Preparing via Post Mortem - Contra Callers

5 Jul 2006

The topic of preparing to call a program sent me off on a tangent here, hence the
different title.

One of the best pieces of advice I got early in my dance calling career was how to
organize my cards, including the idea of making notes every time I called that dance. It
got me used to analyzing the dance that night, while it was fresh in my head, to see where
I might have been clearer in my teaching (or where I went wrong, if you want to think that
way).

Then, before calling that dance again, I could benefit from my hard-won experience in the
form of my notes on the backs of my cards.

I also notice that the tone of these notes changed over time, so on some of my very
earliest notes I was very frustrated with those dancers who were ** intentionally **
mishearing my very clear and concise instructions (wink). Somehow, as I gained experience,
these same dancers got better and better. It was very enlightening how this process
worked. 

I also luckily received the advice to publicly accept the blame for any problems that
occured, even if I thought the problem lay elsewhere. These days, any problems are easy to
own, as I'm much more sure of the things I did to cause the problems and much more
adept at correcting them smoothly and quickly. Life is good.

I concur with practicing to tapes, and to practicing while walking, and while driving, and
to visualizing and scripting the walkthroughs, though I may not actually write down the
script.

Jerome