What a Weekend!

My weekends only come in two varieties: dead or hyperactive. This one was even more hyperactive than usual.

The joy began Friday evening, when cuyahogarvr and I headed downtown to meet up with visiting low_fat_muffin and his adorable cuddlemuffin, Dr Dave, at the bear happy hour at "Town" at 8th & Florida Avenues NW in DC.

We got very lucky with parking. Normally, that isn't the sort of thing worthy of a blog post but those who drive & park in downtown DC on a weekend evening will understand the profound shock of such a simple sentence.

We go out for a Friday happy hour regularly but our particular crowd is a small group which typically meets in the neighborhood of 17th & R Streets NW. Our group prefers a more lounge-like atmosphere where we can chat easily, sit with cocktails and generally unwind from the work week before we shuffle off for dinner. The bear happy hour crowd is more likely to be drinking beer rather than cocktails and is a vastly larger and less formal group; Town was more spacious than I was expecting but still dimly lit with loud, blasting music making conversation somewhat difficult. It's more of a regular bar night at the dance club than it was a happy hour, but if one needs an event to meet with as many acquaintances & friends as possible in a given two hour period, this is the place to go.

Ten of us went off to hunt down dinner after drinks. We first stopped at a kebob shop on Georgia Avenue. The place was empty so one can imagine how the proprietor's eyes lit up when ten hungry guys appear all at once. One can imagine as well how quickly his hopes were dashed when we ultimately opted against staying when we learned there were almost no vegetarian options for the three of us who needed them. Oh, well.

After an extended death march a long walk, we finally landed at Sala Thai. They weren't able to accommodate all of us at one table but we were able to get least pack together at one table of six and a booth of four. The food and service was good but perhaps a little pricey for the quality.

Saturday was all square dancing all the time. Enough said.

Sunday was even more hectic but it was lots of fun nonetheless. We began with a brunch with friends (discussing square dancing), a friend's afternoon birthday party (where we discussed a lot of square dancing) and an evening dinner with friends (all of whom I know via square dancing). Sense a theme?

I ended the evening by watching a long-anticipated and deliciously bad made-for-tv movie on the SyFy channel. It was every bit as cheesy as expected. The guy who gave that project the green light needs to be fired or promoted, I'm not sure yet which.

What a Weekend!

My weekends only come in two varieties: dead or hyperactive. This one was even more hyperactive than usual.

The joy began Friday evening, when cuyahogarvr and I headed downtown to meet up with visiting low_fat_muffin and his adorable cuddlemuffin, Dr Dave, at the bear happy hour at "Town" at 8th & Florida Avenues NW in DC.

We got very lucky with parking. Normally, that isn't the sort of thing worthy of a blog post but those who drive & park in downtown DC on a weekend evening will understand the profound shock of such a simple sentence.

We go out for a Friday happy hour regularly but our particular crowd is a small group which typically meets in the neighborhood of 17th & R Streets NW. Our group prefers a more lounge-like atmosphere where we can chat easily, sit with cocktails and generally unwind from the work week before we shuffle off for dinner. The bear happy hour crowd is more likely to be drinking beer rather than cocktails and is a vastly larger and less formal group; Town was more spacious than I was expecting but still dimly lit with loud, blasting music making conversation somewhat difficult. It's more of a regular bar night at the dance club than it was a happy hour, but if one needs an event to meet with as many acquaintances & friends as possible in a given two hour period, this is the place to go.

Ten of us went off to hunt down dinner after drinks. We first stopped at a kebob shop on Georgia Avenue. The place was empty so one can imagine how the proprietor's eyes lit up when ten hungry guys appear all at once. One can imagine as well how quickly his hopes were dashed when we ultimately opted against staying when we learned there were almost no vegetarian options for the three of us who needed them. Oh, well.

After an extended death march a long walk, we finally landed at Sala Thai. They weren't able to accommodate all of us at one table but we were able to get least pack together at one table of six and a booth of four. The food and service was good but perhaps a little pricey for the quality.

Saturday was all square dancing all the time. Enough said.

Sunday was even more hectic but it was lots of fun nonetheless. We began with a brunch with friends (discussing square dancing), a friend's afternoon birthday party (where we discussed a lot of square dancing) and an evening dinner with friends (all of whom I know via square dancing). Sense a theme?

I ended the evening by watching a long-anticipated and deliciously bad made-for-tv movie on the SyFy channel. It was every bit as cheesy as expected. The guy who gave that project the green light needs to be fired or promoted, I'm not sure yet which.

Another Weekend of Square Dancing

Saturday 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:

1. knowledge of the technical definitions and standard applications of the calls;
   
2. an ability to convey these definitions to the floor in a variety of different ways to accommodate the different mental models of various students;
   
3. 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.
   
   
4. 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 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 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.

Another Weekend of Square Dancing

Saturday 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:

1. knowledge of the technical definitions and standard applications of the calls;
   
2. an ability to convey these definitions to the floor in a variety of different ways to accommodate the different mental models of various students;
   
3. 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.
   
   
4. 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 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 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.