====== Notes on Teaching Country Dance ======


**by Bruce Hamilton**


**Teaching Country Dance**\\
**Table of Contents**

**Introduction** \\
Giving Verbal Directions \\
----principles to help you be brief\\
----Principles to help dancers dance well \\
----Principles to help dancers memorize sequences\\
Teaching Steps  \\
Leadership and Social Aspects\\
----Be the leader \\
----Know what they really came for\\
----Genuinely enjoy yourself  \\


**Giving Verbal Directions**\\

Directions given in a book and directions given in class have different
purposes. Both need to convey a dance so that people know where and
how to move; however, people don’t expect a book of dance directions to
entertain them. An author, therefore, needs to be complete, accurate,
and unambiguous, but does not need to be brief, nor to infuse the reader
with rhythm and energy. You the teacher are in the opposite position: you
can be incomplete, inaccurate, and ambiguous, as long as you get the
dancers moving, doing the right thing, and doing it with rhythm and en-
ergy. I encourage you to read your printed directions, understand them
thoroughly, and then throw away the book’s words and start over, using
the principles below.

We have several different goals when we give directions. The prin-
ciples here are aimed at:

1. Helping you be brief;\\
2. Helping the dancers dance well; and,\\
3. Helping the dancers memorize sequences.\\

In some cases these overlap, and in others they conflict. How to bal-
ance them is up to You, since it’s different for each caller, each group, and
each situation,


**Principles to help you be brief**

**Say what to do**, rather than describing the dance. Stick with im-
perative sentences. For example: instead of, “The dance begins with 1st
corners setting and turning single,” say, “1st corners: set and turn single.”
This is subtle, but important: it goes from ear to body more quickly, and it
reassures the dancers that we’re here to dance, rather than learn about
dances. It may feel bossy at first, but it feels fine to the dancers and, being
quicker, it gets you out of the picture sooner, so you're actually less intru-
sive.

In addition, by drawing a distinction between talking about the dance
and getting people to move, this method gives you more freedom to use
nonverbal directions.

When it’s time to do something, ask them to “do” it, rather than to
“try” it. When you sound confident they'll do a figure correctly, the danc-
ers pick up your confidence and tend to make it self-fulfilling. If dancers
find a figure difficult, keep your confidence up. Know that they'll get it
with practice, and gain more satisfaction than if the figure were easy in
the first place. People like to grow!

Sometimes the word “try” is appropriate. If the outcome is explicitly
in doubt, then a trial is a fine way of discovering it. For example, we might
wry a figure once with skipping step and once with running step, to see
which we like better. I'm not telling you never to use this word, only to be
aware of its effects when you do.

**Say things once**. When you give a direction, assume that people
want to follow it. Make sure you are clear, then quietly wait for them to do
what you said (you did tell them to do something, right?). Then keep your
part of the bargain by moving instantly to the next direction. In this way
you'll establish a dialog: you give directions quickly, and they follow quickly.
If you're slow with your directions, they'll feel permission to be slow in
following them. If you repeat yourself, they'll learn to ignore you the first
time you say things (since this is really about establishing a style of inter-
action, it’s not a great technique at weddings or one-night stands). The
note about “try” fits here too: some dancers stop paying attention while
you’re “trying” things, and wait until you get back to dancing.

**Ration your syllables**. When looking for the most succinct way to
say something, don’t be satisfied with putting it across in only a few sen-
tences, or even only a few words. Look for a way to say it in zero syllables.
Demonstrate! If a demo or gesture won’t do it, then try for two or three
syllables, like “same again” or “the others,” or “do this,” or even “guess
what?” If that doesn’t work, use more syllables, but resist every one. On
your way home from the dance, think of ways to peel off one syllable, for
use next time.

**Silence the noise words**. When you say “um,” “so...,” “OK,” etc.,
you not only waste syllables, you give the dancers permission to tune you
out. If you don’t know whether you habitually use any of these, ask your
friends. If you know but find it hard to stop, here’s what | suggest: when
you find yourself starting to say your noise word, go ahead—take the time,
think the thought, form the shapes with your lips, let the breath out as
usual—but relax your vocal chords so that no sound comes out. The re-
sult, from the dancers’ point of view, will be a half-second or so of silence.
This rarely does any harm, and is often interpreted as a request for their
attention! Many people find that once they’ve conquered this part of the
habit, the rest comes in due course.

