Another Weekend of Square Dancing
Nov. 8th, 2010 01:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bjarvisSaturday morning, I had to get out of bed at an ungodly hour (ie. before noon) to get myself down to Arlington, VA, to teach an all-day square dance class for the DC Lambda Squares. This was the fourth full Saturday class; while we finished the Mainstream list last Saturday, one guy missed it because of business travel and two had to miss the afternoon session because of a schedule conflict.
This Saturday, I re-taught everything we did the prior Saturday, reviewed the entire list and showed them the additional flourishes they'll see on the dance floor which they won't find in the official definitions.
The new dancers have done very well: by the end of Saturday, they were dancing Mainstream at full speed, even from a few non-standard positions. There are some minor issues --the scooters want to use hand alternation while doing 'scoot back' for example, a perfectly reasonable error since that call breaks the alternation rules. Even when making mistakes though, I could see they knew something wasn't right: they just couldn't see immediately the correct action. That recognition of this-isn't-right is a critical first step towards ultimately making things right so I consider that important progress.
I've learned two things about myself between working with this Mainstream class and with the Advanced workshops I've been running with the Chesapeake Squares: (1) I like teaching currently more than I did, say, two years ago (gradually increasing confidence is probably a factor), and (2) I actually can teach pretty well.
Teaching square dancing has at least four critical components I can identify off the top of my head:
Of course, I'll get to test that theory this weekend when I'm on staff for DC Lambda Squares' fall fly-in, Harvest Festival Hoedown. Looking at the latest draft of the calling schedule, I have a Mainstream hour, a dance-by-definition Mainstream hour, an Advanced workshop and an Advanced hour co-hosted with![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
caller_dayle who will kick my ass in a loving & supportive way if I miss a beat :-).
Saturday evening,cuyahogarvr and I went to the annual dance & business meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Challenge Association for three hours of dancing to justetthon and John Marshall. In all, we had five squares of C1 and three of C2 in each tip, a pretty good turn-out.
And I collapsed hard in bed when we returned home. Thank god we turned back the clocks that night to give me an extra hour of rest.
Sunday morning, we met with John Marshall & Mary Hutchinson in Vienna, VA, to discuss caller coaching over brunch. John had expressed an interest in helpingkent4str, Abe Feldman and myself with improving our calling. John has many years of coaching experience, especially in the Advanced & Challenge levels. While I fully intend to continue working with caller_dayle and soliciting his feedback, different coaches have different approaches and different viewpoints; just as we encourage dancers to dance to a variety of different callers, I think there is great utility in soliciting input & advice from a number of different coaches and mentors. I'll start working on setting up a workshop as soon as we survive the upcoming fly-in weekend.
cuyahogarvr and I spent the entire afternoon at a friend's birthday party in northern Virginia and had a great time. I probably should have kept some additional distance between myself and the buffet but it was all so delicious! I also had a great time chatting up some familiar faces and meeting a few new people.
A handful of us went out for thai food that evening in McLean, VA. Did I mention I ate too much at the party buffet? I nibbled on spring rolls at the restaurant but had no desire or capacity for anything more.
We dashed home so I could set up our previously scheduled 8pm EST square dance conference call. This was the second in this experiment of hosting a conference call in which anyone who is interested in a particular discussion topic may join in to describe successes they've experienced or noticed, ideas of what we can do differently and potentially solicit volunteers to tackle small tasks. The conference call is held the first Sunday of each month; this particular experiment will continue into the spring.
Last month, we began a conversation on recruitment of new dancers to our clubs and support for square dancing in general. This month, we continued that conversation, offering information solicited to answer questions which came up last month and added a few extra ideas. We then moved on to a new topic: how can we increase attendance at our weekend fly-in festivals? I'm still typing up my notes from that discussion.
This Saturday, I re-taught everything we did the prior Saturday, reviewed the entire list and showed them the additional flourishes they'll see on the dance floor which they won't find in the official definitions.
The new dancers have done very well: by the end of Saturday, they were dancing Mainstream at full speed, even from a few non-standard positions. There are some minor issues --the scooters want to use hand alternation while doing 'scoot back' for example, a perfectly reasonable error since that call breaks the alternation rules. Even when making mistakes though, I could see they knew something wasn't right: they just couldn't see immediately the correct action. That recognition of this-isn't-right is a critical first step towards ultimately making things right so I consider that important progress.
I've learned two things about myself between working with this Mainstream class and with the Advanced workshops I've been running with the Chesapeake Squares: (1) I like teaching currently more than I did, say, two years ago (gradually increasing confidence is probably a factor), and (2) I actually can teach pretty well.
Teaching square dancing has at least four critical components I can identify off the top of my head:
- knowledge of the technical definitions and standard applications of the calls;
- an ability to convey these definitions to the floor in a variety of different ways to accommodate the different mental models of various students;
- an ability to quickly & easily shuffle bodies
- into the same position to repeatedly to exercise a newly taught call;
- spontaneously shuffle them into a new position to repeat the call again so everyone gets to see all parts of the call;
- reuse the new call repeatedly in extemporaneous calling and singing calls as needed.
- a rapport with the floor so they have confidence in the instructor and the instructor can read the mood of the floor to see if an explanation is or is not working and to determine if they're ready for more new material.
Of course, I'll get to test that theory this weekend when I'm on staff for DC Lambda Squares' fall fly-in, Harvest Festival Hoedown. Looking at the latest draft of the calling schedule, I have a Mainstream hour, a dance-by-definition Mainstream hour, an Advanced workshop and an Advanced hour co-hosted with
caller_dayle Saturday evening,
cuyahogarvr and I went to the annual dance & business meeting of the Mid-Atlantic Challenge Association for three hours of dancing to justetthon and John Marshall. In all, we had five squares of C1 and three of C2 in each tip, a pretty good turn-out.And I collapsed hard in bed when we returned home. Thank god we turned back the clocks that night to give me an extra hour of rest.
Sunday morning, we met with John Marshall & Mary Hutchinson in Vienna, VA, to discuss caller coaching over brunch. John had expressed an interest in helping
kent4str, Abe Feldman and myself with improving our calling. John has many years of coaching experience, especially in the Advanced & Challenge levels. While I fully intend to continue working with caller_dayle and soliciting his feedback, different coaches have different approaches and different viewpoints; just as we encourage dancers to dance to a variety of different callers, I think there is great utility in soliciting input & advice from a number of different coaches and mentors. I'll start working on setting up a workshop as soon as we survive the upcoming fly-in weekend.cuyahogarvr and I spent the entire afternoon at a friend's birthday party in northern Virginia and had a great time. I probably should have kept some additional distance between myself and the buffet but it was all so delicious! I also had a great time chatting up some familiar faces and meeting a few new people.A handful of us went out for thai food that evening in McLean, VA. Did I mention I ate too much at the party buffet? I nibbled on spring rolls at the restaurant but had no desire or capacity for anything more.
We dashed home so I could set up our previously scheduled 8pm EST square dance conference call. This was the second in this experiment of hosting a conference call in which anyone who is interested in a particular discussion topic may join in to describe successes they've experienced or noticed, ideas of what we can do differently and potentially solicit volunteers to tackle small tasks. The conference call is held the first Sunday of each month; this particular experiment will continue into the spring.
Last month, we began a conversation on recruitment of new dancers to our clubs and support for square dancing in general. This month, we continued that conversation, offering information solicited to answer questions which came up last month and added a few extra ideas. We then moved on to a new topic: how can we increase attendance at our weekend fly-in festivals? I'm still typing up my notes from that discussion.
