Line Drill

So, I'm sitting here, stymied, not because I have nothing to say, but simply because I don't know where to start! There are many relevant topics- digital music, choreography, promotion, etc.- however, is it of any interest to anyone but myself?? lol Well, if not, it will still be a great way for me to keep track of some of my own materials.

I love teaching people to dance. It is truly a blessing. I love watching people develop a new skill and the new friendships that typically become lifelong.

Although each group is a unique blend of personalities and experience, there are some things remain constant over the years. New dancers will confuse Relay the Deucey and Spin Chain the Gears. They will struggle with the center part of Load the Boat. And I know that they will panic and lose their cool when their square breaks down.

As a caller, I just did not understand why squares would break down and then just stand there in a muddled mess. Why wouldn't they make a line? Such a simple thing to do, I thought. They had been told in class how to do so when they broke down. Why couldn't they do it? Then, one day, it hit me like a ton of bricks- they were simply too panicked to make a line. A deer-in-the-headlight kind of reaction, in an emergency, people tend to freeze and become unable to think rationally. And a square breaking down, in a dancer's eyes, is an emergency.

To make sure that people can think clearly and act rationally in the face of an emergency, they need to practice. That's the idea behind fire drills. If people practice what to do and where go in an emergency, then they won't panic. Instead, they will act rationally and come through the emergency safely. The same is true in square dancing. Breaking down is an "emergency" and so square dancers need to practice how to come through it safely.

In class every year, I do what I call "line drills". I teach everyone how to make a line, which I assume (I hope correctly assume!!) everyone does. But after telling and showing them how to make a line, we then PRACTICE. I make a game out of it and we try to see how fast the squares can recover... after I deliberately break them down. Initially, everyone is uptight and nervous. I warn them that they WILL break down. But after the first few times of scrambling around and grabbing anything within reach (hahahaha!) , the dancers settle down. The panic goes away and they start to laugh and then an amazing thing happens. They begin working together as a team and they recover their square. They make lines so quickly that I then have to call harder and harder to get them to break down. The teamwork and the camaraderie that results is a beautiful thing.

There are a lot of wonderful by-products from this exercise. The dancers find out that breaking down is not the end of the world. They stop worrying about breaking down (because they know they can recover!) and they start concentrating on doing the calls. They develop confidence in their ability and they learn how to truly work together as a team. Then begin to smile at each other and they don't eye someone suspiciously if they think the other person might now be able to keep up.  Confidence, knowledge, friendship, teamwork.... not too bad for a small drill.