All that “ravens pass left, neighbours pass right” stuff is just noise to me (and always was, even as a new dancer)—I always wondered who they were talking to up there—I couldn’t imagine how anyone could process all that information coming at them like a machine gun!). I just needed the floor pattern and I was fine. Personally I’ve settled on “everyone passes by right shoulders when in middle of the set and everyone passes by left shoulders on the sides” as a compromise between too much info vs. too little. But I like the drawing of the floor pattern idea as a quick adjunct for the visual learners out there like me. I toyed for a while with bringing a fan belt (rubber loop) and crossing it in the middle to show the weaving pattern, but magic marker on manilla folder is considerably more practical! :-)

On Mar 3, 2020, at 10:11 AM, Martha Wild via Contra Callers <contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

When I first danced, I couldn’t get the hey for weeks and weeks until someone drew a figure 8 with an extra loop on a blackboard for me. Then it all made sense.

For that reason, now, I keep a large hand-drawn with dark thick magic marker figure 8 with extra loop on a piece of stiff light paper (like a manilla folder thickness) that I can hold up and show briefly as I am teaching the figure. It doesn’t get everyone, but it gets people like me. There are always one or two -
“ahas” that I hear. I could never learn it from the pass this shoulder or that instruction. I needed the floor pattern. Everyone learns differently.

Martha
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