strathspey@strathspey.org:44960

Anselm Lingnau

Re: Over 700 schoolchildren dance in Glasgow

April 3, 2006, 12:39 p.m. (Message 44960, in reply to message 44958)

Bryan McAlister schrieb:

> Actually this is a great analogy.  One of the reasons that Scottish
> Football is "not very good" these days is that kids nowadays dont kick
> cans around on the street.

Right. And you can't really expect a fresh kid to come into their first 
(RSCDS-style) dance class and join the branch demonstration team the next 
week any more than you can expect some kid who hasn't kicked *anything* in 
their lives to score three goals in the World Cup finals.

In order to become a first-rate professional football player you have to 
*start* with kicking cans around the street and then actively *want* more and 
do something about it. In dancing, young people come to ceilidhs and get told 
by many that »this is the *real*, *fun* Scottish dancing, and RSCDS is just 
for arthritic killjoys who make you point your toes«, so I think it's likely 
that even if some of them (only some) hear a private little voice in their 
heads asking »is this really all there is?«, peer pressure ensures that 
they'd rather be seen dead than donning the soft ghillies.

Anselm
-- 
Anselm Lingnau, Frankfurt, Germany ..................... xxxxxx@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx
And whatever you do, never, ever, play Trivial Pursuit against a reference
librarian.                                                        -- Jim Frost