Wonderful method, Dale! I would only like to add that I wish all of us would make a bigger deal out of making a BIG LOOP on the ends. When you think about it, you've got 4 counts to get across the set, and 4 counts to make the loop. That should give you an idea of the relative size that the loop should be... It's almost counter-intuitive that to make the hey faster (i.e., easier) you have to make the turnaround bigger, not smaller! M E On Wed, Feb 15, 2012 at 9:55 PM, Dale Wilson <dale.wilson(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- As you set out for Ithaka, pray that your journey be long, full of adventure, full of discovery... May there be many summer mornings when, with what pleasure, with what joy, you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time. ~Constantine Cavafy, "Ithaka" 1911

More heys get jammed up and create late ending by the oncoming traffic not being able to pass freely. A sufficient loop on the end is one of the things that allows the traffic to maintain momentum and complete the move on time. Other conditions can also create traffic problems as well. The rule of the Golden Mean applies here, I think,...too wide, and you are late, too small and the people who have to stop or go around you are late. Bob

On 17/02/2012 05:03, jean francis wrote: Most callers don't teach anything; they just call dances. Colin Hume ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.1913 / Virus Database: 2112/4813 - Release Date: 02/16/12

The distinction is between a walk-through, which is just telling the dancers the figures and expecting them to do them, and a teaching session which explains exactly how to do the figures. Most modern contra dances are more on the "just do the figures" side of the equation rather than the "teach how to do each part of the figure" side. I think that was what Colin was implying. It's a sliding scale and any given dance will be toward one side or the other. Obviously Greg calls at dances with many experienced dancers so he doesn't have to really teach. He lets the dancers teach each other when there is a concern. It's one approach. Beth -----Original Message----- From: callers-bounces(a)sharedweight.net [mailto:callers-bounces@sharedweight.net] On Behalf Of jean francis Sent: Friday, February 17, 2012 10:23 AM To: Caller's discussion list Subject: Re: [Callers] Heys for new dancers Colin Hume write "Most callers don't teach anything; they just call dances". well I'm sure this is really a semantic problem, but I'll rise to the bait anyway.  So at an event, you just pick up the mic, start the music, and call, for instance, 'right and left through' and assume that figure is somehow genetically encoded in the folks attending? Or perhaps assume each minor set has at least 2 experienced dancers that can guide the new folks through in that very instant and up to speed? --- On Fri, 2/17/12, Colin Hume <colin(a)colinhume.com> wrote: From: Colin Hume <colin(a)colinhume.com> Subject: Re: [Callers] Heys for new dancers To: "Caller's discussion list" <callers(a)sharedweight.net> Date: Friday, February 17, 2012, 12:11 AM On 17/02/2012 05:03, jean francis wrote: Most callers don't teach anything; they just call dances. Colin Hume ----- No virus found in this message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 2012.0.1913 / Virus Database: 2112/4813 - Release Date: 02/16/12 _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers _______________________________________________ Callers mailing list Callers(a)sharedweight.net http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers

I've sometimes taught this as the loop on the end includes passing a ghost; e.g., right in the middle, left on the end, right with no one, left on the end, right in the middle, left on the end, right with no one, and you're home. It helps people get the timing right, and it helps the people who are convinced that it just has to be right-left- right-left-right-left. --Read Weaver Jamaica Plain, MA http://lcfd.org On Feb 16, 2012, at 12:12 PM, Martha Edwards wrote:

i like teaching "the ladies' pattern". ladies walk the same path (turn left, end on right) for a promenade, right and left through, ladies chain, and hey. they're kinda used to looping out a little, because in the first three figures, they're actually walking around a person - easy enough to get the concept of walking around a ghost from there.

very good point - and i do try to link the dances in the first half of the evening specifically to what i teach in the class. i don't always teach a hey during the class, but when the first one comes around in a dance, i use the same terminology i used in class and most people seem to deal with it pretty well. various versions of heys usually come up later when people are more comfortable with whatever. barb

Wow! I didn't know that there was a "standard", either, Beth! I use Flirtation Reel all the time with new dancers for a bunch of reasons (I am not talking about a ONS; rather a community dance that has a good mix of newer dancers and those who have danced before). For me, the direction of the passes has everything to do with the graceful flow of movement written into the dance by the choreographer. Such flow is what I look for in a dance worth calling. The dancers certainly get this, too; if not at first, they will pick up on it eventually! Linda On Feb 18, 2012, at 2:43 PM, beth(a)hands4.com wrote:

