Stephen’s Square Dance Blog

News from Square Dance Land!

Lessons on the 4th were a little more quiet than usual. We had a few new couples. (Visitors from another club that is learning Mainstream in the area.) However, a number of folks were absent. It may have been the cold/flu-like bug going around, I’m not sure.

It was more of the same this week. Nothing spectacular. Lots of review. The call, Circle to a Line, seems to cause everyone problems. I’m not sure why. I don’t think it is lack of me calling it. However, there are some truisms in square dance land. One of them is, if dancers can’t do something, don’t call it. A corollary to this is, “if dancers can’t dance something correctly, don’t call it.”

I’m afraid that if I use the call too much, and they don’t get it, then I’m just going to make people mad. Though, if I don’t call it enough to get people comfortable with it, I run the risk of not doing my job in preparing everyone to enjoy the wide world of square dancing.

So, for our two hour session, I reviewed calls like Circle to a Line and tried to move into some uncharted territory. By uncharted territory, I mean calls that I either skipped like Half Sashay, or some of the variation of circulates.

I joke about my teaching style is one I learned in the shower… Lather. Rinse. Repeat. That’s what I do. I’ve found that it has been very effective when I combine it with one other instruction, review.

More than ever, I’ve found that having a targeted preparation for every dance is the best thing. In a sense, I’m creating a special dance just for this one night and just for these people. True, sometimes I don’t even get close to what I’ve prepared. However, when I do, there’s little that makes me feel better.

The downside of the night was that talking to the treasurer, he implied that they want to change the start time of the dance after graduation. We’d be going back to 6 p.m. It really frustrates me that no one would come out and just tell me. I have to hear it in whisperings and then ask. So, I asked, rather than hire someone else, let me see if I can make it by 6.

I really enjoy this group. There are a lot of great people here and I want to be part of what they have going on in this park.

We’ll see.

Until next time, keep dancing!

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.

News from Square Dance Land!

We had a nice turnout for lessons. It was a week of walking wounded. A number of people had knee, back, toe, or other injuries that kept them from dancing. So, like always, I was sure to keep the tips short so that people could either rest or take a turn.

We’re nearly through the Basic program list. It doesn’t have its own separate sheet on the Callerlab web site, but I wish it did. Instead, it is a subset of the Mainstream program. Still, it is a major milestone. This night, I touched on the last calls of Basic, but had to go back and pick up a few applications of calls that I’d not done in the past.

One of the calls that I’ve skipped is simply Half Sashay. The only reason I have for not using it is that I don’t have a real need for it in my choreography. Rollaway has the exact same result and has the benefit of a lot of hand touching.  This is both good and bad. Many hear Rollaway and want to join hands and make a big ring afterwards. Oops! On the preconditioning scale, that was a hard one to overcome. (By experienced dancers, that is.)

Also, I spent a fair amount of time on Partner Trade. I think it is important to know the hows and whys of the call. When you Partner Trade, you trade places with someone and you turn 180 degrees to look at the wall that was once behind you. It is important to touch hands immediately to re-establish your formation. So many of the experienced dancers don’t like touching hands. I don’t get it. Really. It is the most important thing you can do as a dancer. It helps you and it helps your team. Yet a large number of experienced dancers seem to have this attitude like a toddler as if to say “I can do it myself, I don’t need anyone’s help.” The trouble is, YOU might not need it, but your teammate probably could use it.

Since I worked Partner Trade, I also worked Wheel and Deal from lines facing out. It is half of a couples Trade and a Bend the Line towards the center of the square. My new dancers had no real issue. Some of the exprerienced ones tended to overshoot the half of a trade.

My new people tend to get in the habit of going in a particular direction… in the call Wheel and Deal, you could go left or right. The trick is to go towards the center. So, I preface the call with either “look in” or “go towards the center.” I find it helps SO very much.

So, we covered some new ground, reviewed a bunch (Circle to a Line STILL gives people fits, but it is coming along), and everyone learned a few things.

I think, for my next class, I’m going to work on a new set of lesson plans. Normally, I work through the standard teaching order and add a call or two (or three) to the mix. What I’ve been doing this time around has been a modification of that. There’s a point where you can’t review all the calls in a single night and move on, so I’m going to take a look at my list of what I’ve taught and when, and put together a set of dances for each week that includes the review material as well as the new stuff. This way, I can continue to review the older stuff and not get bogged down in it.

I may have to make two separate sets of lesson plans… one for the review and one for the new stuff. I’m not sure how it will work.

I really can’t believe how well it works out to review (reteach) each call three times. (Once a week for three weeks.) Yes, I cut some corners with the reteach, but the emphasis and review has really worked out well.

I’m very proud of this group and all the work they do.

Until next time, keep dancing!

