C1 with the Barkley Squares

[bjarvis]

I called for our Wednesday night C1 group last night, substituting for Doren McBroom who is recovering from recent neck surgery. We don't have a name for our group borne out of our C1 boot camp weekend October, 2005, but kent4str suggested calling ourselves the Barkley Squares after the building in which we've danced so I'm going with that.

We had nine people who made it to dancing; Michael M. and Mike & Keith didn't appear at all and kent4str had to work late but we did OK without them. I'm delighted to say this was an evening of some of my best C1 calling to date: the hours of transcribing & studying the recent ACDC recordings (thanks to callers Dave Wilson, Mike Jacobs, cjmsith and justetthon) have been paying off in a big way. I'm using more of the list & concepts, inserting more variety into the overall dance evening and spending a lot more time working on smoothing the dance flow.

Overall, there were only three figures out of nearly 50 which needed some minor edits for clarification, all fairly trivial. I've just finished updating those and making backups of the lot.

I still have to re-examine the Dave Wilson recordings for something I can't quite put my finger on just yet... listening to them, there's a particular pattern to the half-second pauses which makes me think the wheels are twirling furiously in Dave's mind and I really want to see if I can figure intuit what he's doing. I may need to be heavily medicated when this is done.

Doren sent along with Beth a figure to dance... I had extreme difficulty visualizing it on paper:

All single rotate one quarter;
Sides squeeze, Heads zing;
Those who can in tandem of 3 All Pass the sea;
6x2 Acey Deucey 1 1/2;
Outpoint Triangle Any hand 1/4 thru;
Ends Pass in;
Centers Left square thru but on the 3 Touch 1/4 & spread;
Centers pass thru & 1/2 wheel around;
Interlocked diamond circulate;
Interlocked diamond chain thru;
Stretch Cycle & wheel;
Centers turn thru, AL

Doren wrote it, I called it and our square --amazingly-- danced it flawlessly on the first try, albeit with some pauses to think it through. Yay us!

Here's a gratuitous cell phone photo of zzbear, Jay W (who just dropped by to say hi) and me:

Comments

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

That's a sweet figure from Doren.

Dave Wilson is a crazed man. :-) You would know that from his attempting to get a gay square dance weekend together in Sweden at his dance hall 2 weeks before the IAGSDC convention. Dancing to him when he's in his meditative sight calling state fries my brain.

Congrats on your C1 conquests!

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

Note: I didn't even mention the glare off the bald pates of the three handsome men in the photo! Testosterone roolz!

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

Starting the sequence with EVERYONE Single Rotate is semi-evil. Of course, the payoff is the Squeeze/Zing combination. One thing I notice: the Touch 1/4 obviously has to be a Left Touch 1/4 for the sequence to work (and the handedness to make sense). I would think that the caller would need to say that explicitly even though that's what everyone wants to do anyway. (And obviously that's the only reason to make the Square Thru a lefty.)

Not sure I've ever seen 1/4 Thru done with a triangle like that, ignoring one of the points (at least not at C1) -- but it totally makes sense.

I dragged out my checkers and had fun with that one. Yay!

[zipperbear]

But, but, but -- that means when the 1/2 Wheel Around puts the Centers with Interlocked Left Hands, everyone will be in Left-hand Ik.Diamonds, rather than Facing Ik.Diamonds!

I thought everyone knew that the Interlocked Diamonds must be Facing for Interlocked Diamond Chain Thru to flow well into a Cycle and Wheel (whether it's Stretch or not). It's the obvious mistake that new C-1 callers often make ("Here's a call that creates 3&1 Lines -- and here's another call that starts in 3&1 Lines!"), and pain is the only result. Take note of that fact, and remember it always.

Centers Left square thru but on the 3 Touch 1/4 & spread;
Centers pass thru & 1/2 wheel around;
Interlocked diamond circulate;
Interlocked diamond chain thru;
Stretch Cycle & wheel;

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

Point taken!!

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the photo is COMPLETELY hawt. Like, hawt³!!!

Re: "Barkley Squares" -- good thing it's C1, because if you did any singing calls there, we'd have to start calling you the Nightingale. There, you've been warned. ;-)

Kiss Kiss

[volunqueer.livejournal.com]

New Journal, same ole me