Over in English country dance land, I've gotten a lot of help from Bruce Hamilton over the years (auditing his weekly caller classes in 1985, taking caller classes at English Week), and also taken a bunch of English and contra caller sessions from other leaders like Scott Higgs. I did a year as apprentice to Jody McGeen in English.
I haven't really had an ongoing mentorship relationship other than that, and I definitely haven't had one in contra. (I basically jumped over from the English ladder to the contra ladder without climbing the lower rungs of the contra ladder - my first contra gig was a mixed English/contra evening at the Scout House. I got a lot of help from Lynn Ackerson and Susan Petrick on putting that evening together, and with Karen Axelrod and Dave Langford playing and a room full of excellent dancers who loved both forms it was, I think, quite successful. That was a much easier gig than the ones I've been doing lately, as I belatedly call small dances in outlying areas, work with inexperienced bands, etc.) Other callers have been very generous with me - I've gotten helpful feedback from Erik Hoffman, Jim Saxe, and others. Part of me would still like to get formally mentored; part of me thinks that might be kind of emotionally Difficult when I've been calling for 27 years and am (in some ways) pretty good, and in a fair amount of demand (when you add up the ONS, Regency, Civil War, English, and contra, I gigged about 50 times last year and seem to be on track to do that again this year). I know I don't know everything, by a long shot. I've been very grateful for this mailing list, where we can discuss problems, approaches, philosophy, etc (and get multiple contradictory answers). There's also been a number of learning and discussion opportunities for me on the ECD mailing list. Lynn, I'm wondering why you ask? -- Alan
