June 9, 2006, 11:57 p.m. (Message 45499, in reply to message 45485)
Martin wrote: | | The same grip is commonly used among French traditional dancers, and | although I | insist on handshake hold on country dancing, I still like the | palm-to-palm style in celidh dancing, as it is firm for a | good fast turn than tha handshake hold. | If this were not true, why do (some) SCDers turn their orthodox | handshake into a kind of knot, twisting their wrists in order to get a | firm grip in 2-bar turns? | That is something I am not at all keen on. An explanation I've heard from some SCD teachers, usually along with a demo, is that the "handshake" hold is the most versatile. If you have fingers in contact, and your arms straight, you can do a very slow, wide turn that takes several bars. Or, by moving closer and wrapping your wrists around the others', you can do a fast, flying turn. And you can adjust to any speed in between without a change of grip, just changing how much your arms twine around each other. Maybe this is why the grip developed. Or maybe the explanation came after the fact, as people discovered this versatility of a grip that was originally done for some other reason (or no reason at all). OTOH, there's something to be said for adopting whatever grip the rest of the dancers are using. -- _, O John Chambers <:#/> <xx@xxxxxxxx.xxx.xxx> + <xxxxxx@xxxxx.xxx> /#\ in Waltham, Massachusetts, USA, Earth | | ' `