**Give global directions**. Your directions should apply to the largest
possible number of people, ideally the whole set. This is obvious for some-
thing like “circle left,” but less so for something like Grand Square. If you
can’t talk to the whole set, then talk to couples, middles, ends, corners,
etc. Only occasionally do you need to speak to individuals. As a way of
checking yourself, listen for “and” and “while.” Examples: for a cloverleaf
turn single, use “Turn away from your partner” instead of “Women turn
right and men turn left.” In the dance Jacob Hall’s Jig, although the first
circle goes “right” and the second “left,” they both go “the way the two 
people are already moving.” Instead of saying that poussette starts with
the top woman and the bottom man pushing, say that it goes “counter-
clockwise.” In the B parts of The Bishop, the gypsy turn is done by the 
“bottom” couple, not “the 3rd couple, then the 2nd couple.” 

Inventing a name for a figure is a way of collapsing a bunch of phrases 
into one term (actually, the names for all existing figures are examples of 
this). I call the chorus of the 3rd part of Confess “scatter,” but I invent 
names sparingly: we're here to propagate dancing, not vocabulary (you
can even purposely choose silly names, so they don’t spread).

Use the same idea for answering questions: when someone asks where
to be at a particular time, be responsive to the questions, but consider
telling how the overall figure goes instead. Q: “In this circular hey, do .
turn right or left?” A: “Face your partner; then dance around the circle.
This is tricky—people normally are prepared to hear answers only in the
form in which they ask their question, but you will improve their dancing
if you change their way of thinking about figures. On the other hand, if
someone just wants to double-check his understanding or see the same
subject from a different point of view, you'll save time by answering in the
questioner’s terms.

The principle of giving global direction also helps dancers memorize
sequences.

**Stay in the present**. Don’t bother telling dancers what it’s going to
be like two phrases from now. Get them there, and then make your point.
For example, in the sheepskin hey in Picking Up Sticks, dance everybody
through it until the last person is beside the #2 person; then “freeze” them
and show what happens next. Similarly, when a figure will be hard, slow,
confusing, etc., let them do the figure and discover its difficulties. Then
tell them what to do about it while they have context and motivation.
After doing the circles in Knole Park, for example, people are actively in-
terested in a tip on how to make a circle go faster.

Stay out of the past, too. When you make a mistake, don’t back up to
fix it unless it’s fatal. If at all possible, keep your momentum and fix it in
the next repetition. “I made a mistake that last time, so listen closely:...”

**Say what to do**, rather than what not to do. People often don’t hear
“don’t,” especially at the beginning of a sentence. Listen for yourself say-
ing “don’t” as in “Cross the set and don’t turn back” (instead of “Cross
the set and stay facing out”). Even if they hear it, understanding such a
direction is a two-step process, and hence takes twice as long. The first
step—understanding what not to do—often reaches the muscles while
dancers are working on the second part; so you can expect some fraction
of the room to do exactly what you're telling them not to do. Worse, there
are often many ways of not doing something. If you tell us not to face the
top, we've still got 359 possibilities. Plan on seeing several of those!

Also, consider the atmosphere in a room where we're constantly be-
ing encouraged to dance, versus the atmosphere in a room where we're
constantly being told not to.

You can use this principle to lighten the dancers’ mental load. After
balance in line, say “Keep your neighbor’s hand” rather than “Drop your
partner's hand.” Both are correct and both take five syllables, but the
<second draws their attention to their partner, then effectively tells them
not to dance with this person. It adds a mental step, which will show up in
hesitation and mistakes. Fixing those mistakes will take time, and the people
will take longer to become confident dancers. This principle also helps
dancers memorize sequences.

Demonstrate good dancing rather than bad. Pulling a mistake out
and showing it to everybody often makes an indelible impression, which
then leaks into the dancing and then takes time to correct. This rule isn’t
absolute: if your dancers really aren’t understanding the difference be-
tween what you want and what they're doing, showing the problem can
help. But always follow with a demo of what you do want. Ensure that
what sticks in their minds is your ‘right’ example, and not your ‘wrong’
one. This principle also helps dancers dance well.

