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strathspey@strathspey.org:27761

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SnowshoeTS

SnowshoeTS

Re: Cribs (was Re: Square dancing.)

Oct. 5, 2001, 3:08 p.m. (Message 27761, in reply to message 27704)

As has been said by many addressing this thread , different people learn and 
remember in different  ways. I like Bryan's analogy to musical notation.To  
expand on that a bit, I have met skilled and talented musicians who were 
excellant with tablature and almost unable to deal with  anything in standard 
notation  and others who could play anything that they had heard but nearly 
nothing from any written source.
 I too find that I am better able to understand a dance from graphical 
representation but I have met and have had students in class who could read a 
dance in text and dance it perfectly and others who absolutely needed a "walk 
through" neither group was  more nor less intelligent , talented or dedicated 
than the other!!! One must remember that theRSCDS "bigbooks"  contain 
diagrams when the publishers felt that there was a benefit from  them. Even 
the best and most careful  writer/devisor/editor may at times be unsuccessful 
at communicating  with others in some medium though  he/she may understand 
the directions perfectly.Yet I have met a small subset of RSCDS people who 
seem to equate the use of "Pillings" or other graphical representations as  
something between axe-murder and pedophilia. I think that I can say safely 
that I have never taught a class directly from Pillings or cribs without 
reconciling it   the official  dance publication when I had ANY alternative 
.Usually one reinforces the other. I do think that we must use all available 
resources to understand  and execute the dances as well as possible and not 
allow our personal prejudices or  our own preferences to hinder ourselves or 
other dancers!!! To be sure a class or ballroom of people with their noses 
buried in notes can be distracting  so of course common  courtesy  and 
attentiveness are appropriate but so is intellectual flexibility.In my youth 
I ordered a pair of winter boots -ONE SIZE FITS ALL-by mail: indeed size 17 
boots will accomodate most feet but are they less than desireable in many 
situations  ;-]!

Kirk Bachler
Twin Cities Branch,Minnesota,USA,RSCDS

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