Here, it's easy. We don't allow lifting people off the floor. We have one person with a very mild mental illness who wasn't judging very well when to do it and when not, and wasn't always doing it safely, so we just made it a rule, not to be broken, that no one does it, to make it easier for him to remember.
We also have a board member who loves doing aerials, does them with safety and with permission and all other good stuff, but he can't do it at our dances either, just because the hard-and-fast rule is the only way we can keep the rest of us from being cut off at the knees when the other guy was swinging new dancers off their feet and their legs cut a six-foot circle sweep. I also saw a caller in Kansas City stop a dance once and tell a particularly aggressive dancer to stop lifting people off the ground. "I have liability here, and I'm not going to continue calling if you keep doing that." I think the dancers applauded. I had the pleasure of meeting Frankie Manning, who invented the aerial in swing dancing in 1935, and was particularly impressed with the amount of practice he and his partner did before they ever tried it on a dance floor - with mattresses covering the floor of his living room while they learned how. M E On Sat, Jul 9, 2011 at 10:22 AM, Greg McKenzie <greken...@gmail.com> wrote: > > > I would love to hear how other dance communities have dealt with this > issue. > > - Greg McKenzie > _______________________________________________ > Callers mailing list > call...@sharedweight.net > http://www.sharedweight.net/mailman/listinfo/callers >
