Stephen’s Square Dance Blog

I’m getting ready to leave for the Callerlab convention in Niagara Falls, NY, but wanted to share one thing before I left.

I’ve been doing some research on square dancing’s history and traditions. To this end, I have found a number of old books and magazines to use as references. One of this year’s goals for me is to start an online “note service” like the ones from yesteryear. My plan is to publish something weekly (short articles) and have longer and more detailed issues every now and again.

Anyway, this is what I found in a booklet dated 1952.

“We are living in an urbanized period in which people are struggling desperately for something real. Life is so individualistic that they try hard to find something to bring to the group satisfaction that they find in their families. (Or once found.)”

60 years later, and this hasn’t changed.

Later, in the same introduction… “What about dancing? It is hardly fair to place this social activity in the same category with anti-social “social dancing.” Unless dancing borrows its forms from its older brother, the two are not in the same class at all.

The spirit of folk games and dances is inclusive (“everybody come”) while the spirit of ballroom dancing is more likely, “just us two.” Special dress is not usually necessary for folk games – but it is in ballroom dancing.

If people do no know how, there is usually friendly instruction in connection with folk games and squares. Nobody seems to care, usually in ballroom dancing. The assumption is that you either know how, or don’t care to. Folk games involve cooperative group activity – ballroom dancing involves individual activity.

Ballroom dancing often eliminates, or sends to the wall as a wallflower, the ungraceful, the unbeautiful, or the poor. Folk games, and squares – in their true spirit – genuinely welcome the ungraceful, those who need social activity. For this reason, church groups and many others who have similar objectives, find them valuable. they do something for people by including them.”

From “…and promenade all” by Helen & Larry Eisenberg. Copyright 1952

In this post 9/11 world, I fear that society, at least in the United States, is becoming increasingly anti-social. For whatever reason, we’re not connecting with our neighbors as we probably should. My hope is that I, as a square dance caller, can help people connect (and reconnect) with one another.

I was going to post this on the sd-callers email list, but changed my mind. I’m not sure why, but I felt this was a better forum. (I suspect it is because there are a number of people on that list that just like to disagree/complain and I don’t feel like listening to them today.

The topic from marketing man Seth Godin’s blog today http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/11/watch-the-money.html is “Watch the money.”

For me, the lesson came in his final statement… “Money is more than a transfer of value. It’s a statement of belief. An ad agency that won’t buy ads, a consultant who won’t buy consulting, and a waiter who doesn’t tip big—it’s a sign, and not a good one. ”

As I see it, in the 21st century, Seth is right, money has become statement of belief. I’ve seen in it politics, in religion/faith, and in the workplace. Why else would someone ask, “Care to put your money where your mouth is?”

In square dance land, it doesn’t matter if you’re talking about how much your charge for your services, how much you pay to dance, or how much you spend on records/music. What you do or don’t spend on the activity is very telling.

For this reason, I pay when I go to dances even when those in the know offer to let me in free because I’m a caller. For this reason, I buy new music that I might not use. For this reason, I subscribe to both American Square Dance magazine and Zip Coder. For this reason, I subscribe to the Palomino music service. For this reason, I don’t give my services away except in very rare (and special) circumstances. I believe in, and value, square dancing and the square dance experience.

For those that aren’t interested in the link, here’s Seth’s post:

Watch the money

“How much life insurance do you have?”

Zig Ziglar liked to say that with that one question, you could tell if someone was a successful life insurance agent. If they’re not willing to buy it with their own money, how can they honestly persuade someone else to do so?

If you’re in the music business but you never buy tickets or downloads, can you really empathize with the people you’re selling to?

My favorite: if you work for a non-profit and you don’t give money to charity, what exactly are you doing in this job? I’ve met some incredibly generous people in the charitable world, but I can also report that a huge number of people—even on the fundraising side—would happily cross the street and risk a beating in order to avoid giving $100 to a cause that’s not their own. And the shame of it is that this inaction on their part keeps them from experiencing the very emotion that they try so hard to sell.

Money is more than a transfer of value. It’s a statement of belief. An ad agency that won’t buy ads, a consultant who won’t buy consulting, and a waiter who doesn’t tip big—it’s a sign, and not a good one.

Meanwhile, back at the Square Dance Land Ranch…

If the rallying cry is to take back the SD activity from those that would over-analyze it, what would you do?

If you were given magical powers to overhaul things in Square Dance Land, how would you change it to make it more accessible and approachable?

You want more dancers for your club… where do you get them? How do you compete with alternative forms of entertainment that are available today that weren’t around 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago?

What would you do to keep them? Better, what would you do to prevent them from leaving?

There is, admittedly, a finite supply of dancers. One thing that gets overlooked is the short supply of callers. What would you do to increase the number of callers? What would you do to ensure that these new dance leaders do things without “over-analyzing” them and making the dance more complicated than it needs to be? (For the new dancer, that is.)

