I think that whole "momentum" topic is very useful and, in my experience, aside from the occasional reference in a walk-through it is typically left for the dancer to connect the dots on their own. 

It goes hand in hand with awareness of transitions (i.e. the connecting tissue, that we don't often teach, between the figures, that we do teach), I think. (I sometimes think - not really - I'm the only one who can enjoy a lovely transition as much as a lovely figure)

Not sure how one can incorporate yet another teaching point into a beginner session but I've often thought that a regular "tips" session of, perhaps, 10 minutes during the break - for those interested - would be a good time for such things in a community's dance schedule.

I'd be curious to hear what other communities do by way of well-received teachable moments (apart from quick, targetted style points from the caller during the walk-through).

Ken Panton

On Sun., Sep. 29, 2019, 18:02 , <callers-request@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
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Today's Topics:

   1. What can you do.....? (tom hinds)
   2. Re: What can you do.....? (Winston, Alan P.)


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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 08:44:38 -0400
From: tom hinds <tomthecaller@yahoo.com>
To: callers@lists.sharedweight.net
Subject: [Callers] What can you do.....?
Message-ID: <8757E3F3-E880-4101-9CF8-5A05A244699B@yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=utf-8

Alan,

You raise an interesting question.  After I?ve had time to sleep on it, I?ve come up with some other issues to raise and.discuss.

I?m curious if you have a beginning workshop before the dance.

In my opinion the skills needed for a new dancer to not only survive their first dance but to actually enjoy it are many   And that means having a beginning session that approximates as close as possible the dance itself. 

In your email you mention larks and ravens.  If you do have a beginning workshop, are the newbies given the opportunity to practice/react to their new titles?   Not having that opportunity to practice reacting to their new titles may cause a bit of confusion on the dance floor.

Tom




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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 19:37:06 +0000
From: "Winston, Alan P." <winston@slac.stanford.edu>
To: "callers@lists.sharedweight.net" <callers@lists.sharedweight.net>,
        tom hinds <tomthecaller@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Callers] What can you do.....?
Message-ID:
        <DM5PR07MB403868A0F8945FE5D7B411F7F2830@DM5PR07MB4038.namprd07.prod.outlook.com>

Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

Tom --

It's possible, if not likely, that what I'm calling "seems to have no sense of flow" has different causes for different people at different times.  I've definitely seen it happening at gents/ladies dances as well as at larks/robins dances as well as at English dances.  When I lead a beginner session at a larks/robins dance I introduce role names when teaching the swing, emphasize that larks open on the left, ravens/robins on the right, and do a circle mixer that's just into the center and back, swing the next etc, repeating the larks left robins right thing.  So they get to hear the role name a lot.

Of course new comers often take quite a while to get sorted regardless.  Last Sunday I called a single contra dance at a party - the party honored a queer activist who also liked contra dancing, so the honoree wanted there to be a dance, although hardly anybody at the party had done it before.  Did a Haste-to-the-Wedding variant which only had a partner swing, felt no need to use any role names at all (beyond partner and neighbor)  and every foursome one couple was in spent about 6 of the 8 beats available to do a right hand star getting the star organized.  I couldn't see what was going on, but they'd pass through and circle on time, and then their foursome would be huddled like the Peanuts kids around the sad little tree in the Christmas special and then a star would start moving.

(This isn't an example of a "no sense of flow" problem, and I didn't see any of that at that event.)

What I'm talking about here is that there's choreography that seems fairly inevitable - if you're going to circle left into a half-poussette isn't the probable direction of the half-poussette pretty obvious, or if you did a clockwise half poussette into a mad robin why should you even have to use a role name to say who goes through the middle first?  Getting it wrong requires fighting your momentum - and some people will do that.  [Although if they're generally tentative, or late, or executing one call and stopping and then executing the next call, then they don't have appropriate momentum anyway.]

-- Alan


________________________________
From: Callers <callers-bounces@lists.sharedweight.net> on behalf of tom hinds via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2019 5:44 AM
To: callers@lists.sharedweight.net <callers@lists.sharedweight.net>
Subject: [Callers] What can you do.....?

Alan,

You raise an interesting question.  After I?ve had time to sleep on it, I?ve come up with some other issues to raise and.discuss.

I?m curious if you have a beginning workshop before the dance.

In my opinion the skills needed for a new dancer to not only survive their first dance but to actually enjoy it are many   And that means having a beginning session that approximates as close as possible the dance itself.

In your email you mention larks and ravens.  If you do have a beginning workshop, are the newbies given the opportunity to practice/react to their new titles?   Not having that opportunity to practice reacting to their new titles may cause a bit of confusion on the dance floor.

Tom


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