Saturday's Caller Workshop

[bjarvis]

kent4str and I have been hosting regular caller workshops every few months since we began calling in 2004. I openly admit we've been doing this largely for our own benefit even as we invite other local newbie callers to join us. Knowing that one has a problem isn't the same as knowing the best way of fixing it: peer review and workshops are efficient ways of generating and testing solutions.

Prior workshops have largely focused on on-mic calling with a square of volunteer dancers, working on presentation techniques which one employs during a dance. This workshop with coach John Marshall, however, was planned without dancers: we were concentrating on tasks which need to be done in the days and weeks prior to turning on one's microphone.

John reviewed with us the four of us (Abe Feldman, Drew Allan, kent4str and myself) what makes calls or sequences difficult for dancers. For the most part, this was review for us --we've had this conversation at every caller school I've ever attended-- but it's still good to discuss it, particularly as a prelude to the exercises following.

We were presented with a sheet of four figures and asked to rank them from easy to impossible but we had to use checkers to do it rather than just mental imaging. Ugh. Checkers are tricky to use simply: a single mistake early on invalidates all subsequent moves, the error man not be discovered until the sequence doesn't resolve and we then have to restart the whole damn thing. John suggested having a second set of checkers which could be used to set a check point or last known good formation. I cheated a wee bit by using my cell phone to photograph my checkers at a known good formation before charging into a difficult set of calls.

The discussion following as we compared our results was somewhat enlightening. I've frequently been told callers write harder material than they think so I mentally tag all of my sequences as being 25% harder than I estimate. Of the sequences we examined, I therefore didn't rank any of them as easy. We had different opinions about where the problems would happen on the dance floor for the medium difficulty sequences. We were all agreed on the hardest sequence.

From a prior workshop, we had to write a handful of sequences which did not include 'boys run,' and then another handful without 'girls run.' For further practice, John read the sequences a couple of calls at a time and querying us on the resulting formation. Comments were invited on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of any given call in the sequence and suggestions for a different call which might flow better.

We had another exercise using a set of checkers. John would set up a formation and we each had to suggest a valid call for the formation which would flow well from the prior call. He'd select one of the suggestions, move the checkers to the next formation and repeat the process.

So, what did I take away from this workshop?

1. Never underestimate the power of the simplest, least used calls on the Basic and Mainstream lists to get you out of a tough spot.
   
2. I'm doing OK in minding body flow in the larger picture but need to look for more subtle, small-scale flow for more natural body rolls and turns.
   
3. I need to write call analysis sheets to review and/or confirm everything I think I know about C2. Redoing C1 wouldn't be a bad idea either.
   
4. I'm 80% done updating my existing inventory of written choreo. Most weren't bad, but now that I have several years' more experience under my belt, I see many of my earliest sequences need an update, and I have to admit a handful were simply hideous.
   
5. I need to re-write my cards to regroup the calls for easier reading and smoother calling. For example, my cards might have had something like "ping pong circulate, extend (formation image), fan the top." The formation image helped me when I was a total novice to reassure me about the floor formation but I'm much more confident of my mental imaging than I was then. Worse, however, the formation image embedded in my card caused me to pause when calling while my eyes scanned for the next call; since the call "extend" is so brief, the dancers are brought to a dead halt until I find "fan the top." I've rewritten the line to be "ping pong circulate, extend, fan the top," a sequence I can memorize at a glance and deliver as I check the floor and scan down to the next call block for smoother delivery.

Our next session will likely be on-mic with dancers. We haven't set a date yet but we're not waiting eight months from the latest session like we did this time. The trickiest part is avoiding other square dance events, classes and holidays and yet still have as most of us available; it'll take some effort but we'll figure out something.