Re: [Callers] What to do with a really bad new dancer?

Mac McKeever wrote: and Ron Blechner replied: JD Erskine meanwhile offered this comment: to which Ron similarly replied: So far I haven't seen anyone respond to Ron's request for suggestions about opening such a potentially delicate conversation. I don't have a fully-developed suggestion either, but I have what may be the germ of an idea: Perhaps the thing to do would be to start by asking the person a question. I'll illustrate with a story. When I was a new square and contra dancer, I was quite mystified about just what to do with my feet during a swing. I remember trying to watch other dancers' feet when they were swinging and I was inactive, and I remember not being able to figure it out--though it seems completely obvious when I watch now. In case anyone's wondering, the local dances where I lived at the time didn't normally include an official new dancers' workshop/lesson/orientation. The visiting caller at my very first trad dance *did* offer some specific instruction on swinging, but I somehow missed out on it for reasons I won't go into now. Anyway, after I'd been going to dances for maybe three or four months and staggering/stumbling/bumbling through all the swings, there was some kind of break at a dance one day, and the partner I'd just danced with took the opportunity to ask me a question that I remember as something like, "Was that a one-step [perhaps she actually said "buzz-step"] or a two-step swing you were doing?" just as if she'd noticed something interesting about my swing and wanted me to teach her what I had been doing. I said that I had no idea what I was supposed to do (which, in retrospect, she must obviously have already known), She offered to teach me. And that was when I first learned to do a buzz-step swing, very bouncily at first, then gradually smoothing out over the next few weeks and months. Years later, after moving across the country, I was back visiting my former city and I saw that same woman at a dance. I asked her about the conversation I've just described. She didn't remember the details, but she agreed with my guess that her question had probably been a ploy to find out whether I was open to instruction. A similar sort of ploy would be to ask someone for ideas on how to teach beginning dancers about such-and-such, naming a topic that the person you're addressing understands only vaguely if at all. Of course, when my friend asked me that ploy question years ago, she couldn't have known for sure that my response would be to admit ignorance and seek instruction. I might, for all she knew, have responded defensively or even confrontationally (but I think she could reasonably have expected my response to be less emotionally charged than if she had bluntly asked something like "Do you realize that your swings are really awkward?"). Or if I were vaguely aware of my lack of skill but also strongly in denial about it, I might have given an evasive answer accompanied by nervous laughter: "Well, we all have our own personal styles, don't we? Heh, heh, heh." --Jim