Then, for those dancers and callers that want the puzzle to be harder, how do you treat them? In this case, treat = reward.

News from Square Dance Land.

It’s been so long since I’ve worked my square dance blog, I almost forgot my password.

I’ve got a lot of things to write about that happened over the summer (and from the spring too), but I’m going to go back and fill in as I can. I’ll try to stay current with what’s going on in square dance land today, and go back to fill in (from memory) stuff that’s been going on.

I’m not a marketing guru, but I’m a big fan of one. Seth Godin has become sort of a folk hero to me. I’ve been reading his books and following his blogs and I believe him to be brilliant.

If you want to find out yourself, his blog can be found at:

http://sethgodin.typepad.com

His blog today was about the the pursuit of the Olympics and how people bend over backwards to get them into their city. It turns out that nearly every city that has ever hosted an Olympics has regretted it financially. Seth’s question of the day:  How little patience would you have for the International Olympic Committee and their politics if they didn’t have a show people wanted to watch?

Seth goes on to make some valuable comments about marketing and how given the size of the Olympic Games how commercializing it is more like strip mining. (There’s not much skill needed due to the enormity of it all.)

However, my take on his post made me consider his question in a different light.

Related to square dance land, I’d like to rephrase his question.

How little patience would you have for your square dance club’s politics if they didn’t host an event you wanted to attend?

Based on declining numbers of square dancers, I’d argue that people are having less and less patience for such politics. Our numbers are down. They were down from their hayday when I started dancing in the 1990s, but I’ve seen them dwindle more and more every year. It’s depressing.

With the smaller numbers, a few clubs have seen their politics become condensed. Several have folded under the strain.

I feel that there are a number of reforms that have to take place to increase the popularity of square dancing. However, with the best of reforms, it will be for naught if we can’t eliminate the poison that is politics.

Time will tell.

Until next time, (which I hope is soon) keep dancing!

Have you ever hit “Send” on an email and said to yourself, “did I put the wrong address on that?”

I have, several times. This time, it was a little more noticable than usual because rather than go to a person, I sent an email meant for a single person to the email list devoted to square dance callers.

Thankfully, it wasn’t hugely embarassing. However, it wasn’t one that, I thought, would be on topic. So, I sent a quick follow-up apologizing and asked people to disregard it.

Strangely, though, a large number of people wrote (publically and privately) about how much they appreciated it and how they thought it was relevant.

Here is what I sent:

This is from Seth Godin’s blog. (sethgodin.typepad.com)

You’re boring

—

This is what I’m striving to do, not only as part of my photo shoot today, but what I am trying to do with my attempt to revamp the lists.

I want to be good. I want to be the best. I don’t want to be boring.

———————————————-

I was embarrased, but now I’m proud to say that I started a conversation or two. Way cool.

In the beginning there were no standardized square dances. Every caller had their own list of calls and knew how to teach them. Eventually, a few braves souls sat down to flesh out a list that would let callers travel around the nation, then internationally, and call dances.

I got a call yesterday with a message on my answering maching and a letter today telling me that my services were no longer needed at Valley Singles.

The letter reads:

Dear Stephen:

As per the INDEPENDENT CONTRACT AGREEMENT signed June 4, 2008 this letter is being sent to give you 30 days written notice of the Valley Single Squares intention to terminate your contract.

The termination date will be 30 days from the date show below.

–

It is signed by the president, the vice-president, secretary, and tresurer and dated 2/17/2009.

I’m not sure exactly how I feel. My last dance was really good. The one before that was awful. Though there are a few dancers that I’ve always been able to hear talking while dancing. Usually saying things that are rather critical of both me and other dancers. I won’t miss such disrespectful behavior.

So, I wish them well, but I probably won’t ever go back. I’ll not say never, but second chances are not something that I dish out lightly.

So, I got a note from a club in northern Arizona that is a 3+ hour trek for me. They’ve had to lower their caller fee from $150 to $130 because they’ve not been able to make ends meet. They also want callers to come an hour earlier to workshop/teach the Plus program because, as it was explained to me, they want to have their dancers “go to the next level.” (Their words, not mine.)

The conversation continued with me learning that they charge $3.00 per person to dance. I had four squares my last time there. So, that math still doesn’t quite make sense to me.

Then, a conversation I had with my Grandmother popped into my head about her favorite recreation (not that SD is strictly for grandparents, but there is a strong representation by that demographic) and how she loved playing bridge.

I did some checking… in my area (metro-Phoenix) one bridge club charges $50 for FOUR weeks of lessons. They have three levels… beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

Then, a regular meeting of the local club, not a tournament, is $10 for a 3 hour game.

That whole “fixed income” argument doesn’t really fly with me any longer. Maybe if dancing was a $50 event per person… I could see it. However, over in Mesa, one of our dance halls is being sold we’re out of luck finding a replacment. Why, they’re all too expensive.