When a person is doing something disruptive, it often helps to find
something else for them to do, rather than to tell them what not to do.
This can feel manipulative—it’s commonly done with children—but it need
not be. Usually a disruptive person is genuinely trying to help, and if you
can find their point of view you may be able to devise a path you both can
accept. If someone constantly points out other people’s mistakes, for ex-
ample, you can begin by recognizing that they want to improve the quality
of dancing, and are willing to do something about it. Once they feel lis-
tened to, they may accept a request to raise their complaints only after
the dance is over.

**Good directions are sometimes incomplete or ambiguous**.
People understand best and remember longest what they figure out for
themselves. This fact is another reason for not spelling out your directions
in detail. Examples:

* “The other two do the same.”\\
* “Make a right hand star—TA-yum, ti-deedly, dum, ti-dum.” (See
whether people figure out that you want them to start dancing,
and to go clockwise.)\\
* The word “clockwise” is ambiguous, but nobody wonders whether
you mean clockwise as viewed from above or below.\\
* “Come back to the top,” when only one couple really belongs
there.

Effective, yes. Clear, maybe. Detailed, no. This encourages people to
notice what the others are doing even when they themselves aren’t danc-
ing. This principle also helps dancers memorize sequences.

**However, take responsibility for the results**. If you gamble as
suggested above and lose, acknowledge that it was a gamble, that the
gamble was yours, and that your directions were too brief. Then go back
and fill in the holes, being extra patient and extra clear. If you are now
asking them to unlearn a wrong way, a little repetition is in order.

Even if you think your directions were masterpieces of clarity, when
something goes awry, assume the problem lies with your directions. That
assumption improves the atmosphere of the group (which speeds up learn-
ing), and it often turns out to be true. If someone doesn’t get your direc-
tions, find a different way of approaching what you want.  If “to the
right” isn’t working, then (even though you think “to the right” is perfectly
obvious) try things like “toward the music,” “through that couple” or “copy
her.”

**Let them move**. If dancers start to move as you talk, let them. This
helps the visual and physical learners, and lets you convey a sense of the
timing. Besides, moving is what they came to do. The only times to hold
them back are:

* The figure is different from what they expect, so they’ll go wrong
before you can tell them what it is; or,\\
* Your directions have too many syllables, so they're getting ahead
of you.\\

If they’re doing OK and you can’t keep up, you’re probably using too
many syllables.

**Give them music**. Rather than say when to start, just start—doo-
dling, singing, or having one band member come in behind you. Don’t let
it occur to your dancers that they can move without the music, or stop
before it does. This avoids zillions of problems with “How fast is this fig-
ure?” “When do I do so-and-so?” etc. It also gives them phrasing as sec-
ond nature—something very hard to teach otherwise. You don’t need to
be able to sing: “Rum ti-deedle, ti-yum ti-yum” works in a monotone. In
fact, unless you're a good singer, you'll sound best if you make no attempt
to go near the tune. With practice you'll find you can easily indicate when
to start and stop: “TA-rum, tum, tum, ta-ta-boom, cha, boom, cha, rum,
ta-tum, ta, bum, bump.” With practice you can fit directions and teach-
ing points into this. “TA-zum, ti-ti ti, ti, not too fast here, left to your
partner and rum, tiddle dum.”

Getting the band to help you with this is a rewarding journey, but
beyond our scope at this point.

**Sing, don’t count**. Numbers are useful for writing down dances, but
they're a powerful crutch which can get in the way of musical dancing. To
indicate how long things take, offer some kind of music: the real thing,
your singing, doodling, or rhythmic talking. This applies when you're teach-
ing a figure initially and also when someone asks you how many steps
“xyz” takes. The answer to that question can be “deedle-deedle, deedle-
deedle, deedle-deedle, dum” (with an accompanying demonstration, if
possible), but it shouldn’t be “2 bars,” “4 counts,” or “4 steps.” Some-
times you can talk about phrases and half phrases. I really believe in satu-
rating people with music rather than numbers. It’s a painless way for be-
ginners to learn about phrasing, and it builds that awareness of the music
they need later to become excellent dancers. Even with figures like the 6-
bar circular hey for four in Hit and Miss, all that usually matters is moving
evenly through the figure and being home at the end. 

