strathspey@strathspey.org:27920

mlbrown

Re: Men dancing as ladies

Oct. 17, 2001, 5:12 p.m. (Message 27920, in reply to message 27895)

Ken wrote:

> When teaching an intermediate or advanced class in the past, at some point
> in the course, I would have the entire set change sides, so that
> everyone was doing the dance from the other side. The learning at those
> times is quicker and of different issues. I saw how the men had increased
> awareness of the need to give a good leading hand or arm hold, and how the
> women learned how important it was for them to offer a strong leading hold
> when they were leading. Infact, all movements that involved 'leading'
> improved after that class lesson was taught. (For example, allemande has
an
> option for leading, whereas rights and lefts do not, so there was less
> improvement).

At St Andrews this year the one of the Teacher's classes worked at the dance
Loch Leven Castle.
We struggled with it for a fair while before we could all dance it
reasonably well from either first or second place.
Having struggled myself when teaching the dance, (we did it first as a
strathspey, which enabled a few alternative versions - we did an allemande
at the end to give some sort of progression), I then suggested that we all
changed sides.

What a shambles!!! I'm not quite sure what the lesson was, other than the
"teachers" aren't any cleverer than the "taught",  --- and it is still a
dance where all 4 people need to know what they are doing.

Malcolm