The answer is not to immediately raise prices, though that’d be fine with me. The best thing is to ease people into regular cost increases. In the 1950s Coca-Cola was a nickel a bottle. It didn’t jump to $0.75 a can overnight. My time as a dance leader is worth something. Your dollar, or ten dollars, should buy something of value. A ten dollar dance (to name a round figure) should be more entertaining than a three dollar dance, don’t you think?

With low costs come low standards. I don’t know about you, but when a dance is “cheap” I don’t expect much. Yes, being a square dance caller is a labor of love, but do you really expect me to put together a creative and innovative dance experience for $30, $40, or $50? When I’m paid a premium price, I deliver a premium product. Costumes included.

Wednesday, we were back to the Mainstreamers.

It was a good class. The president has been trying to get the angels to participate more during the lesson time, bless her heart. She seems to feel that everyone should dance with an angel. Trouble is, people like to come and dance with their partners. Who am I to split them up? Still, in some ways she’s right. Having a helping hand really aids the learning process. Sort of like thowing a dry towel in the dryer along with wet clothes. (They dry faster.)

I covered, I think, a lot of material, but no so much that it couldn’t sink in to people’s brains. Most of it was because it is material that I’ve been calling directionally for a while. I added California Twirl. Up to this point, I’ve been calling it “Face Your Partner and Star Thru.” I did some goal posting routines with Pass Thru/Separate/Around 1(or 2) that turned out well. It is a nice way to introduce other forms of Lines.

By having a He, He, She, She line it helps people to recognize same sex couples. Also, it helps with Centers and Ends. I had the Centers do a Right and Left Thru and Rollaway to sent up Normal Lines. Very nice!

I still have two men that just seem to stand there when the Ladies Chain. I don’t know what to do about it shy of a cattle prod.

I have room at the front of the hall for two squares and I had both of them dance next to each other. The bonus here was that one of my strongest couples saw how one of my weakest couples was doing and you could see sort of an Aha moment for them. (I get the feeling they were frustrated at the pace of the class but now see better what I’m working with.)

Graduation has been scheduled. I’m not sure that I like that because it is a very unrealistic date. However, I think what we’ll do is graduate them and turn the club into a workshop to get the rest of the movements. There is no other Mainstream club local to the Phoenix valley. I’ll talk to the guys on the trail and let them know what is going on so that if my guys and gals show up, they’ll be ready.

I’ve got other news, but it will have to wait until tomorrow.

Until next time, keep dancing!

In Square Dance Land, there is a tightrope that callers walk. It is system of finding balance between various factions in any club and at any dance.

There are always two distinct groups in any class. One group gets whatever is being taught/workshopped every single time on (or near) the first time. The other group paid their money and wants to learn but doesn’t see it that fast.

There are risks working with both. Go too fast, and you’ll lose the slower population. Go too fast and the strong dancers will disappear. I sometimes think this is why Angels (experienced dancers for those that don’t know the terminology) don’t come around the first few weeks (months) of lessons. These dancers know what is going on, but can’t say anything because the understand there can be only one teacher and frustrated that the new people don’t pick it up quicker. It is, after all, easy to forget one’s own roots.

Though, I’ve been in classes (as a teacher) where someone usually tries to to teach from the floor. Once, while teaching a Plus class, a woman shouted out “just do it!” Just do what? I asked the question (in error from the microphone) and lost control of the situation instantly.  We were doing Track 2 and I was explaining how the tracks worked and that it was a Tandem Partner Trade and that a Tandem can be though of like a bicycle built for two. This woman wanted nothing to do with how the move was done. She just wanted to “do it.”

So, how do we handle such situations? With diplomacy is the only answer I have right now.

I’ve got an issue right now where a couple, where I was calling, didn’t like one aspect of my teach. All I can say is “trust me.” I do, honestly, have the good of the activity in mind while I am teaching. It would be stupid of me to do otherwise. Is there a danger that we’ll lose someone. Absolutely.

However, everyone needs to remember where they are and where they once were. If we’re in a class of beginners and nearly everyone is 50 and older, don’t expect me to teach something once and assume that everyone got it.

Also, if I’m doing a workshop for experienced dancers, and I’m reviewing the finer points of a call (like, for example, Square Thru is a mini Right and Left Grand and that, if you turn, you always face in) then remember that some people may have never seen some of these applications.

A funny thing about square dancers is that nearly EVERYONE I’ve ever worked with thinks that they way that they learned is the right way. It takes a lot of time and energy to see that this might not be true. A common mistake for newer callers is to ignore the written definitions and think that the way that they learned was the best way. You get to be the best by careful study and understanding.

Doing something because you’ve always done it that way is the first ingredient in the recipe for disaster.

Will I be able to make (and keep) everyone happy? Probably not. Everyone seems to think that they know best. My goal is to do the best that I can and encourage people to trust me in that I know what I’m doing.

Until next time, keep dancing!