I once taught Dublin Bay at a workshop under the auspices of the
California Folk Dance Federation. Afterwards, a dancer named Larry Miller
approached me and asked, “How many steps are there in that turn, cross-
and-cast figure?” I sang the relevant portion of the tune for him. “Yes, but
how many steps is that?” “Well, when the tune reaches its highest note,
the 1st couple are at the top of the set.” [Losing patience now] “But how
many steps?” [Getting irritated myself,] I demonstrated the figure, hum-
ming the tune. He walked away grumpily, went to the band, and asked
them. Instead of answering, they played the tune for him! He was furious,
and I was so proud of them | was bursting (and | told them so). Years later
I learned that Larry was the archivist for the Federation, and it was his job
to transcribe the dance into the Federation’s notation. Here he was trying
to do his job, and I was evading a simple question. In that case I should
have answered on his terms, but I don’t regret what I did, and I’m still
proud of the band.

**Principles to help dancers dance well**

Singing, rather than counting, makes the dancing more musical. Let-
ting dancers figure things out (even occasionally going so far as to refuse
to specify, say, whether to run or skip in a particular figure, or which way
to turn single) gives them a greater sense of power and ownership. 2 This
in turn encourages them to put their personalities into their dancing, and
to improvise within the appropriate bounds. Giving dancers music when-
ever they move trains them to move to the music. (Note that several of the
previous principles also apply in this section.)

On the other hand, sticking to imperative sentences keeps you from
telling them how a figure feels, where a dance came from, what you like
about it, and other things that enrich the dancing. In resolving this ten-
sion, it’s good to err on the brief side, with controlled excursions into
rhapsodic prose.

**Encourage mistakes**. Remember that people are learning a skill,
and mistakes are an integral part of the process. Leave a dance running
despite small-to-medium errors; giggle when things collapse; make mis-
takes yourself and cheerfully point them out; compliment errant dancers
on their creativity; be endlessly willing to do things again; take every ques-
tion seriously. | reserve my most effusive praise for the times when begin-
ners make a mistake and then recover. I tell them that now they're really
showing that they know their figures (I believe it, too). You are the indica-
tor of what’s OK and what’s not. Make it clear again and again that mis-
takes are OK. (Two useful references on this topic: Adam Carlson’s letter
in Issue 163, Nov/Dec 2001 of the CDSS News, and the article to which it
refers, which can be found at http://www.musaique.com/contradance/
articles/hamilton1.hem|).

**Ask them to dance well** and spend time teaching them how. This
sounds radical to English and American dance teachers, but it’s what hap-
pens in class for most other forms of dancing. Ask for specific points,
consistently throughout an evening or throughout a series. Let them know
if they’re not doing what you want, and say what would change it. Be
specific. Let them know if they are doing what you want. Be equally spe-
cific. If you’re sincere and unapologetic and you keep things moving, your
dancers will eat it up and want more. Remember, people like to grow.

**Dance!** This section is about giving verbal directions, but your own
dancing is the most powerful tool for conveying how it should look and
feel. Dance as often as you can. Let your enjoyment show.

**Use people, not places**. Cast your directions in terms of who is in
the dance, rather than where things are. Use “Cross with the person in
your hand” rather than “Cross to 2nd place on the ladies’ side.” Say face
“the band” (even better, “Stan and Kay”) rather than “the top of the room.”

Drawing the dancers’ attention to living people, rather than to marks on
the floor, makes better dancing. Also, you often can craft concise direc-
tions, as in “around your corner” versus “across the set and turn right.”

**Principles to help dancers memorize sequences**

Global directions are an excellent tool. Making dancers remember
only what to do, and not what not to do, lightens their load. Tying the
dance to the music when you teach allows the music to remind them when
they dance. On the other hand, giving many style points adds to their
memory load. As you decide how much time to spend using the following
techniques, be careful about the overall lesson you're giving: compared to
being with friends, moving to terrific music, and dancing well, just how
important is it to you that your dancers memorize sequences of figures?

