Re: [Callers] New contra dancers and similar figures

My view is to just not sweat it.  I realize at the very start that many new dancers don't have the CPU to process too much stuff - especially if you are burdening them not only new dance moves but also terminology that they have never heard before as well.  If such moves are not breaking down the line (if you do a swing rather than a courtesy turn you'll still wind up in the right spot at the very end), it's nothing that I sweat at.  I know that some folks might complain that they won't get any better unless you get them doing it right - but they really didn't come dancing to learn so much confusing stuff.  They came to move to music with other people.  Let them.  Let them muddle through.  Dancers are generally friendly people and the experienced dancers will guide them.  I have heard other callers say to dancers there is no right or wrong way to do moves - just "different interpretations".  I kind of like that.  We should be doing more to put new dancers at ease and not make them feel bad for making mistakes.  Emphasize fun over the correctness of moves and they might want to come back and eventually learn the moves.  Perry ________________________________ From: Alan Winston <winston(a)slac.stanford.edu> To: Caller's discussion list <callers(a)sharedweight.net> Sent: Friday, June 21, 2013 3:52 PM Subject: [Callers] New contra dancers and similar figures Gang -- Wasn't really sure of the subject line, but thought I might as well not say "memetic entrapment" because who would want to read it? Anyway, a phenomenon I've noticed several times over the years is that some fraction of people who were in a beginner workshop and who in the walkthrough of the dance were able to do something like "women chain to partner, women allemande 1x, partner balance and swing" are no longer able to do it, instead pretty reliably doing "women pull by, partner swing" and confusion.  [That one's recoverable, although if they then stop swinging early and move on to the after-the-swing figure it can require attention.] This is likelier to happen if both partners are new, and likeliest to happen if all four in that set are new.  But that couple that's new will have that problem repeatedly.  When I see that I continue to prompt the figures, maybe with more emphasis - Ladies CHAIN and COURTESY TURN  - and it doesn't seem to make any difference. (I'm reminded of something that happens to beginning English dancers.  "Back to back" (non-spinning do-si-do) and "Cross and go below" start the same way - striding out to pass partner by the right shoulder.  If there's a do-si-do in dance #1 and a "Cross and go below" in dance #2, they'll do the cross and go below in the walkthrough once they get the idea, but once the dance is up and running, when it comes time for that move they'll try to do-si-do, with resultant levels of chaos.  That one has the obvious feature that even if half of the partnership is doing it right the other half can't see them, so there's no feedback about anything going wrong until the 2s move up to fill the spot that one of the 1s is still in, or only one of the 2s moves up, or neither of the 2s moves up.) This either doesn't happen to dancers who have been coming for a while or is corrected quickly if it does, maybe by noticing what everybody else in the line is doing. My hypothesis is that these are people who are still drinking from the firehose.  (The first time you come you hear everything important about contra dancing and probably get exposed to half or more of the common figures.  It's a big cognitive load.  The second time you hear the same things again and get exposed to many fewer new-to-you figures, and by the third time you might be successfully associating the figures with the names - the flow of novelty is at a trickle and easy to absorb.)  They're not ignoring the caller, per se, but they don't have CPU left over to process the prompts and in any case the words aren't really meaning anything to them yet; if a prompt changes what they're doing they're going to take four-six beats to get organized enough to respond to the prompt.  ) This will get sorted out if they keep coming back, probably.  But they may be less likely to return if they were confused and overstretched through the whole evening, and this is the kind of thing that leaves you confused. What do you guys do about this kind of thing?  I already keep prompting clearly and in a timely way, refrain from shouting "No!" over the microphone,  don't lose my cool (a place that took me a while to get to, incidentally).  What else can I do to help these people succeed? [Also happy to hear alternative views of what's going on inside these people.) -- Alan _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers