Mycroft,
See replies in-line below:
Charles M. Hannum wrote:
Calling Chorus Jig would have made me glad to miss your session. ;-)
I'm not sure if you're joking here or not. If you're serious, then that
would have been your loss. I always feel a little sorry for the people
who don't understand the joys of the traditional dances or other
formations (like squares, triplets or triple minors). Thankfully, there
are still quite a few people who do. And as a caller, my job is to both
give people what they want, and show them things that they may not have
experienced before. Including dances that link us to our past and new
ones that are part of our future.
On a more serious note, don't take compliments from dancers as an
absolution for everything that goes wrong.
I don't. But since my tendency is to beat myself up for little mistakes
and generally assume that the dancers are not enjoying themselves, I
think that I can take 10-15 compliments to mean that I put together
three sessions that didn't suck.
Seriously, sometimes I have to snap myself out of my thought train and
look at the faces of the dancers. Generally, they're smiling. Having
fun. It's an important reality check to keep myself from sweating the
small stuff.
I do understand that some people are out of touch with what is generally
going on. That's why I take both compliments and criticisms with a grain
of salt and pay attention more if I hear the same thing from more than
one person. I also listened to the callers and experienced dancers whose
feedback I solicited after each session. They gave me thoughtful
responses which helped inform my report.
On the other hand, I don't have any particular complaints about the
dances you called that I danced to, FWIW. But I missed both your
first and last sessions.
Um, Thanks. I think. I'm going to assume this is a compliment and not
"damning with faint praise".
It was good to see you and chat this weekend. I'll see you on the dance
floor soon, I expect.
Chris