**Reveal the structure of the dance**. Use your voice to show where
phrase boundaries are. “Cross and cast, half figure-eight. [pause] Lead
down and back and cast off. [pause].” If it helps, mention the parts of the
tune. In A Trip to Paris, for example, “Wait until the turn single music
before you turn single.” In Newcastle, “During the B music, when the fig-
ure repeats it’s different.” Make a repeated figure sound like a repeat (or
a variant of one): “The others do the same.” Stopping them at a particu-
lar place (where something is different from what they expect, as in the
last figure of Picking Up Sticks) helps them remember that place when it
comes around again.

**Use memorable images.** The Old Mole makes a path like a mole
digging up your lawn. * Jennifer Kelly says that the Scottish dance Just As
I Was in the Morning starts the same way she is in the morning: cast down
and cross. The Scottish dance Triumph comes with a built-in image of the
Arc de Triomphe (this sort of image also helps people dance well). Good
heys for three have “fat S's.” Caller Jim Saxe built a spring gauge which he
uses to show the amount of tension in a good 1-hand turn. He has two
good dancers hold it between them and do a turn, and we all notice how
far it stretches. Then he hands it to each of us and we try, by ourselves, to
pull it apart that same amount (very effective!). He calls it the Allemande-
O-Meter.

**Appeal to all their learning modes at once.** Everyone uses a mix-
ture of visual, auditory, and kinetic learning, and we learn best when all
three modes are getting the same message (each in its own way) at the
same time. In addition, using all three keeps you from starving the person
whose favorite mode is your weakest. Letting dancers move while you talk
is part of this (it builds muscle memory). In addition, draw pictures (two
or three feet across, up high) with your hands and sing to them (or ler the
band play). & Do as many of these simultaneously as you can. While giv-
ing a demonstration, say what it is that the dancers are supposed to be
noticing. “So we cast, like this, staying opposite each other [point] til the
end of the phrase, then we join hands here, and turn back to place.”

**Get them to do something with the sequence.** This is a well-
known mnemonic aid. Before starting ask, “What’s the next-to-last fig-
ure?” Review the sequence, but don’t say one of the important words: let
the group say it. With 4 bars left in the current figure ask, “What’s next?”
and make it a game for everyone to shout the answer. Note: one of my
reviewers finds this patronizing. Be careful with your attitude, tone of voice,
and choice of occasion when using it.

**Repeat yourself.** When teaching Arnold’s Circle, if you say “And the
men finish on the inside of the circle” about fifteen times, and get them to
say it with you, they’ll remember jt. Needless to say, this conflicts with
being brief. Do it sparingly.

**Shut up.** Give only a talk-through now and then. Or give the class
enough preparation so they can really memorize a dance (over 3-4 weeks,
say), and act as though you expect them to memorize it. Say a little less
each week, possibly even allowing it to break for several times through,
and eventually say nothing at all: just run the dance.

**Teaching Steps**

On the one hand, steps are basic, and it seems to me that skill in
doing them is dying out. There’s a vicious circle here: people aren’t skilled
at the steps, so the dances that require them aren’t fun, so we don’t do
them, so people don’t become skilled at them, and so on. This suggests a
variety of approaches; one is to teach steps regularly (not necessarily of-
ten, but regularly, so that anybody who has danced with you for three
years has learned them). On the other hand, we've trained our dance com-
munity (i.e. English and American) not to study steps, so they don’t ex-
pect it. In addition, the steps are subtle, and a heavy-handed approach
can backfire, producing caricatures of the steps. So I'll discuss ways to do
this lightly, and I'll also discuss things not to do.

A zero-syllable way to tell people that the next dance uses a particular
step is to play its music while they're forming sets and dance around a
little. You can choose your tempo this way, and you can probably even
talk to people (“Hands four from the top, please. We need another couple
here,” etc.). They notice. Similarly, it rarely matters which foot they use,
and when it does (like slip-step) it’s usually obvious, so you can let them
figure it out (and thus learn that the choice of foot is theirs). The place 
regularly tell which foot to use is in teaching polka to beginners; then I say
it’s the one in the direction they’re going (rather than “right” or “left”).
Note that this works for any position in the set, either sex, anywhere in the
music.

