I do spend a lot of time on the swing in a beginners' workshop..

What I cover is how to get started, how to finish facing the correct direction with the lady on the right, how long a swing lasts, not to face your partner directly so both of you can WALK forward while you go around (no side-slipping needed), and finally some hints about avoiding dizziness. In my opinion these are the factors a new dancer needs to have an enjoyable swing and an enjoyable evening.

Sure the buzz step is fun, but it's not very important! When Tom says "Why not go for the gold?" my answer is because the new dancers are typically feeling overwhelmed. Anything that they don't absolutely need to know to have a good time, and to make the dance work, is extra noise that detracts from the teaching and make them more likely to melt down and walk away from the dance because it's "just too complicated!"

Another point I try to mention several time is "there are lots of embellishments to these moves. You will see people twirling. You will see people doing funny steps. You do NOT have to do any of these things until you feel like you are ready. Stay in your own comfort zone. Women, in particular, the men you are dancing with are going to try to lead you into some of these embellishments. It's OK to smile and say "no thanks". You are here to have fun and not to win style points,"

Also when you ARE ready for some of the fancy moves you will find experienced dancers will be glad to help you learn them. You don't need a caller to help you learn a good buzz step. You need a good partner, so make a point of dancing with good partners (they want to dance with you.) You can find the good dancers by looking for people having a good time. Their partners are the good dancers.

Dale

On Sun, Jun 21, 2015 at 10:53 AM, Tom Hinds via Callers <callers@lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

Thank you for letting me know about the date of my computer.

On Jun 21, 2015, at 10:51 AM, Aahz Maruch via Callers wrote:

With Ladies Chain, two dancers change places. If they fail to execute
that part, it's likely that the progression will get affected. That's
probably not going to happen with a swing that ends up with the dancers sashayed or otherwise in the wrong place.

Aajz, I'm glad you pointed out that you're not calling much. There are some other situations you might not have observed yet. How about:

-the combination, swing neighbor, right and left through. Let's assume a caller spends a great deal of time teaching the right and left through but little time on a swing. If the dancers end the swing sashayed what happens just before the right and left through? Confusion maybe?

-there's a neighbor swing at the end of the tune. The beginning of the dance starts with an allemande or swing or some other move with a new neighbor. How confusing is it for the beginners (and frustrating for the others) when they end the swing wrong?

I teach my beginning callers this: If you don't get the newbies to correctly end a swing, the caller, the newbies and everyone else will be frustrated at various points during the evening.

T

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