Scrambling Around

My group is much better at doing anything-motivate now.  I guess it just took practice.  Or, it may help that I have learned to cue "centers cast 3..." instead of just "finish a motivate", which apparently is less helpful.  Anyway, after lots of anything motivates and anything percolates, I called "motivaters percolate", and they started screaming!

I've also started introducing the Stagger concept.  We did a bunch of Stagger circulates, walk and dodge, etc, then I tried Stagger Stretch Walk and Dodge.  This got a reaction!  Stagger Track 2 was also entertaining.

I will say it is so much easier to entertain new c2 dancers than it is to entertain c4 dancers.  I wish it were this easy to find things that are entertaining at Berkshires !

I just started teaching a new C2 class.  It's for people from the MIT Tech Squares club.  So, they're better than average dancers in general, and generally good at learning new things, although not all of them are strong C1 dancers at this point.

It's interesting to discover what things are hard for people to learn at this level.  I started with the "anything" concept (e.g. split motivate), expecting this to be a "gimme" that would allow a lot of variety with little effort.  It turned out not to be so easy.  They just haven't done "finish motivate" all that much before.  They are used to having the entire first circulate to remember what to do next.   I knew finishing a percolate might be hard (percolate isn't one of their better calls to start with), but didn't expect motivate to be hard.

They did really well at learning the crazy concept and split trade circulate, though.  I was able to do an asymmetric with crazy split trade circulate, tandem split trade circulate, etc, very early on, and this worked out great!

You Would Be a Pet Cat

Independent and aloof, you don't like to be dependent on anyone.
And as for other people, you can take them or leave them. You often don't care.
You live your life by your own rules. And you have deep motivations that no one truly understands.
Why you would make a great pet: You're not needy or greedy... unlike other four legged friends.
Why you would make a bad pet: You're not exactly running down to greet people at the door
What you would love about being a cat: Agility and freedom
What you would hate about being a cat: Being treated like a dog by clueless humans