**The Running Step** resists being described. I grab my shirt front, pull
it forward, and ask people to get off-balance in the direction they want to
go, then never quite catch their balance. If you balance a broom upside-
down on your palm, let it tilt forward, and then run after it, never quite
catching it, that shows the idea pretty well. It also produces unself-con-
scious running in the person holding the broom. Call the step the “run-
ning step” rather than the “walking step.” Tell people to “dance” down
the middle, rather than “walk” or “move” there. If you must describe the
step, you’re best off not talking about feet, knees, etc., or people will think
about those things as they dance. I've found that any part of the body I
mention begins to move stiffly. Talk instead about their center of gravity,
or sternum (or heart), or things like that. Tell them to feel the wind in their
hair.

**The Waltz Step** as used in country dances generally needs a little
tuning. People want to make it a step-close-step, and demonstrations alone
haven't been effective for me in clearing that up. I tell them (while show-
ing it) that in every step one foot passes the other. The step also wants
some waltz emphasis, and a demonstration (accompanied by a comment
that I want them to notice where I put the emphasis) has worked for me.
Exactly where and how this emphasis should be done is a controversy I
prefer to stay out of.

**The Skipping Step** is innate, so the best way of teaching it is to get
the dancers’ minds out of the way. Use strong jigs (at a slow tempo) and
let people dance and watch you. If people do a polka step, put a smile in
your voice and sing out, “step, hop, step, hop...” Once their step is easy
and rhythmic, ask the dancers to make it light and forward, without much
up-and-down.

The Skipping Step is innate, so the best way of teaching it is to get
the dancers’ minds out of the way. Use strong jigs (at a slow tempo) and
let people dance and watch you. If people do a polka step, put a smile in
your voice and sing out, “step, hop, step, hop...” Once their step is easy
and rhythmic, ask the dancers to make it light and forward, without much
up-and-down.

**The Schottische and Hornpipe** also benefit from lots of good old
demonstration and not much talking. With the schottische, watch out for
Scottish dancers using turnout and straight knees. There are two princi-
pal difficulties with the hornpipe. One is people sinking on the wrong
beat. I find that if I start to talk about beats people think rather than
move and this makes it worse; I prefer just to keep demonstrating. The
other problem is that people want to pick up their knees. If this happens,
avoid mentioning the knees as long as you can: talk about sinking instead,
have them look at your head, etc. If you have to talk about knees, tell the
dancers that they don’t have any (or that English dancers don’t use them),
and get right back to demonstrating.

**The Rant Setting Step** needs explicit teaching—an example is too
confusing. I've had some success with the “hop, hop, change” method,
and I use it for variety; but my staple is the following: (with a demo ac-
companying) “Tap, (pause) step. (with the other foot) Tap, (pause) step.”
If someone is stepping instead of tapping, I raise my foot fairly high after
the tap. I repeat this until everyone is doing it. Then, without changing
what I’m saying or what my feet are doing, I let my body get bouncy, and
keep that up until most people are doing it (bouncing is hard for some).
Then, still without changing what I’m saying, I increase the bouncing until
my supporting foot actually leaves the ground and makes a hop. But I
never say “hop.”

**The Rant Travelling Step** can be taught very similarly to the
schottische. The things that need saying (because people won’t notice
until you point them out) are the use of the flat of the foot, and the fact
that the head goes up and down twice as often as in a polka.


**Leadership and Social Aspects**

**Be the leader**

Country dancing needs a single individual making dozens of decisions
every minute—Which dance do we do next? Which version? Does it need
another walkthrough? Are all the sets long enough? Is that tempo too
slow? etc. It’s usually not as important which answer gets chosen as that
some answer is chosen. Otherwise things stall, and people don’t get to
dance.

It is crucial to understand this: people accede to your authority be-
cause that’s the shortest way for them to get to dance. Generally speak-
ing, they do what you say, not out of respect for your experience, because
they think you know more than they do, because you have a big voice,
because it’s a habit they picked up in school, or anything like that. They
do what you say out of enlightened self-interest.

