You Can't Have It Both Ways
Calvin
You Can’t Have It Both Ways
1) You can find a few new dancers that are willing to become dedicated square dancers. 2) Or you can find new dancers that want to have fun and don’t want to spend a lot of time learning how. Most of the population in the U.S. fit into category #2.
When we entice people to start square dance lessons they usually have no idea how much information they will have to learn before they will be competent to dance with the average Modern Western Square Dance club. If they knew, the majority would tell you they don’t want to do that.
The average person today memorizes very little. If they want to know how a word is spelled they are aided by the word processor. If they want to recall an appointment, it is on the calendar on their cell phone. They don’t have to remember hardly anything. Just where to look it up.
In the present form of modern western square dancing the dancer has to memorize up to 100 commands from several positions. The average person considering lessons is not told this. If they were told they would probably say no way.
The definition of square dance ”basics” is understood differently by dancers and callers. If you ask any square dancer how to do any “basic” they might be able to describe a couple variations, but they will not be able to describe all the variations most callers know. The art of doing the variations, depends on doing each variation enough times that the action becomes “body-memory.” That takes years of practice dancing to callers who actually use these variations.
Learning any dance form, other than square dancing, is a matter of practicing routines usually composed of several moves hooked together (Modules). Remembering each move in the sequence is not a matter of breaking the sequence into individual parts (basics) for most dancers it’s a matter of doing the whole sequence until they can dance the sequence in their sleep.
A lot of the problems with MWSDing is that MWSD callers think they have to always keep-the-dancers-on-their-toes. Modern callers don’t call what they think the dancers know how to do. They try and call sequences they think the dancers are unlikely to know.
To do that, the dancers have to understand the definitions of each “basic” well enough to make decisions that may or may not be right. Very few dancers can do that without years of practice. How can dancers just out of lessons be expected to do that?
In all other dance forms, the teacher shows the dancers the correct way do a sequence before the dancers are expected dance the sequence. The dancers are shown, not told. This is where we have a big disconnect between what the large majority of dancers can do and what callers prefer to call.
All modern western square dancing is presently a process of culling out a lot of dancers to select the few dancers that can learn the things they will need to learn or not square dance. We have no middle ground where the dancers, that are not fast learners, can gain experience. This is the majority of any dancers that graduate from any present square dance class.
Because if all the above, the average square dance class losses 80% of the people who start lessons. After the square dancers graduate, 80% of the remaining dancers will dance for less than one year. They get discouraged with the commitment modern western square dancing requires and they have no place to go.
You have to choose whether to have a few dancers educated and competent in performing 100 square dance “basics” or you can have a lot of dancers who know fewer “basics” and the caller calls easier dance routines.
The attrition rate for square dancers is a disaster and has been a disaster for 40 years. The average incoming student at lessons hits a wall about the time they have been exposed to about 30 “basics.” At this point they need to consolidate what they have been taught and just dance for quite a while. For some new dancers, it is a wall they can’t penetrate at all. For some new dancers the process is just a matter of a lot of practice.
Many of these dancers would be happy just dancing what they all ready know. If they are pushed any further they will quit dancing or become the bumblers we see on a lot of square dance floors today. Only a few dancers will be able to adsorb more “basics”.
At the end of the lessons new dancers would really benefit if they only danced routines they have danced. A lot of them would be happy to end their education at that point. These are the dancers that are likely will drop out the first year.
The few, the proud, who survive will be ready to tackle more “basics” and climb on the square dance escalator. That is not going to be enough people to support Plus clubs and beyond. You can’t have it both ways. Either change how we are teaching new dancers or square dancing will continue to decrease in size until is dies a sad and painful death.
Mike Gormley
Amen!
Mike Gormley Sebring, FL Cell: 419-376- www.Mike-Gormley.com www.Facebook.com/Mike.Gormley.Caller
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