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. :-)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2006-01-20 08:46 pm (UTC)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. :-)