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otterpop58:
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.
...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 cognitive skills used in each, then move anomalous calls. As an exercise it might shed some useful light.
otterpop58: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.
...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 cognitive skills used in each, then move anomalous calls. As an exercise it might shed some useful light.
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Date: 2006-01-21 08:27 pm (UTC)And aside from cognitive skill, there are the physically challenged -- dizziness, slow movers, etc. This is almost a separate issue. I'm thinking of the 20-40 set which we're having trouble getting right now -- the need to get sucked in with a minimal commitment, and you want a dance level that 95% of that age cohort can handle.
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Date: 2006-01-21 08:42 pm (UTC)I spoke with Pam Clasper recently (wife of caller Barry Clasper). She's now on a committee to discuss how to handle the growing percentage of active dancers who are handicapped, have early stage Alzheimer's or some other brain issues, who are morbidly obese and dancing, and all the other things that slows down the floor to make the dancing activity...not dancing. This didn't exist in square dancing 40 years ago.