September 13, 2006 - Scottish Country Dance
I saw a notice in the local paper announcing that the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society was starting classes at a school very near our house. I've done a little Irish dance and some English folk before, but never any Scottish, so I thought it might be fun to try. So, we took our first lesson in Scottish Country Dancing last night.
Scottish Country Dance, which includes Jigs, Reels, and the slower Strathspeys, is the traditional and more social form of Scottish Dancing - not to be confused with the Highland Fling. It is also one of the influences in the developement of square dance.
When we told the teacher that we square dance, she said, "Oh, well it's really rather like square dancing - but with footwork." (Imagine a Scottish accent when you read that.) And it is, a little. The dances are performed in sets of six or more dancers in lines, like contra, or squares, like square dance. They require the dancer to move through a series of patterns and formations like square dance, but the choreography is set and there is traditionally no cueing, though in the class they do just to help the students. However, unlike square dance where you simply walk the patterns, SCD requires constant footwork as you move through the formations. The basic step is sort of a light footed hop-step-ball-change, hop-step-ball-change, with the toes slightly pointed. Staying with the rhythm of the music is emphasized. It can be quite tiring and the music is quite fast, but it was fun.

September 12, 2006 - Dance and Good Food
We danced to two of my favorite callers this weekend, John Reitmajer at the Sandpipers on Saturday, and Deborah Carroll-Jones at the Canyon Lake Twirlers on Sunday.
We don't often drive out of town for a dance since there is plenty of opportunity to dance here in San Diego, but since the Whirlaways were planning a travel date to the Canyon Lake Twirlers, and since Deborah Carroll-Jones was calling, we decided to go. We left early so we could have lunch at our favorite "50's style" diner along the way. For years we have been stopping to eat at Richie's in Temecula whenever we travel up Hwy 15. Lunch there is always a treat.
The Canyon Lake Twirlers have a lovely facility with a nice wood floor and a wall of windows overlooking the lake. They also put out quite a lunch spread, which we didn't expect.
Deborah Carroll-Jones always calls a good dance and her husband, John Jones, also called a couple of tips. They were alternating Mainstream and Plus, but it was a very fun dance, proving that, with a good caller, mainstream can be just as much fun. There were three squares of Whirlaways there and after the dance, everyone met at Howard and Betty's for a barbeque (and still more good food). A nice day.

September 9, 2006 - By any Other Name
One of the concepts of A-1 is the "Belles and Beaus Concept."
I reject that concept.

Over the years, with the popularity of all position dancing (APD) and dance by definition (DBD), the square dance world has worked hard to eliminate the gender specific positions and moves. No longer do we want ladies and gents, but simply "dancers" who dance either position or both positions.
But then we come to the "Belles and Beaus Concept", defined as "In a couple, the dancer on the left is the "beau" and the dancer on the right is the "belle".
"I reject that concept," I tell Dave.
"Well, it means . . ."
"No, I didn't say i don't know it. I didn't say I don't understand it. I said I don't accept it."

If they want to eliminate gender specific positions, then they should not name the positions with two words that are most definitly gender specific. The word beau, by definition, is a man (a boyfriend, a male admirer). The word belle, by definition, is a woman (a beautiful woman). You can't just change the meaning of words. It defeats the purpose of language. In my book "a rose by any other name" . . . is a failure of comunication.
Ladies/Gents, Men/Women, Boys/Girls, Guys/Gals, BELLLES/BEAUS --- all G-E-N-D-E-R -- S-P-E-C-I-F-I-C!! Choose two other words. This is just the sort of thing that drives me crazy. I like words. I like language. It irritates me when words are used incorrectly.

Personally, I think it should be changed to Ls and Rs (the Ls & Rs Concept - Ls on the left, Rs on the right). It's more clearly defined, it makes more sense to the action involved, and it's based on position, like Heads/Sides, Leaders/Followers, Centers/Ends, etc., which is more consistent with other calls.
[Of course, Callerlab would probably define Ls as the dancers on the right and Rs as the dancers on the left.]

"Belles walk, Beaus dodge, Su, you're a Beau." the caller calls.
I grind my teeth and look cross-eyed at Lloyd - He knows how much I hate it.

September 8, 2006 - Change Is Needed
It's obvious that the way it's "always been done" is not working. I think we need to make some extreme, radical changes in square dance classes. We need to break free from the All Powerful Callerlab's one-size-fits-all-standardization method of teaching and allow for differences in dancers, abilities, locales, and situation.
Classes need to be 1) Shorter, 2) Offered more frequently, 3) Faster-paced, and 4) More FUN.

I like the idea of "Blast" classes - classes taught at a very fast pace. There are a few clubs having some success with this. Patty Ping in Florida teaches a Blast Weekend Workshop (starting on a Friday night and continuing through Saturday and Sunday).

