another interesting topic!! i used to book a dance, many years ago, and
hired a caller i knew who lived about an hour away. about two weeks before
my dance, i went to another dance called by this person.
a walkthru wasn't going well, and the caller exclaimed "i don't know why you
can't do this, it's an easy dance." i had a long conversation with this
caller before my dance, i can tell you that!
but i got the same advice from someone several years back. now my standard
line to beginners is "my name is barb, and my job tonight is traffic
control. that means anything that goes wrong tonight on the dance floor is
MY fault (pointing at myself), not yours! of course, if everything goes
right, i get all the credit!" people laugh, and that's great. but the main
thing is that you take the pressure off the beginners, you put the more
experienced dancers in a tolerant mood (just in case something does go
wrong), and you establish yourself as both being in charge and also not
taking yourself too seriously. that's a pretty good way to start the party,
in my mind :-)
barb
----Original Message Follows----
From: <[email protected]>
Reply-To: Caller's discussion list <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: [Callers] Preparing via Post Mortem
List-Post: [email protected]
Date: Wed, 5 Jul 2006 21:29:26 -0400
...I also luckily received the advice to publicly accept the blame for any
problems that occured, even if I thought the problem lay elsewhere. These
days, any problems are easy to own, as I'm much more sure of the things I
did to cause the problems and much more adept at correcting them smoothly
and quickly. Life is good.
I concur with practicing to tapes, and to practicing while walking, and
while driving, and to visualizing and scripting the walkthroughs, though I
may not actually write down the script.
Jerome
_______________________________________________
Callers mailing list
[email protected]
http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
