Can I actually do this?

I guess I should qualify myself with a quick story. I had never golfed before and decided to give it a go. I went to a driving range, rented a club and bought a "bucket-o-balls". I proceeded to tee up a ball, line up my club with it, gave my ass a wiggle like I have seen people do, brought my club back and.... Swing! After the pain in my arm subsided, it seems I did not even come close to hitting the ball. What I did manage to do was break the driver head right off the club and send it down the range. A pretty good distance I might add. After paying for the club I vowed never to attempt to golf again. Now for my question: How easy is it to use a scythe? Will I send the business end out into the field or just mearly chop my foot off?

Working with a sythe is more like pushing a broom than swinging a golf club.

Plus, the stuff you're cutting provides enough resistance to keep things under control.

You should really just try it and see. It doesn't require nearly the type of study and control of body movement that golf does.
William

And when you're finished a round of scything you've actually accomplished something useful.  

Some people learn by doing, some people learn by watching, some by reading, and some do best of all when they take a course.

I noticed there are a lot of scything courses around - far more than I ever expected.

Perhaps a course might be the best path for you?

I've only cut off, like, two toes while scything.  Seems to me that an 80% success rate is nothing to shake a stick at.  Go for it!

You can't swing a scythe and cut yourself unless you're trying to, and even then I don't imagine it'd be too easy, so you should be good there.  And with the cutting motion you're moving the blade alongside the ground, rather than moving it more-or-less perpendicular to it, so there's no reason you should have any kind of forceful or sudden blade-to-ground contact, so you should be good there too.

Mind you, I'm not saying you actually can do this, just that it's kind of difficult to mess up like you messed up swinging a golf club.  But some people just have a talent for that kind of thing.

My one question would be how sharp are the knives in your kitchen? If they won't slice a sheet of copy paper you aren't quite ready. Honing is simple, but critical to pleasant mowing, and is just a touch more advanced than sharpening a common kitchen knife, so you'll want to start there before picking up a scythe and having a go. If you can sharpen competently, and you can sweep with a broom or rake, you can mow with a scythe.