More news from Square Dance Land!

What a difference a week makes. On Thursday the 22nd, I headed back to Mesa to call for the Valley Singles. To say that I was a little nervous is an understatement seeing that the week before did not go smoothly.

Before the dance, the president came up to me and asked me not to workshop as much. I told her that I workshopped calls that weren’t working.  These weren’t calls from strange or unusual formations, but rather, standard applications of commonly/regularly used calls. I let her know that it wasn’t my favorite thing to do either. I’d come prepared to call a dance, not to a set of teaches. She expressed some sympathy towards me and implied that they were used to their regular caller and they were still adjusting. I let her know that if the floor breaks down, I will fix them, and if this isn’t acceptable, then perhaps I wasn’t the right fit as a caller for this group.

I expect that there were only a couple of people that were annoyed at the workshopping of calls. It is strange to me how people can forget what it is like to be new at something or struggle with a call or two. Too often, there is little sympathy for new people. Yet, the new people are the life of any square dance club. I’m not saying that Valley Singles is/was unforgiving, but there are some general behaviors in SD Land that need to be corrected. It won’t happen overnight, but it will happen. It has to happen.

I was sure that I’d have *maybe* a square of dancers. The week before, I thought, had been a disaster. I was more than surprised to have three squares on the floor to start, four on the floor for most of the evening, and three at the very end. (There were some stragglers too. I think they were just enjoying the social time.)

I didn’t have to stop the dance once to fix any calls, and the floor moved as smooth as glass.

A couple of times, I had to shake my head because I couldn’t believe that these were the same people from the week before. So much for my being told not to workshop.

All in all, it was a really great night.

The cuer, Linda Liberti, and I talked about her husband, Michael. He’s been having some health issues. (Apparently, he’s had health issues his whole life, but they’ve been a little more serious as of late.) He’s doing well, and should be home soon.  I think she said the doctors did not know exactly what was wrong, but they were blaming a pneumonia like infection. Yuck. Not fun.

The third Thursday of the month is my normal dance night, but the church where we dance needs the hall in February, so I won’t be back until March. Time flies!

Until next time, keep your stick on the ice. Er, keep dancing!

More news from Square Dance Land!

I’m still about a month behind, so I’m working hard at trying to get caught up with my posts.

Wednesday the 21st was another good lesson session for the DMS. I get few of the park residents that join us. I try to learn their names, but sometimes they just don’t stick. One of them was easy to remember, Martha.

At this point, we’re nearly through the Basic program. This is good and bad. Good because it represents a milstone in the teaching order, but bad because we, in the USA, don’t have any Basic clubs. They’ve all died out. (This happened years before I started dancing and calling. I’ll save its story for another time.) So, soon, we’ll move on to the the Mainstream program. Basic is the first 51 calls I teach.Mainstream is the next 18.

Sharon, the club president wants to have graduation in February; on the 26th. I’ve asked her to move it back a month, but she’s said “no.” Her reasons are that she’s already told everyone it would be the 26th, that she promised 20 weeks, and that she felt they were ready. I tried to explain that a month would not be a big deal and I would be able to cover all the calls with an extra 4 weeks. She put her foot down. As such, I did too. I told her that I would not sign off on any certificate/diploma that said they were Mainstream dancers. It can say Basic, it can say 20 weeks, or it can have a generic square dance title. Signing off on Mainstream would be a lie.

Let’s just say she was not entirely happy with me.

I’ve had great success this year teaching using a couple of simple principles.  One is based on an article I read by Ed Foote from Pennsylvania. He says to teach every call three weeks in a row. What I’ve found is that when I teach calls two weeks in a row and feature that call the third week, there’s really good retention of that call. The other thing I’ve done is to keep an eye on some of the calls that aren’t used as often and review them at the beginning of each dance/lesson once or twice. For example, the call “Allemande Left to an Allemand Thar” isn’t used all that much, but it is part of the program. I won’t use it in lessons for a few weeks, then I’ll bring it back for a quick review and do it two weeks in a row. Sure as shooting, things start to really gel.

We’ll see what happens as we get closer to graduation. Until next time…

…keep dancing!

More news from Square Dance Land!

(But before I do, I want to offer props to the folks at WordPress. I use their software to run this Blog, and since I’ve upgraded to version 2.7, I’ve been very pleased with it. One of the best new features is that it can upgrade itself. In days/years past, you had to upload the software updates by hand. Now, all I have to do is click a button. Sweet!)

I’m a month behind in my updates, so I’ll be posting more as I’ve got time this week in an attempt to catch up.

On MLK Day, January 19th, I headed up to Scottsdale to fill in for the legendary Dale Dockery. I don’t see them often, but Dale and his partner, Pat have become friends and I appreciate that he’s asked me to fill in for him when he’s away from town.

