Re: [Callers] Don't teach proper formation unless you need it

Jeff Kaufman wrote: I called at MIT in Cambridge Tuesday night and I thought I would follow up. The dancers mostly lined up improper and in hands four without my prompting. On the second dance I saw a couple standing reversed [1] and said "ones cross over", and that couple switched. A couple times I could start the walkthrough simply with "with your neighbor balance and swing" but most of the time I needed to say "hands four", primarily to get them to stop talking and pay attention. Jeff [1] This is complicated. I could tell they they didn't intend to be swapped because I knew them. But if you make a point of getting any couple standing gender-swapped to switch you'll annoy dancers who are dancing that way on purpose. (And I think more people should dance both roles, so I don't want to annoy or embarass people doing it.) It helps not to single anyone out and instead just say something generic like "ones cross over".