I’m a very new caller. I do pretty well, but occasionally I’ve lost my place in a dance and the dancers (of course) crash. I won’t always be able to avoid a crash, but would like to avoid the complete crash and burn. That is, I’d like to be able to recover after I mess up, so the dancers can finish the dance. My tentative plan is below, but I’m making it up, and would love both feedback on my plan and/or other suggested methods of rescuing a dance that has gone off the rails:
I’m pretty good at knowing where we are in the music, so if I can maintain my head I’m hoping I'd be able to do an extremely simple hash call to get back to the top of the song: I’m guessing what I’d do is say “find your partner and swing on the side” and then hash calls that amount to going nowhere (Circle or star all the way around, LL forward and back, neighbour do-si-do, partner allemande once around—others?) until 8 bars before the top of the dance (if it’s improper), then say “circle left 3 places” to get them back in the original hands-four position. Then start calling the dance at the top. Does that work? Is there some other approach you’d recommend instead? And if it is a Becket dance, I just do the same thing but without the circle left ¾ bit at the end? Are there other tips you have for recovering and/or for killing time waiting for the music to start over again? Any other recommendations to keep everyone in a good mood if/when I mess up? Good self-deprecating jokes/comments? Thanks! Becky _______________________________________________ List Name: Callers mailing list List Address: Callers@lists.sharedweight.net Archives: https://www.mail-archive.com/callers@lists.sharedweight.net/