We had just over two squares. So, once we got started, a few left early. That always makes me nervous. Was it something I said? Did my deoderant stop working? Was there a Cheers marathon on TNT? I’m never sure.

Dale didn’t give me any specific marching orders other than to review the Mainstream program and teach whatever I felt like teaching. He’s got a lesson plan system that works out pretty well for him. He doesn’t use the standard teaching order for the Basic and Mainstream calls. I figured he’d do the same with Plus. Afraid not.

So, rather than use the traditional teaching order, I thought I’d pick a few perennial favorites. I chose Load the Boat and I introduced the formation Diamonds and the call Cut the Diamond.

This is the first time that I ran into some trouble. I like to teach calls, especially new calls, giving people targets. One easy way to do this is having the same sexes work together. Turns out that some don’t like this “level of detail” and just like things taught the “standard way” only.

I don’t believe in showing every permutation and arrangement of any given call. But I do think it is important to understand how any call works.

One gentleman got very (read: vocally) upset with me and asked me why I was having the Boys do the cutting action of Cut the Diamond. I was as polite as I could be, and said that these are the standard ways to do the call. Most of the time, the Girls do the cutting action (they slide together and trade) but there are times the Boys do it too. (Usually, it is either the Girls working together or the Boys doing it. Rarely is it one of each.) He disagreed, and I told him he should come to one of my dances. His diagreement extended to “I think not.” So, that didn’t go so well.

However, everyone else seemed to be happy with me and they stayed the whole time. I made a mental not to talk to Dale about my experiences.

It was fun, and I really enjoy this group.

Until next time, keep dancing!

More news from square dance land…

On January 16th and 17th I went to Tucson to help with their square dance festival. After 61 (or so) years of it being run by an organization of dancers, this year was the first to be run by a group of callers. The dancers’ organization is called SARDASA, the Square and Round Dance Association of Southern Arizona. The callers’ organization is SACCA, the Southern Arizona Callers and Cuers’ Association.

Over the past year, I’ve filled in for Rick Gittelman a few times when he was out of town for one reason or another, so I figured I’d join their association to help out in any way I could. Since I was a member, I was on deck to call and, if needed, cue.

I wasn’t going to stay overnight, but I decided, at the last minute, that I didn’t want to drive back and forth to Tucson twice in two days. I found a cheap (and I mean cheap) hotel and stayed the night.

I didn’t dance much. The truth is, larger festivals don’t have many single dancers. Usually, since you have to plan ahead to come to something like this, you come with a partner. So, I spent most of my time meeting and greeting. That’s a lot of fun too. I also got to spend some quality time with the festival’s featured callers, Tom Miller and Bill Harrison. They had LOTS of stories about their travels over the years. Also, I met a woman who is writing a book on folk dancing and wants to have a chapter on square dancing today. She interviewed me, which was cool. Maybe someday I’ll be quoted in a book.

I had two calling slots over the weekend. One on Friday night and one on Saturday afternoon. Both were shared with another caller. This was a ton of fun because I don’t often get to sing with anyone. Saturday night, I sang with Dave Walker. Dave is more of a bass while my voice is more baritone. I can sing low notes, but my lowest strong note on the Bass Clef is a G. (The bottom line. One a good day, I’ll give you and F below that. Randomly, I can sing an E. Anything past that is lip-syncing to another’s voice.) My mom always wanted a tenor, so she would try and have me sing high notes. They’re not always pretty, but I can squeak one or two out when needed. Dave and I threw titles out to each other, but the truth was that we didn’t know each other’s songs. So, he did one by himself, and I did one, and we tried to do two together. We did Amazing Grace (which he thought was too high) and Goodnight Sweetheart.

A bonus for me on Friday night was that Marshall Flippo came out to dance and say hi. After my tip, he shook my hand, looked me in the eye, and told me I was a pretty good caller. Flip is a legend in square dancing today, so it didn’t get much better than that for me.

Saturday, I got to sing with Dennis Farrar. Dennis and I had more luck on songs we could do together, but we didn’t have much luck with dancers. I suspect that some of them hadn’t quite graduated from lessons. We started and ended the hour together. In between, we did one on our own. We started with Peaceful Easy Feeling and ended with Mountain Music. He was a lot of fun and it was great working with him.

Since I had a two hour trip home, I left before the night was done, but I can say that it was a great success.

Until next time, keep dancing!

More news from square dance land.

It’s been a busy couple of weeks and I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. On Thursday the 15th, I headed to Mesa to call for the Valley Single Squares. Due to the fact the New Year’s Day was a Thursday, and that there were 5 Thursdays in January, their dance themes were shuffled around a bit. Normally, I call the 3rd Thursday dance and it is the Birthday Dance. This time, it was the third Thursday of January, but the second dance, so they had a different theme. In my case, the theme  was the 1950s. I have 1 1950s tune. (I may have more, but I only know of the one.)