Every one of those decisions mentioned above could be made demo-
cratically, but then we’d do less dancing. For every decision made there is
some dancer who wanted a different choice; but if she speaks out to dis-
suade you, someone else will speak up for a different choice, and while we
get that resolved we're not dancing. 

So this is a textbook example of government by the consent of the
governed. The dancers are giving you their money and their time; they are
really the ones in charge. But they choose to do what you say because they
now that’s the shortest way to getting what they came for.

Now that you know that, what do you do?

* You don’t have to worry about whether you have what it takes to
do the job. If you are willing to stand on the spot and make the
decisions, you have what it takes. (The dancers give you author-
ity willingly. Of course, if you don’t know your dances, then your
walkthroughs will take longer, and the dancers will gradually with-
draw your authority. They'll do this slowly and reluctantly since,
whatever the alternative is, it will take a long time to choose and
implement, and during that time no one is dancing.)

* Since your job is to stand up there and make decisions, stand up
there and make them. Tell the dancers what to do boldly, clearly,
and unapologetically. This is no place for false modesty: they want
you to look, act, and be in charge. It makes the evening more
pleasant for them. (Really accepting this fact has helped me with
my stage fright.)

* Conversely, when everyone (literally) looks up to you, listens in
respectful silence, and promptly obeys your every command, it’s
easy to start thinking that you are wise and interesting. Remem-
ber, it’s your role, not your personality, that gets the authority.

**Know what they really came for**

In the discussion above, we assumed that what people want out of an
evening is to dance. That's a good assumption, but people often want
more. When I’ve asked dancers and given them time to think about this,
they've given a rich set of answers. Some examples are:

* Want (sometimes expect) to be taught and rehearsed in physical
skills;\\
* Enjoy the history and want to learn more;\\
* Enjoy the costumes, knowing their history, how to make them,\\
how to dance in them, or simply looking great in them;\\
* Like to see their skill improving;\\
* Like the group challenge of learning and then doing a complex
dance;\\
* Like the social atmosphere (accepting, smoke-free, ete);\\
* Like the music;\\
* Use the time to get together with friends;\\
* Come to find a lover/partner;\\
*Come for low-impact exercise.\\

People will give you their support if you lead them in the direction,
like those above, they want to go. Here, also, dancers will give you a minute
or two to advance something someone else wants, in the hope that you
will eventually get to what they want.

This is a balancing act, obviously. On the one hand we know of set-
tings where people will sit quietly for an hour to hear someone remind
them of their values, and will come back a week later to do it again. On
the other hand, we know of groups which get restless if you take five sec-
onds to tell people the dance’s name and deviser. You probably can’t please
either extreme, but you can satisfy most of the middle by using a variety of
techniques.

**Respect their intelligence.** If you’re going to take a digression, pick
a suitable time (i.e. not right after the walkthrough), tell what you’re do-
ing, and how long you plan to take.

**Respect their time.** Be prepared for the digression, so you can get
smoothly into it, go cleanly and crisply through it, and move on. If you
took an extra three minutes, save three minutes somewhere else, through
especially good calling, by Programming something extra easy to teach,
by starting on time, or whatever. You are respecting their time most clearly
when you save the three minutes before you spend it.

**Use texture.** You don’t have to provide everything everyone wants
every eight bars, or every dance, or every night, or even every year. If you
make every dance in an evening, or every evening, the kind of thing that
the majority of your dancers want, you leave yourself little room to vary
your pace or subject. Feel free to make one dance in an evening signifi-
cantly different, or to take two minutes to tell a story now and then. You
can designate one evening a year for something different. You can add a
weekend workshop. As always, ask your dancers what they want, let their
wishes guide this process, and tell them what you're doing.