"I only teach what was originally the Basic 50 during the weekend class. It seems like that is enough calls to try and teach in one weekend. By the time Sunday light rolls around, the dancers have absorbed about as much as they can for one weekend. What's really great about this is that you don't have to spend any time reviewing because the dancers don't have time to forget anything. When you come back on Saturday morning you can dance them a little bit to warm them up and go right into teaching. These weekend classes work especially well for folks who have danced before and want to get back into dancing. They don't have to spend several months going through another class.
After the weekend class, our club invites the new dancers to dance with our club. We dance half the tips at the new-dancer level and the other half at the club level. I will dance the new dancers for about a month or so and then I will take one Saturday and teach them the Mainstream moves. You can teach all the Mainstream moves in one Saturday.
After dancing them at Mainstream for awhile, I will slowly start teaching a Plus move each night. Then I will take one Saturday and have a workshop. I can teach quite a few moves in just one Saturday. What they haven't learned, I will finish teaching at the club. It seems to work pretty well."

Some youth clubs, like the Cupertino Yellow Rock and Rollers, are also having similar success with week long Dance Camps held during summer and spring break.

Granted, this method is not for everyone. Some people require, or prefer, a slower paced teaching style, but those classes already exist. Why should we exclude the potential students who don't have the time or patience for a year of classes, or those who have the ability to learn quickly and may get bored with the usual slow-paced class?

As square dance class enrollments continue to decline, we need to broaden our perspective and use a wider variety of teaching techniques and styles to cater to a wider variety of students. The problem is not only attracting new students to a class, but also keeping them coming to the class until the end. A modification of the blast idea could be used to sort of "kick start" a new class with a Blast Intro to grab their attention, get them moving, and really show them how much fun dancing is. Or how about periodically offering Blast Intro/Catch-Up workshops to allow new students to enter a class-in-progress, and students who have missed sessions to catch-up and remain in the class.
Times have changed since the establishment of Callerlab. It's time for Modern Western Square Dancing to become just a little more "modern," too.

September 7, 2006 - New Classes
It's September, the time for new square dance classes to begin. Every club starts their classes in September, most of them the same week. They have open registration two, possibly three, weeks, and are then closed to new students. They won't tell you that the classes are going to run a good nine, maybe ten months, (when I took classes in the seventies, they ran three months). They also won't tell you that if you miss two or more weeks you'll be considered "too far behind' to catch up. No one will volunteer to help teach what you've missed. They will simply suggest that you try again next time. . . next September. . . next year.

So, if you see a dance demonstration in, say February, and decide you want to learn to square dance, and by September you still want to learn to square dance, and you are lucky enough to be free one of those two weeks of open registration, and you are able to plan the rest of your life schedules around that one evening a week, and you are not prone to spontaneous interuptions like work deadlines, school classes, family functions, or personal obligations, and you are fortunate enough to remain healthy and active during those ten months (Heaven forbid you should get the flu), and you don't get bored with a class geared to the speed and ablity level of the slowest person in the room - well then, you just might be able to learn to square dance. Add to this small window of opportunity an above average attrition rate (in the several classes I've helped with, less than a quarter of the students make it through to the end). And of course, even if you do make it to graduation, there is no guarantee that you will be able to dance with the club. Sometimes they will suggest that you might want to take the class again or, at least, "Angel it". . . next September. . . for a whole 'nother year. But if you have that kind of dedication and perseverance, why, you can "Learn to Square Dance!" and "Put some Fun in your Life."
That is, of course, unless you decide to take up swing dance, or folk dance, or contra, or something else entirely, that doesn't require such a cumbersome commitment of time. (Now, why on Earth can't we attract young people to this activity? - Oh yeah, "Young people today are just not willing to make a commitment," they say.)

And still, for some reason I've yet to figure out, people seem to be surprised that there are not more dancers entering the square dance world. They blame it on the music, they blame it on the clothes, they blame it on the abundance of video games, or whatever. --- The classes are just TOO LONG and not terribly "student friendly."
I'm done ranting.

September 6, 2006 - Step Up
She - "I told you to bring tights."
He - "Do I look like someone who would own a pair of tights?"
From Step Up - an enjoyable movie with some nice dance sequences.

August 30, 2006 - Just Silly
Buddy Weaver's Reverse Trade the Wave - "Trade the wave, then take a peek."

August 28, 2006 - Dancing, More Dancing
It's so much more enjoyable to dance now that it is not quite so hot. We had a busy dance weekend, dancing four nights in a row; Magic Squares on Thursday, the Whirlaways on Friday, Ruffles 'n Beaus Anniversary dance on Saturday, and the Ruffles regular club night on Sunday. It was also the class' graduation night (nine new dance graduates).
Everyone says that the Ruffles 'n Beaus put on the best Anniversary Dance and I think they are right. It was a great dance. It wasn't too hot. The War Memorial has a nice floor. Ed served his barbeque. There was a good turn-out from North County as well as from SD. We had about fifteen or sixteen squares dancing most of the night and twelve squares still there for the last tip. Pat called a fast dance, but nothing tricky, so he kept the floor moving - a lot of fun.

August 26, 2006 - Still Dancing
Tim Pepper called a very fun dance at the Whiraways last night. I think I would definitely put him on my list of favorite callers. His calling was fast and lively with a good selection of high rhythm music that was very dance-able, plus some interesting choreograpy. As Joe commented, we don't need more calls, we need more callers who can use what we already have in an interesting and fresh way.