If there is a "standard" in hey dances, then Flirtation Reel is the gold standard. It is a perfect blend of aesthetics and ergonomics. It works because the body WANTS to go in the right direction, and the soul follows. I have just returned from calling a little community dance of 1/3 experienced dancers and 2/3 beginners, much as Linda described. Of course we danced Flirtation Reel. Committed to memory for use at a moment's notice, Flirtation Reel is at the top of my list of dances that are accessible to newcomers, but reward my experienced folks on the floor for hanging in there. ... Bob On Feb 18, 2012, at 9:06 PM, Linda Leslie wrote:

"Standard" and "Non-Standard" Heys - Ladies start, right shoulder, Hey - Ladies start, left shoulder, Hey - Gents start, right shoulder, Hey - Gents start, left shoulder, Hey - Ones start, right shoulder, Hey - Ones start, left shoulder, Hey - Twos start, right shoulder, Hey - Twos start, left shoulder, Hey I'm not sure which one is "standard." (And this doesn't even begin to discuss the different entry and exit variations for heys.) I don't teach any of them. One way of thinking about it is like a contra dance medley: You don't do a walk-through because you don't want the dancers to "learn" a specific dance before you change it. Maybe teaching a "standard" hey would be confusing for some dancers because the figure changes so often. I just call it using the appropriate word order above. - Greg McKenzie

On Feb 20, 2012, at 8:23 AM, Greg McKenzie wrote: ... I believe I agree with Greg's point, at least to the extent that I understand it correctly. For those of us who think of a hey in terms of weaving across the set, passing alternating shoulders with whomever we meet, differences in who starts by which shoulder and where (in the middle or at the ends) have little effect on the perceived difficulty of a hey. Such differences may be more significant for people who (whether by prior inclination or by teaching) think in terms like right in the middle; left on the outside or right with same sex; left with opposite sex etc., and some hey variations that seem innocuous to us may produce a feeling that something isn't quite right, perhaps leading a dancer either to attempt to "fix" what isn't broken or simply to stop moving. So I think we callers should try to help dancers--or help them to help each other--to think about heys in terms that apply to heys generally ("pass alternating shoulders"; "when you run out of people to pass, and turn around, pass by whichever shoulder the person coming toward tries to offer"; "if approaching dancers looks more confident than you feel, trust them") rather than in terms of passing a particular person in a particular place by a particular shoulder (e.g., "neighbors pass on the outside by the left"). However, if a dancer asks a specific question such as "Do we pass by right or left shoulders in the middle?" during a walk-through, I don't think the caller should refuse to answer in the dancer's terms. This, I believe, would create the impression that the caller either didn't actually know the answer or was disrespecting the dancer or both, thereby raising the dancer's affective filter and making it harder, rather than easier, for the caller then to help the dancer learn a different way to think about things. * * * * * * * * * * * * Regarding which specific forms of hey are, in fact, the most common, I think that both my personal experience and examination of published dance collections support the following claims about straight heys for four in contemporary contradancing: * The single most common way to start is by women passing right shoulders in the middle. * The second most common way to start is by men passing left shoulders in the middle. * Heys that start with dancers passing in the middle are significantly more common than heys that start with dancers passing at the ends (largely, perhaps entirely, as a consequence of the preceding two points). * Heys where same-sex (or same-gender-role) dancers pass in the middle are *far* more common than heys where partners or neighbors pass in the middle. By these measures, the hey in "Flirtation Reel" is indeed atypical. Nonetheless, I believe Beth when she say she's used "Flirtation Reel" successfully to introduce the hey. Other notable dances with heys where partners meet in the center include "Bonny Jean" (the dance generally credited with kicking off the adaptation of heys for four into American contras) and "Dancing Sailors". * * * * * * * * * * * * For more details of evidence in support of the statistical claims listed above, read on. If such stuff bores you, stop now. Back in 1995, the question came up on the rec.folk-dancing usenet newsgroup (then a thriving discussion forum, now a wasteland of event announcements and spam) as to whether most heys for four have dancers passing by right or left shoulders in the middle. I skimmmed through fifteen books of dances that I had handy looking for all the heys and tallied some statistics, which I posted in a message on November 28, 1995. I append the complete message below, but here's a quick summary. Out of 144 heys, I counted: 94 with dancers passing right shoulders in the middle vs. 50 with dancers passing left shoulders in the middle 113 starting with dancers passing in the middle (of which 65 started with W passing R shoulders in the middle) vs. 31 starting with dancers passing at the ends In my 1995 tally, I didn't record full statistics about which pairs of dancers pass in the middle. However, I've just skimmed through a one-page snapshot of the dances from the American Country Dances On-Line database formerly maintained by Russell Owen. Out of 78 straight heys for four, I counted: 53 with dancers passing right shoulders in the middle vs. 25 with dancers passing left shoulders in the middle 62 starting with dancers passing in the middle (including 35 starting with W passing R shoulders in the middle, 11 starting with M passing L shoulders in the middle, and 16 others: WL(6), MR(6), #1R(4) ) vs. 16 starting with dancers passing at the ends 71 with same-sex dancers passing in the middle vs. 7 with partners passing in the middle and 0 with neighbors passing in the middle Looking at various other sources, including several RPDLW syllabi (which show dances actually called at the weekends), I find similar trends. Of course, sources that feature dances written by a single choreographer may have particular kinds of heys (or other particular figures and transitions) substantially under- or over-represented compared to their general rate of use. --Jim Below is my Nov. 1995 posting to rec.folk-dancing regarding frequency of heys with left-shoulder vs. right-shoulder passes in the middle. It includes a tabulation that will look best in a fixed-pitch font.

