Abacus Lesson 1 // Introduction; Proper Technique; & History of the Abacus // Tutorial Video Lecture | Abacus Master Class:Become an Expert (English) - Personal Learning

[Music]
welcome to the first lesson of abacus
this is in this lesson all we're going
to do is really just kind of get a feel
for what the abacus is some of you may
have heard a little bit about it and may
have I don't know know that it's ancient
and and that Chinese people use it or
something like that but I wanted to tell
you a little bit about the history of an
abacus so you know exactly what it is
and what it represents and why it's such
an important part of history and also
why it's still used today the abacus is
still a very though although it's an
ancient tool it's still still a widely
used tool in many parts of the world
so the first abacus you could say was a
sand pile if you want to think of a bad
like that a portable sand pile the first
what they would do is they'd have a tray
made out of clay or wood and have a thin
layer of sand in there and this sand
they would spread out and I guess you
could say they would use it a little bit
like a chalkboard or something like that
before they wrote on anything they would
just mark with their fingers or with a
stick that whatever marks they needed to
mark to indicate what they were counting
and that was kind of the earliest known
abacus because abacus is actually a
latin word meaning sand tree and
although you know what you see here is
what we think of as a modern abacus the
word abacus actually means sand tree and
the word originates with the Arabic word
I don't know how to say it a little bit
a BQ which means dust or fine sand so
after that as you can imagine maybe
technology and improved a little bit and
they move beyond sand boxes and started
using pebbles and there was some where
they use pebbles in the sand and instead
of drawing in the sand they would
set a pebble in the sand then moving on
a little bit beyond that once they got
good and working with metal and all that
they created an advocates that have
little grooves in it that the marble
could slide up or down and allow them to
count based on the position of the
marble and this started to look a little
bit similar to what we see today in the
abacus so eventually they came up with a
bead abacus and ones on the one like you
see today that has written you know
where these beads are on rods and it was
don't lose the beads as easily there
they're attached to it they can't fall
off you can imagine how that might be a
benefit to not lose your counting beads
all right let's talk a little bit about
the abacus the parts of the advocates
and how it works right in the middle
here we have what is called the beam or
the reckoning bar and when using an
abacus a bead only gets counted when
it's touching the reckoning bar or the
beam so this bead gets counted when it's
touching the reckoning bar or the beam
and the beads up top also get counted
when they're moved down towards the
reckoning bar now these these beads up
here are called the heavenly beads these
beads are worth five down below in the
earthly beads the well down below these
are called the earthly beads and earthly
beads are worth one each so up here this
one's worth five these are each worth
one you see you'll see something else
here there's a little dot there's always
going to be a little dot every three
rows so there's not one here but there
would be anyways every three rolls
there's going to be a dot and that that
marks so we understand that shows how
the numbers are broken down or what they
represent you'll also notice that in
this the sorbonne and the not everyone
not all of them will have this but I
like the ones that do that chain also
change colors every three beads so you
can see every three rows of beads so
that you can see this division of three
I mean think about how we write numbers
and we always divide them into threes if
you write the number 100 it's just going
to be one zero zero if you write the
number 1,000 we generally put a comma
after the one so it goes one comma zero
zero if we write the number 13322 1 3
comma zero
well three hundred three two zero if we
write the number for example twenty
three million four hundred and fifty six
seven
four hundred fifty six thousand seven
hundred and eighty nine
let's talk about how we're going to
count with the abacus a bead is only
counted when it's touching or up against
this reckoning bar when it's moved to
the middle in other words the top beads
are only counted when they're moved down
and the bottom beads are only counted
when they're moved up so let me see that
again let me say that again a bead is
only counted when it's touching or moved
up against this reckoning bar or the
beam so a bead is a top bead a heavenly
bead is only counted when it's moved
down and the bottom the earthly beads
are only counted when they're slid up
now let me let me point out one other
feature that this abacus has not all of
them will have it but this one comes
with a handy little button right here I
like I like that because - clear - clear
your abacus all you do is tip it down
and hit that beam that clears it also
does it it doesn't matter what your
beads are doing that clears it now if
your abacus doesn't have that if you had
one at home and like if you're one of
those awesome people in the world and
just happen to have an advocacy around I
let's if you don't have that the way you
clear your abacus from some large crazy
number like this is tip it down like
that and then with your finger clear it
like that that's how you clear an
advocate of these beam things here let
me do that again so we have some crazy
number here like that tip it down run
your finger off and you always do it
left to right that's how you clear it in
general if you want to keep with good
abacus technique and it's going to move
faster if you if you learn these things
from the beginning you'll be able to
manipulate the abacus faster is you only
use your two fingers your thumb finger
and your index finger and the thumb
finger it's only job is to move beads up
that's its only job the index finger
moves things down and his job the index
finger here he can he's the only one
that can touch the heavenly beads thumb
can touch the earthly beads and he can
only move them up but the earth the
index finger can touch both he can move
that one down and up like that or you
can move those down like that that's how
it works
so once again you're only using these
two fingers the thumb moves them up the
index finger can move them down he can
move the heavenly bead up or down but
the thumb can only move them up the
index finger moves them down or if you
can clear them all like that
once again
you