**Keep pushing back the horizons.** There's a vicious circle which it’s
incumbent upon us, as custodians of this art, to fight. Suppose your group
knows and likes to dances (the number isn’t important). They won’t like
them all equally well; so you’ll hear compliments when you call the 40
most popular, and nothing when you call the other 10 (again, the num-
bers are not important). If you just let nature take its course, as you plan
your programs you’ll tend to choose the ones that bring compliments,
and omit the rest. After a while, your group will know and like 40 dances.
But they won’t like them all equally well, so you'll hear compliments when
you call the 30 most popular, and so on. This doesn’t just happen with
dances—it happens with steps, figures, types of tune, skills, knowledge,
manners, everything. One of the ways that you as a leader can lead is to
fight this process.

**Genuinely enjoy yourself**

If your dancers see that you like a dance (or figure or step), they'll be
predisposed to like it too. If you inject energy and enthusiasm into your
presentation, dancers will carry that into their dancing. Conversely, if you’re
impatient with your dancers or yourself, they’ll be impatient with them-
selves and each other. This means that you have to find some part of the
dance, the circumstances, and the people that you really like. Feel it, and
let them see you feel it. You don’t have to feel good all the time, but some
part of you usually does. Show that part. If you do this wholeheartedly,
you'll find that it works in reverse, too, and you get back from the dancers
and band all the energy you put in and more.

You have to do a little management to make this work. Arrange your
calendar so that you have time to prepare the evening. Let somebody else
worry about getting the room unlocked, equipment set up, etc., so that
you can focus on getting yourself into a good frame of mind. Look over
your notes, chat with the dancers as they arrive, listen to some of the
music you'll be using, warm up your body, your voice, and your public
self. I try to do a similar thing at the end: have somebody else worry about
money, room, and equipment, and make myself available to the dancers
RR over to talk.

Of course, there will be times when you get overloaded: you didn’t do
your homework, your delegating wasn’t effective, the hall is double-booked,
etc. In that case your first moves are to cope with the situation, and when
you begin working with the dancers, the look on your face and the sound
of your voice will contain a lot of acting. If you really sell it, though, the
dancing will begin to work (the dancers want it to), and you can stop
acting. The caller has to get the ball rolling, but a dance can be just as
therapeutic for you as for the dancers.

**The group will take on whatever character you assume it has.**
If you start on time, you'll teach your dancers to arrive on time. If you say
things once only, you'll teach them to listen. If you assume they are memo-
rizing the dances, they’ll learn to, etc. The converse, alas, is also true.

**The group as a whole will acquire your Personality.** If you are
friendly to beginners and newcomers, others will be too, and conversely. If
you join in socializing, so will they. If your approach to the dances is intel-
lectual, physical, or whatever, the evening will feel that way. This comes
partly from self-selection, of course, and partly from people following your
example. Therefore, capitalize on your strong qualities, and use other
people with different strengths to help in leading, organizing parties, etc.

**Treat your dancers well.**\\ 
Praise them. To get something to happen, find somebody doing it and
praise that person, being very specific. If the whole group (or even most of
them) does what you asked for, say so. If they do something difficult,
especially if they do it well, praise them. Be honest—don’t say that some-
thing is good if it isn’t—but train yourself to notice things that genuinely
are good. Do this with the band, too. After you give a comment, pro or
con, immediately move on to something else.

Respect them. We touched on this earlier, when I asked you to assume
that your directions, and not your dancers, were at fault. When people
are struggling with a dance, it’s easy to see them as stupid (and some-
times they feel stupid). They’re not stupid; they’re just struggling with the
dance. Keep in mind that they are your peers, and take their questions
and suggestions seriously. Most of the time that I see teachers impatient
with a question it’s because they think they've already answered it. Often
the answer was so “obvious” that they neglected to actually say it, or else
what they said was ambiguous. There’s a piece of advice to teachers to
learn a new skill every five years, as a reminder of how it feels to be a
beginner. It’s good advice.

Honor them. These people love the dancing enough to give up all the
other things they could be doing, to finish dinner early, find a baby-sitter,
drive whatever distance it takes, and pay the fee. They have also paid you
the compliment of coming to your evening rather than to Someone else’s.

Think of that, think of how much the 8roup owes to each person’s being
here tonight, think of how much fun you have had together. Then take a
breath, and put those feelings into the tone of your voice.

Leadership\\
Risk more than others think is safe.\\
 Care more than others think is wise.\\
Dream more than others think is practical.\\
Expect more than others think is possible.\\