Re: [Callers] Empowering people to say "Yes" while also empowering them to say "No"

In discussions among dance callers and organizers, online and off, a variety of topics come up from time to time that might be grouped under the heading of empowering people (especially new dancers) to say "No". Some examples: * Assuring new dancers that it's ok to decline an invitation to dance as someone's partner, and that doing so doesn't oblige them to give a reason nor to sit out the dance. * Telling people that if they're not comfortable making eye contact, they can look at, for example, the forehead or ear of the person with whom they're swinging as a way to avoid getting dizzy from looking at the walls. * Teaching how to decline a partner's or neighbor's attempt to lead a twirl or other embellishment. Without downplaying the importance of empowering people to say "No", I'd like to know if anyone has ideas about empowering people to say "Yes" (while still empowering them to say "No"). For example: * While I agree that nobody should feel compelled to dance with any particular partner, I think it's nice to be in a community where most dancers are comfortable dancing with a variety of partners and where a single person arriving with no regular partner of group of friends doesn't face the prospect of being an involuntary wallflower for most (or all) of the evening. * While I agree that nobody should feel required to make eye contact if they find it uncomfortable, I rather like dancing in a community where people generally do enjoy making more eye contact on the dance floor than they do with random passing strangers on the street. I wouldn't want to emphasize teaching avoidance of eye contact to point of developing into a community where everyone habitually looks at or past their partner's ear. (And no, that doesn't mean I think it's ok for dancer A to gaze at dancer B as if he meant to fall through her eyes into her very soul while dancer B very obviously is not responding in kind. [Stereotyped gendered pronouns intentional, but the same point applies with any other pair of pronouns.]) * I've sometimes heard the action borrowed from "Petronella" described with words such as "move or spin one place to the right." To me that seems to suggest that just walking to the next spot around the ring is the standard version of the figure and that spinning is an embellishment. I'd rather suggest that the spin is standard and the leaving it out is an adaptation for those with limited mobility, energy, or balance. Perhaps some of you can think of other examples. When someone makes two remarks--call them P and Q--that seem to suggest different courses of action, it's tempting to read them as being connected by a "but" ("P but Q") and to assume that the person means to imply that whichever remark came second (that is, the one after the explicit or implicit "but") thoroughly overrides the one that came first. That's not my intention here. I'd really like to get some conversation going about helping people feel empowered to say "Yes" and ALSO helping them feel empowered to say "No". As an illustration that those need not be conflicting goals, let me mention that IMO one of the things that can most empower someone to say "Yes" is confidence that they'll be respected when they want to say "No". Thoughts, anyone? --Jim _______________________________________________ List Name: Callers mailing list List Address: Callers(a)lists.sharedweight.net Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/