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