[Organizers] What to do with a really bad new dancer?

[Marie-Michèle Fournier via Organizers]

You are right David, I did not do a very good job of explaining the
problem. He is both confused and slow, which I had previously encountered
mostly separately. But he also seem to resist being led to where he needs
to be, often trying to go somewhere else instead and I don't think he
realizes that he is not doing well and being disruptive to other dancers.
And the bad smell makes everything worse.

On any given night our crowd is about half brand-new or beginners and most
of the beginners we get are fairly young, so we are more used to young
confused dancers, who seem to be easier to lead around. We also don't have
enough experienced dancers to cover him all the time unless he accepts
dancing with men and often times when he dances with other beginners the
set falls appart or comes very close to it.

But we do want to be welcoming, which is why I'm asking the question. I am
still trying to figure out how to gently let him know that he is causing
problems so he'll let us help him and whether we should concentrate our
efforts to dance with him early in the night or later on.

Thank you everyone for your input so far!
Marie

On Tue, Mar 7, 2017 at 12:19 AM, David Kirchner <dekirchner at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Marie,
>
> I've read your note very carefully several times. It seems as if there's
> something here that you may not be telling us. You say that "it is an
> unpleasant experience" to partner this dancer. However, experienced dancers
> dance with unskilled newer dancers all the time. And I suspect that in your
> community, as in ours, there are some excellent dancers who pride
> themselves on being good partners to newcomers and helping them become
> acclimated to the dance. I've also seen dancers over the years acclimate
> themselves to dancing with people who have a number of physical or mental
> impairments. So I am guessing that there's something about this dancer
> beyond the physical impairment that makes him an unpleasant partner. Maybe
> one approach would be to try to address that, whatever it is, so that
> instead of having an unpleasant dancer with an impairment, you have a
> pleasant (or at least unobjectionable) dancer with an impairment.
>
> David
> St. Paul, MN
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 1:31 PM, Marie-Michèle Fournier via Organizers <
> organizers at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>>    Lately a new dancer has started coming to our dance and he is bad
>> enough that he will often make the set break if the dance is moderately
>> challenging. He seems to have some kind of impairment and walks very
>> stiffly which means he will often not be on time for a figure and also
>> often does not remember what is coming next.
>>   We want to be inclusive but at the same time his presence negatively
>> impacts other dancers in his set and while some of the experienced dancers
>> will take one for the team and dance with him, it is an unpleasant
>> experience to be his partner. Unfortunately, we always have many new
>> dancers and having one couple not be where they should be can really throw
>> them off in some dances so I feel like I have to push and pull him around
>> to be on time, despite the fact that it's a little rude.
>>    A recent caller to our dance called him a "speed bump" which was quite
>> accurate. I'm sure other dances have had experience with similar troubles,
>> does anyone have advice on how to deal with this so that other dancers
>> still have a good time yet we are nice to this problematic dancer?
>> Thank you
>> Marie
>> ContraMontreal
>>
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