Richard makes a good point. When I wrote I ought to have more clearly indicated a "BUT" or "EXCEPT" at the point of the first semicolon. While I'm writing, here's a dance that I sometimes use for the first hey of an evening: Duple improper contra A1. Neighbors balance and swing A2. Women chain 1/2 hey (W start by R shoulder) B1. Partners balance and swing B2. Circle left 3/4 Balance the ring, partners California twirl I came up with this by swiping the first 3/4 of "Southern Swing" by Steve Zakon-Anderson and substituting a simpler B2 part, but never named it. Lisa Greenleaf apparently came up with the same sequence independently and named it "Hocus Pocus". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFEBaPqBXZM Don Flaherty's "Slapping the Wood" is nearly identical, the only difference being the do-si-do as couples in the first half of A1. The first 3/4 of the dance also occur in Chart Guthrie's "Hay in the Barn" The "1/2 hey" in A2 is really only a 3/8 hey (WR, NL, PR). The men never have to deal with getting to the end and turning around. The women do turn around, but then meet partners for a balance and swing instead of having to figure out which shoulder to pass. There's no partner pass (the most likely place for beginners dancing together to get disoriented over and over). Also it's easy to describe the ending position: "Meet your partner on the other side of the set for a balance and swing." All these things help make this hey particularly easy. It could be seen as a disadvantage that this dance doesn't teach dancers how to turn around and coming back into a hey. Or it could be seen as an advantage that it lets them learn and practice the weaving across part by itself and add in the turning around part in a later dance. --Jim On Feb 20, 2012, at 4:12 PM, Richard Fischer wrote:

I wrote, regarding the sequence ... A2. Women chain [to partner] 1/2 hey (W start by R shoulder) B1. Partners balance and swing ... On Feb 21, 2012, at 1:05 PM, Bill Baritompa wrote: Correct. Thanks for catching that. Yes, the 3/8 hey could be danced in fewer than 8 beats, and a ladies chain across can also be danced in fewer than 8 beats, so it is indeed possible for dancer to arrive early for the B2, and they sometimes do. (I think, btw, that the most common cause is women turning around sharply instead of using four beats for a looping U-turn after passing their neighbors). But if you look at the video I cited http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFEBaPqBXZM you can see that the dancers have no difficulty using up the alloted time. As for changing B1 to a gypsy and swing, note that doing that would make men flow from a right-shoulder pass in the middle to a right-shoulder gypsy with partner. While this transition can be danced smoothly if the dancers anticipate it,* it's not the flow pattern I'd most want to use in a dance chosen to introduce heys. [*As an example of similar flow, Tanya Rotenberg has said that she prefers dancers to go directly from the hey in the A2 of "Delphiniums & Daisies" to the swing in B1, with no balance.] --Jim

That's a great dance, Jim. I collected it from Dick Bearman of Maryland who called it in my area about 15 years ago. He calls it Balancing Act and I have him as author on my much used dance card. It works very well as an easy intro to 1/2 hey. Seems like several people were channeling the same dance muse. -----Original Message----- From: James Saxe Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 4:47 AM To: Caller's discussion list Subject: Re: [Callers] Heys for new dancers While I'm writing, here's a dance that I sometimes use for the first hey of an evening: Duple improper contra A1. Neighbors balance and swing A2. Women chain 1/2 hey (W start by R shoulder) B1. Partners balance and swing B2. Circle left 3/4 Balance the ring, partners California twirl I came up with this by swiping the first 3/4 of "Southern Swing" by Steve Zakon-Anderson and substituting a simpler B2 part, but never named it. Lisa Greenleaf apparently came up with the same sequence independently and named it "Hocus Pocus". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFEBaPqBXZM Don Flaherty's "Slapping the Wood" is nearly identical, the only difference being the do-si-do as couples in the first half of A1. The first 3/4 of the dance also occur in Chart Guthrie's "Hay in the Barn"