Tardy A-class notes

[drscott]

Second intro night was Tuesday night. Attendance was up -- there were three squares -- but not quite as many prospective studenten. allanh reviewed it well here, but I had a student's-point-of-view comment to add.

So far we've covered Cross Trail Thru, Triple Trade, Triple Scoot, Quarter Thru, and Grand Follow Your Neighbor. Nothing terribly hard, though I find the nonlocal knowledge needed to do Triple Trade unfortunate. I had a big problem with Quarter Thru, because Michael Levy gave the definition only once, and it was rushed enough (he tends to be fast and nervous) that I didn't catch it well enough to repeat it to myself. Since he never repeated it in full again, I found myself feeling clueless through about 10 calls of it. Callers: repeat the damn definition! Especially when it's as confusing as 'Those who can Cast Off by 1/4 by the Right, then those who can Trade by the Left." I look forward to having the teaching order in advance so I can previsualize. I hate feeling incompetent.

Real class starts next week -- still time to join...

Comments

[excessor.livejournal.com]

I'm too lazy to write my own account of our second Advanced level square dance class intro night, so I'll just hijack yours.

I think it was very cute the way you were doing a grand jeté during the Grand Right & Lefts. Since I danced the less familiar girl position for most of the evening, it was most entertaining. I also enjoyed being twirled. And twirled. Oh, and the twirling was good.

Michael and Dave were far better this week than the first week, for which I'm thankful. Both callers are clear when mic'd and don't give a hundred alternate explanations for each call (note to callers: it annoys the newer dancers).

More entertaining than anything else (and it was true for the other classes we took, too) were the “experienced” dancers who could do all the difficult stuff but couldn't do a Turn Through. Cracks me up every time.

Having a teaching order will be nice. I agree, I'd rather try to visualize ahead of time. Hey, maybe we could practice together?

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I enjoy throwing you around. :-) And I was trying to inject the spirit of Morris dancing in honor of our upcoming dinner guest, unzeugmatic.

[unzeugmatic.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...The temptation to respond with a rambling discourse on the Spirit of Morris Dancing, compare and contrast with Western Square and New England Contra, is hard to resist.

But I will.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

I think we're all grateful for that! ;-)

[fuzzygruf.livejournal.com]

Having a teach order ahead of time clearly helps!

Michael mentioned to me that they are going to use the Callerlab teach order. You can find that at http://www.callerlab.org/programs/advanced.asp and click on A-1 Program Checklist (and then A-2 Program Checklist). The same URL has a link to the current Advanced definitions.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Thanks! That will help....

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

I do know that sometimes we caller/teachers forget that some of the "Throwaway" calls like '1/4 thru' aren't necessarily as easy to pick up as we think they are, especially if there are 80% angels and 20% students.

Slide Thru is another that has to be beat to death, even though the concept of it is super simple.

I suspect if I peeked at the call frequency list for A-1 calls, 1/4 thru would be right there at the top.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

Just a random question ... Just wondered if you knew the guys I met this week in Cleveland. They are square dancers ... knew who Cameron was ... close friends of Chip and John. Their names are Brian (a caller) and his Mark.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Sounds famailiar, and I might know them by sight (true of most of the gay square dance community that comes to Convention), but I don't know'em. I bet Brian (bjarvis) does, though.

[billeyler.livejournal.com]

I know Brian and Mark VERY well. :-)

[bearfuz.livejournal.com]

Brian and Mark are better known among the East Coast and Chicago-area dancers... but a few select (ahem!) West Coasters know them pretty well, too. (I could tell you who most of them are.) And, as you see, billeyler knows them. Heh heh.

[tdjohnsn.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmm. Doctor Mark. I so want to have that man's baby.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Quarter Thru has a much simpler definition than was presented in class:

Hinge, New Centers Trade.

That's it.

If you want to get very specific, it's:

[Those Who Can...] Hinge [By The Right], New Centers Trade [By The Left].

If a caller wants you to start by the left, they're supposed to call "LEFT Quarter Thru".

If you've ever gone to a Mike DeSisto dance, you've done at least a dozen Quarter Thrus by the end of the evening. He always calls it as "hinge, new centers trade".

It's a very popular Advanced call with callers, because it "tightens up" a loose square.

[otterpop58.livejournal.com]

not quite... it's not always the centers who do the second (trade) part.

Think of 1/4 Thru from facing diamonds - centers have right hands, points pointing in with their left. 1/4 Thru from here: centers hinge & everyone trade by the left.

1/4 Thru is NOT an ends/centers call.

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Whoops! My apologies; you are absolutely correct. I went back and looked up the CALLERLAB definition, which reads:

"From any appropriate 4-dancer formation (e.g., right-hand box circulate, left-hand facing diamonds): Those who can Cast Off ¼ by the Right, then those who can Trade by the Left. There must be dancers who can do each part--the call is not legal from say,a right-hand tidal wave."

Thank you!

[otterpop58.livejournal.com]

I find the nonlocal knowledge needed to do Triple Trade unfortunate.

Get used to it. Perhaps the key difference for Advanced and Challenge is that the dancers have more responsibility to understand more, because the calls and choreography require it.

am I a center or an end?
am I facing in or out?
am I a leader or a trailer?
what formation are we in?
what smaller formations are part of this?
is it right handed or left handed?

good dancers track this all the time - or reevaluate it at the end of each call.

I'm sure you are up to the task.

[excessor.livejournal.com]

Ok, that's very useful to know. If I know I should be tracking it, at least I can now make the attempt.

Implicit in the discussion as well is to go back and understand the Plus (and lower level) calls definitionally—as opposed to by rote—because it looks like we're going to be doing things from less obvious positions.

One note: when you otterpop58 taught complex Plus calls, you used mantras. Some people don't like them, but it's very obvious now who knows the mantra (and who can therefore successfully complete the call) and who does not.

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'll manage, though keeping track of where everyone is in my head gets more difficult by the year and some of the defects in my sensorium make this harder for me than for most.

But this also gets into the discussion about why gay square dancing is declining. As you go up levels, more and more "hardware" skills are required to do well; for example, my ex Mike will never be able to go beyond Plus because he doesn't have a good geometry engine in his head. If you assume each of the required skills is independent of the others, the result is that square dance "ability" is going to be distributed in the population in a rough bell-curve, and as you go up level the proportion of the population that can effectively dance after a reasonable amount of training effort gets smaller and smaller. I understand that Callerlab has made an effort to design the programs to recognize this, keeping calls that are too "hard" (require a skill that is normally needed at a higher level) out of the lower levels. But the most interested and best dancers tend to set the agendas and make the decisions, and in the process can neglect the interests of the broader community of prospective dancers and lower-level dancers. If we lose critical mass because peer pressure has pushed the majority of dancers to high levels, making joining them a forbiddingly high hurdle for prospective dancers ("you will be where we are after a few *years* of effort! What, did I say something wrong?"), we all lose and the activity will shrink to a tiny minority of aging zealots. ECR itself teeters on the brink of unviability, with this 'A' class (as others have) taking away some of the attractiveness of the Plus class running concurrently. We are strong enough to do it, but there aren't many areas of the country that can follow.

Whew, I do go on. And I appreciate your confidence, but since I am used to everything being easy, let me whine a little. :-)

[dr-scott.livejournal.com]

..which suggests an interesting CogSci project, which I'm not sure anyone has done: go through the call list to determine which low-level cognitive skills are required to do it; group the calls by skills required; consider defining the levels by cogntive skills used in each, then move anomalous calls. As an exercise it might shed some useful light.