Amen, Andrea! That was exactly my thinking. The batter was mixed, and I
stopped stirring.
But later, someone told me the cake was lumpy. Or...maybe it wasn't my
cake, but they had eaten lumpy cake recently, so they thought they should
tell me to keep stirring.
The mathematical part came later, when I was trying to decide for myself if
I had done the right thing or not. Nothing like the numbers to help focus on
what really happened, eh? I just wish I had been able to say, confidently,
"Well, actually, I didn't drop out after two times through, ever, but once I
did stop calling after four times. Was that the dance you had trouble on?"
This experience has, in fact, given me this confidence, but I'd like to hear
it from the rest of you guys.
In the end, given what I have heard from all of you, I'll mostly try to take
vague but impassioned criticism of "callers lately", and validate the
person's feeling ("Gosh, I'm sorry you feel you've been having to work so
hard.") but for myself, remember what a wise caller said, "If you made a
mistake but it's going well anyway, take note, but move on. Maybe it isn't
even a mistake."
For that, you don't even need the numbers.
M
E
On Sat, Feb 12, 2011 at 2:07 AM, Andrea Nettleton <[email protected]
> wrote:
> Wow. You guys are so mathematical. I do this totally on instinct. I
> watch,and when it looks like the batter is mixed, I stop stirring, i.e. when
> I sense it has come together, I move to one beat calls and quickly drop out.
> I keep watching and if I see trouble brewing I'll give prompts or calls,
> whichever is necessary, for a phrase or two, then phase quickly out again.
> Perhaps the trouble is having a preconceived idea of a correct amount.
> Seems like it would be different for each crowd, certainly, but even vary
> from dance to dance. Other variables might be how well the walk-through
> went, and whether there are confusing elements in the dance, like two two
> instances when the ladies enter the set from the same side with a R hand
> (one a chain the other a star or allemande let's say.) They might forget
> which instance it is, so I stay with those prompts a little longer. But
> then, I am much newer at this, so maybe this calculation is something I
> should be doing more analytically.
> Andrea
>
>
> On 2/11/2011 7:00 PM, Martha Edwards wrote:
>
>> Thank you!
>>
>> This came up because someone told me I had dropped out too early in my
>> dance
>> - or maybe they meant that some callers recently had dropped out too
>> early,
>> and they felt they had to work too hard. The complaints were heartfelt,
>> but
>> vague.
>>
>> My dances, as I said, were easy dances we've done tons of times, and I
>> called most of them 4+2 (four times with full calls and 2 times with
>> partials), and just a hint here or there after that - mostly after swings.
>> I
>> tend to call pretty rhythmically, being a musician-type person and all,
>> and
>> the dancers, in my humble opinion, looked great! There was one time a
>> line
>> started to break down a bit in one dance so I came back in (called that
>> one
>> 14 times!), but for the most part, I saw nothing amiss -- and I was
>> watching
>> like a mother hawk -- so I kept my mouth shut.
>>
>> The PROBLEM? One dancer told me there were several people who grumbled
>> that
>> I dropped out. Unless they were grumbling that some other caller in recent
>> weeks had dropped out. I could never get specifics.
>>
>> So I started wondering. At Pinewoods, one famous caller had a policy of
>> not
>> coming back in - he would just let the lines break down. I can see a
>> small
>> advantage in that approach - there is a benefit in training your dancers
>> to
>> be ready to pay attention and remember. That might work, but I have no
>> plan
>> currently to be the first on my block to test that theory.
>>
>> I hasten to add that the dancers showed absolutely no signs of distress
>> (except during that one dance) -- yet our troupe of new callers said they
>> had to call the dance in the line or it would have broken down...WHA????
>> How the heck is a caller supposed to know that there's a problem if
>> there's
>> no problem?
>>
>> I mean, if a caller were to stop calling, as one friend of mine did, on
>> the
>> first time in a no-walk-through contra "because it was going so well,"
>> that
>> would be too soon. And if you keep talking long after everyone knows the
>> dance, that would be too long.
>>
>> So, just to be able to say something like "Well the standard is to call
>> four
>> times (two? six?) for an easy dance in a mostly experienced crowd," would
>> be
>> useful. No one has to stick to that - there are too many variables. But
>> I'd
>> still like to know what the common practice is.
>>
>> Funny, though - the complaint that callers were dropping out was aimed at
>> "the callers at the last 3 or 4 dances." I was at those dances, and I did
>> not have the same complaint - far from it! There were lots of beginners
>> (New Year's Resolution dancers?) and I had to work hard a few times, but I
>> take that as part of the fun, or at the very least, the small price I pay
>> for a steady stream of new and interesting people in my life. But that's
>> not a good answer to give to someone who took the trouble to give me
>> feedback.
>>
>> So maybe my question is "how long do YOU call easy dances at your regular
>> dance?"
>>
>> M
>> E
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 11, 2011 at 4:34 PM,<[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> Thank you, Mac. I whole-heartedly agree with your approach.
>>>
>>> Even if one could formula-ize this, I don't have the brain power to work
>>> like that. I just try to drop out as quickly as possible after the first
>>> time through and watch for places I need to reinforce a bit more.
>>>
>>> Happy calling!
>>> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: Richard Mckeever<[email protected]>
>>> Sender: [email protected]
>>> Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2011 14:04:09
>>> To: Caller's discussion list<[email protected]>
>>> Reply-To: Caller's discussion list<[email protected]>
>>> Subject: Re: [Callers] How much is too much? How little is too little?
>>>
>>> I take a much different approach. There are far too many variables to
>>> try
>>> to
>>> attach a number to anything. The most important is how the dance is
>>> designed -
>>> and I mean each transition - not the whole dance. That is far more
>>> important
>>> than the experience level, difficulty of the dance or anything else. For
>>> example: I often call one night stands with 100% beginners. One really
>>> popular
>>> dance is the Patty Cake Polka - a fairly complicated dance for new
>>> dancers.
>>> I
>>> can call it 2 or 3 times and stop because the dance flows so well.
>>>
>>> On contras I generally stop calling one part of the dance at a time -
>>> look
>>> for
>>> the transitions that are obvious - like going into most swings - everyone
>>> knows
>>> when that is coming - so don't call it. Then one by one I drop out other
>>> calls
>>> determined by watching the dancers and see what they are doing really
>>> well.
>>> For
>>> a well designed dance - it doesn't take long to stop altogether. If I
>>> see
>>> that
>>> some of the dancers are having problems or are late for a move - I throw
>>> in
>>> a
>>> couple firm calls to try to get them to pay attention to the timing.
>>> Some
>>> dances I never stop calling - but those are usually not the most fun
>>> dances.
>>>
>>>
>>> Don't try to make rules for this. Watch the dancers - their comfort level
>>> will
>>> let you know what you can do.
>>>
>>> Mac
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
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>> [email protected]
>> http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers
>>
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>
--
For the good are always the merry,
Save by an evil chance,
And the merry love the fiddle
And the merry love to dance. ~ William Butler Yeats
