Hitting the wall
I hit a wall at the Ar-Dale lessons tonight. It wasn’t them, I think it was me and I think the reason was I was not explaining the calls well enough. We had a hard time with Square Through. Maybe this is just part of the learning process that it takes to teach someone to square dance. I think I am trying so hard to do this right that I am not paying attention to the details. Or maybe I am paying too much to the details and forgetting to make it fun.
I have a week off now, I am off to North Carolina on Saturday to give Jerry Story, Tony Oxendine, Jon Jones and Deborah Carrol-Jones some grief and I hope learn a lot from them. I have another caller coming in to teach the lessons next Tuesday so I will check with him when I get home. Square dancing has always come easy to me so I just hope I don’t hit too many more walls, or at least I am wearing my helmet when I do.
I’ll post some pictures from callers school next week.
Keep dancing
Caller Brian
on 
November 5th, 2009 at 8:50 AM
I had problems with Square thru as well. After a few unsuccessful attempts at explaining how the call moves around a center my girlfriend walked into the square and had the dancers move around her. We never had a problem with Square thru since then. I focus too much on getting it right myself that I also sometimes forget the little details that are causing the problems.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:11 PM
Thanks for the insight. In talking to some more experienced callers, I found out I should have taught them square through first instead of right and left through. On Tuesday at lessons they did pretty good. I did a lot of square through 3′s and 4′s
Brian
November 6th, 2009 at 4:27 AM
Agreed, next time you can do that. I should do the same with Recycle next Monday.. Btw, do you use these documents? http://callerlab.org/DancePrograms/AllProgramDocuments/tabid/610/Default.aspx They can really help.
November 6th, 2009 at 7:09 AM
Lennart: yes I have.
Brian