As a 5 foot 1 inch woman dancer (and a caller), I can also add that the female of the human species is known to generally be smaller than the male. This is such a signature difference that on Voyager they included a graven image of the human species, with the woman scientifically proportionately smaller than the man. In general, then, it’s a lot easier for a big guy to gently direct a small mixed-up woman in the right direction, than it is for me to change the course of the Titanic once it starts blundering among the icebergs. That is definitely another reason people tend to notice the problem with male dancers more. But we have had at least one large dancing-challenged woman whose size made it equally difficult to direct - I occasionally tried dancing as the man with her, but gave it up because it hurt my arms too much.

And yes, we used to have two terrible male dancers when we first started our series here - one who thought he was great, and wasn’t, and one for whom ladies chain seemed to be a new figure each week. They were so bad that as with other groups mentioned, a bunch of strong female dancers got together and we decided to have one “sacrificial dance” each with them every evening, to prevent them from dancing with newcomers and either destroying the whole set or driving the newbies away. It reinforced the idea of the first guy who thought he was great - women sought him out! And the other guy actually very slowly improved by dancing with good dancers all the time. And I still like to grab newcomers who are having difficulty early in the evening - but I avoid the really big ones - not as strong and unbreakable as I used to be…

Martha

On Mar 6, 2017, at 10:39 PM, Neal Schlein via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
Interesting observation, Alan.

Yes, I've encountered it with female dancers as a dancer and caller. However...it isn't quite the same. I suspect it is both more apparent and more pronounced with men, AND that once they've braved the waters to come dancing the experience of it may be less likely to cause them to stop dancing than it is with women.

Here's my reasoning:

Even though squares and contra are not even close to being true lead/follow dances, the men's role is still imbued with more directional control and responsibility in things like properly positioning swings and managing courtesy turns. A man who persistently fails at those will be more disruptive and obvious than an equally incompetent female counterpart due to simple physics and the nature of contra choreography. There is nothing to tell him that HE is the problem, and if he has never seen or experienced a truly successful set he doesn't know any better.

There is also a more significant social component. Men tend to be rewarded for acting confident and penalized for seeking outside validation, so much so that we do it even when we don't know what we're doing. Women experience the reverse situation and are likely to be criticized (or feel they will be criticized) for being confident even when they obviously DO know what they are doing. That means a struggling male dancer is more likely to go confidently wrong than a woman, while a skilled male dancer is more willing to confidently "assist" a difficult partner than his equally skilled female counterparts. Conversely, a struggling female dancer is more likely to accept assistance and willingly perceive the problem than a man is.

There is research which has been done on false confidence, where people who possess highly above-average skill will tend to underestimate their own knowledge and overestimate that of others, while those who persistently fail to learn will tend to do the reverse. This sort of persistent-beginner dancer may actually believe that he is learning at a perfectly fine rate.

Another piece of research that I think is relevant has to do with the different reactions men and women have to the same act of failure. An assessment was done of failed funding attempts on Kickstarter. What the researchers discovered first was that a repeated effort was more likely to succeed. Then they broke down the behavior by gender. When male entrepreneurs failed to receive backing, they were highly likely to repost the same project until it succeeded. A female entrepreneur, on the other hand, would scrap it and try something completely different--if she tried anything at all. The researchers interpreted this difference as being caused by relative internalization of community commentary. (I haven't read the original papers, and learned of both topics through NPR. I can dig up the citations if anyone is interested in learning more.)

Anyway, if that conclusion is correct, male versions of these problem dancers may stick around despite repeatedly failing, while the female of the species realizes something is wrong and jumps ship. This is probably especially true if the men are receiving any sort of encouragement or positive feedback at all.

Just some thoughts.
Neal
Neal Schlein
Youth Services Librarian, Mahomet Public Library

Currently reading: The Different Girl by Gordon Dahlquist
Currently learning: How to set up an automated email system.
On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 7:41 PM, Winston, Alan P. via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
I've seen some responses on the organizers list and here, and I've thought about the persistent rock-in-the-stream dancer we had in Berkeley (who did, eventually, start modifying the dances so he could get where he needed on time, and who indeed various women would ask to dance or he'd be asking the new young women dancers and confusing them horribly).

One thing I'm noticing from the similar stories and responses is that all the rocks in the stream I'm hearing about are male, and it's falling on experienced women dancers to save the dance from them.

Is this just a problem with small sample sizes? Has anyone encountered this kind of dancer, the kind who really structurally can't ever be good at it, spreads confusion, and yet keeps coming back, in female form?

-- Alan
On 3/6/2017 5:24 PM, Mary Collins via Callers wrote:
We have a dancer here in Buffalo that has a hard time hearing and ear-mind process-motor response time is very very slow. (I worry about him driving). We have a loose house rule that the regular good lady dancers pair with this gentleman. Otherwise he will ask newbies to dance, and often is at the end of the line, after the walk through. When you dance with him you have to call to him through the dance and guide him to where he needs to be. This is how we have dealt with our own issue.

In your case, you might want to invite him to your beginner's workshop where you can address some of the issues you have seen him experience (i.e. the 1/2 alemande instead of the 1 1/2 of the call, or a shorter swing. Play up the better never than late thing and talk about flourishes and how they are not really a necessary part of the dance experience.

the others have mentioned other ideas that are really good.

Good luck Marie!

Mary in Buffalo

“Life is not about waiting for the storms to pass ... it's about learning to dance in the rain!” ~ Unknown

On Mon, Mar 6, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Marie-Michèle Fournier via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

Hi everyone,

Lately a new dancer has started coming to our dance and he is bad enough that he will often make the set break if the dance is moderately challenging. He seems to have some kind of impairment and walks very stiffly which means he will often not be on time for a figure and also often does not remember what is coming next.

We want to be inclusive but at the same time his presence negatively impacts other dancers in his set and while some of the experienced dancers will take one for the team and dance with him, it is an unpleasant experience to be his partner. Unfortunately, we always have many new dancers and having one couple not be where they should be can really throw them off in some dances so I feel like I have to push and pull him around to be on time, despite the fact that it's a little rude.

A recent caller to our dance called him a "speed bump" which was quite accurate. I'm sure other dances have had experience with similar troubles, does anyone have advice on how to deal with this so that other dancers still have a good time yet we are nice to this problematic dancer?

Thank you

Marie

ContraMontreal

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