prices or rules is worth checking on theclayhole.com.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is designed for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Can I print it in black and white?
Yes. Nothing depends on color, and we looked at the workbook pages in grayscale to be sure.
Can I use it on an iPad or laptop instead?
Yes. Every QR code in the guide is also a tappable link, so on a screen you just tap instead of scanning.
How do I get it after I buy?
Right after checkout you get a download link by email and on your order confirmation page. Each link works up to seven times.
What if the guide gets updated?
Every edition carries a version number. When we correct or improve a guide, everyone who bought it gets an email with the new edition at no charge.
Can I share it with my class or studio?
Please don’t. It is licensed for your own personal use. Anyone can read the full lesson free online, and the printable is here if they want their own copy.

Pick it back up.

Print it, tick the permission slip, and sign the blank one. It honestly does not have to be pottery.

Get the printable · $5.00

The Clay Hole University Printable Guide Terms

Licensing, safety, digital delivery, and refund terms

Your copy is yours. The guide is not.

Your purchase gives one individual purchaser a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable license for personal use only. You may download the guide to your own devices, print copies for your own use, write all over them, spill clay water on them, replace a coffee-damaged copy, and generally use the heck out of what you bought.

What you may not do is distribute the guide to anyone else, whether you charge for it or not.

That means you may not share, forward, email, upload, post, publish, copy, reproduce, resell, sublicense, redistribute, or otherwise provide the guide, or any substantial portion of it, to another person. You may not place it in a shared drive, group chat, membership library, online community, file-sharing service, studio resource folder, classroom packet, employee handbook, course, workshop, or other shared collection. You may not make copies for students, members, employees, friends, classes, studios, schools, groups, or organizations.

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Purchasing the guide does not transfer ownership of its copyrighted text, photographs, illustrations, graphics, layouts, worksheets, or other original content. Those rights remain with The Clay Hole and their respective rights holders. Copyright law protects the expression contained in these guides, while ideas, methods, techniques, and processes may have different legal treatment.

If you would like to use one of our guides with a class, studio, school, team, or other group, contact The Clay Hole about permission or group licensing. Please do not make twenty copies and call it manifesting.

Pottery is wonderfully unpredictable. It also carries real risk.

We work hard to make The Clay Hole University accurate, useful, practical, and ridiculously thorough. But pottery is a hands-on craft involving countless variables that no written guide can completely control or anticipate.

Depending on what you are doing, ceramics may involve extreme heat, kilns, electricity, gas, flame, sharp tools, spinning machinery, heavy equipment, pressurized equipment, silica-containing dust, fumes, chemicals, raw materials, stains, oxides, glazes, combustible materials, hot surfaces, breakable objects, and other hazards capable of causing serious injury, illness, property damage, fire, or worse.

These guides are provided for general educational and informational purposes. They are not a substitute for hands-on training, competent supervision, your studio’s safety procedures, applicable laws or codes, Safety Data Sheets, or the instructions and warnings supplied by the manufacturers of your clay, glaze, chemicals, tools, kilns, equipment, protective gear, or other materials.

Studios, kilns, clay bodies, glazes, firing schedules, electrical systems, ventilation systems, equipment, environmental conditions, application thicknesses, material formulations, and individual techniques vary enormously. Something that works beautifully in one situation may fail spectacularly in another. That is part of pottery. Occasionally, it is a very expensive part of pottery.

You are responsible for determining whether any technique, material, combination, firing schedule, tool, or process described in a guide is appropriate and safe for your specific circumstances before using it.

Use appropriate protective equipment. Use adequate ventilation and dust control. Read manufacturer instructions and Safety Data Sheets. Follow your studio’s rules. Obtain qualified instruction when a process or piece of equipment requires it. Test materials and techniques before committing important work to them. If you do not understand how to perform something safely, do not proceed until you do.

Never assume that a ceramic surface, glaze, clay body, firing method, finished vessel, repair, decoration, or other result is food-safe, microwave-safe, dishwasher-safe, oven-safe, structurally sound, chemically stable, or suitable for any particular purpose solely because it appears in or is discussed in one of our guides. Verify suitability independently when it matters.

Ceramics also refuses to sign contracts promising beautiful results. Colors change. Glazes move. Kilns have opinions. Pots crack. Materials interact unexpectedly. Manufacturers reformulate products. Equipment behaves differently. The Clay Hole does not guarantee any particular aesthetic, functional, firing, glazing, structural, or other result.

By choosing to use the information in a guide, you accept responsibility for your own materials, equipment, workspace, safety decisions, testing, methods, and results. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, The Clay Hole and its owners, employees, contributors, and affiliates are not responsible for injury, illness, property damage, lost work, failed projects, kiln or equipment damage, financial loss, or other loss arising from or related to your use of, or reliance upon, the guide.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits any right or liability that applicable law does not allow us to exclude or limit.

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By completing your purchase and requesting immediate access to the guide, you consent to digital delivery beginning immediately. Where applicable law provides a cancellation or withdrawal period for digital content, you acknowledge that beginning the download, access, or delivery of the digital content may cause that cancellation or withdrawal right to end.

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If the file you receive is corrupted, inaccessible, materially different from what was described, or there is a genuine technical problem with delivery, please contact us. We would much rather fix the problem than leave you staring angrily at a PDF that refuses to PDF.

Terms version 2026-09-19b