Since it was my first dance of the year for this club, I picked out Auld Lang Syne to start the dance. I’ve got a nice arrangement that starts slow but ends very upbeat. (A few people even sang along. Sweet!)

I try to talk about the best parts of my dances, but this dance was anything but smooth. Dancers were having trouble with so many calls. Calls that I thought should be easy were breaking down the entire floor.  It seems that every tip I had to workshop something to keep dancers moving. It was more than frustrating for me. These were standard formations for calls too. (Nothing strange or bizarre.)

By the end of the dance, I was keeping the dance mostly the Mainstream program with a couple of Plus calls.

The really interesting thing was, even with all the troubles that the dancers were having, I had three squares for most of the evening and four squares at the very end. That was very strange. There are always dancers that leave early as they come for the social aspect. Then, when dancers are struggling, even more will leave early. So, four squares was incredible.

So, it was rough dance, but Benjamin Franklin was right. That which does not kill us makes us stronger. I gained some extra strength at this dance.

Until next time, keep dancing!

The Desert Mainstreamers is a club that I really enjoy being part of. We’ve got a strong class this year and I’ve seen great inprovement among all participants. It is really a neat feeling when you see people start to feel comfortable with the square dance calls and how they are put together.

It is hard, with only 2 hours, to review all of the material that needs review and teach something new. I’ve pleaded with the club’s management to move graduation out a month, but they say the date is set in stone. I truly don’t understand this (especially when I see SO MANY other dates in the world slip) but I will do as they say. My caveat is that they can’t say that they’ve graduated the MS program. Any diploma must say something about Basics. Implying that they can dance Mainstream would be a lie.

I had to review a lot more than I thought… though, deep in my heart, I’m sure that I knew it would happen like this. I had a choice. Just teach new things, and avoid the review… or, cover it now. The responsible thing was to cover it now… it is one thing to be exposed to the calls, but another to learn and PRACTICE them. This, after all, how we improve. I must say, I have seen lots of improvement. One of my stated goals is to not just make new dancers, but make good ones.

It means that it takes longer, but I’ll wager that they’ll enjoy dancing a lot sooner and keep dancing longer over time.

My teaches included Shoot the Star (from an Allemande Thar… there is no other place) and Wheel and Deal. Seems to me that there was one other… but I’m not sure now. I’ll have to check my notes. I taught it at the end of the night, which I don’t like, but I do what I have to do. Ed Foote, a caller in Pennsylvania says that you should teach every call 3 times… that is teach it one week, then teach it again the next, and one more time the next. This is what aids retention. He may be right. It is all part of getting better.

So, it was a good session and I’m looking forward to the the next one.

Until next time, keep dancing!

Though I am a professional square dance caller, this is a personal note, not one about an experience based on a dance I’ve hosted. Though, I’m not sure there is a difference between personal and professional at this stage in my career.

On New Year’s Eve, Martha and I went dancing at a local square dance club because we a) wanted to go out, and b) wanted to go dancing. We had a nice time, but it was marred by a single issue. One woman I was dancing had no clue how to touch hands while on the dance floor. By “touching hands” I mean that she had a grip like a clamp.

I talk, over and over and over again, about touching in class. It is there for a reference. It lets you know where you are in your formation and provide some stability. You should never hold on “for dear life.” Gripping is not needed. If each dancer applies pressure, you’ll find there is enough feedback to manage your needs. I’ve met a number of dancers that REFUSE to touch hands. In my professional opinion, these dancers are the WORST ever. When I’ve asked why they don’t touch, the answer I get is, “I know where I’m going” or “I’m going where I’m supposed to be.” The trouble with that is that touching hands is not just about an individual need. Sometime, your hand touching is about helping others know where they are or where they need to be.

So, after finally being cured (or, at least pain free) of a nagging tendonitis problem, it is back and back in a major way. It started out when this woman wouldn’t let go of me during some move… probably a Swing Thru or a Spin the Top. My shoulder wasn’t happy at this moment either. I joke and say things like “she nearly pulled my arm out of the socket” but though that is an exaggeration, the pain/discomfort is real.

As a result, I’m going to have to find my tendonitis brace, take some OTC pain relievers, and if it gets worse, seek medical attention.

The question that it makes me ask is, how many people don’t go dancing because of stuff like this? I hope the number is small. But, with square dancing’s number as low as they are, even small numbers are easily noticed/felt.

Please, as you enjoy square dancing, take note of how you touch hands. And, be ready to change, should you find that you “hold on for dear life.” The dancers will be there. Trust them.

Until next time, keep dancing.