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The following information is published with ROUNDALAB's permission from the ROUNDALAB Reference Manual compiled by Richard & Jo Ann Lawson, 1987.

Building a Pyramid

by
Betty & Clancy Mueller

A good foundation in dancing is important to you as a teacher and to your students. One way to succeed is to start at the bottom with a good foundation.

The more you study to teach, you find the top of the pyramid keeps moving higher and you are always in a process of learning, but this keeps you growing in knowledge. There is nothing wrong with either end of the range of dancing ability and ROUNDALAB supports covering the whole spectrum, but our article this month will concern the basic groups.

To acquaint a new class in Basics (this is our own personal method), we use Mixers with Square Dance Terms which are familiar to them. The people are almost immediately moving to the music, responding to cues, smiling and laughing and they are hooked! If you have some non Square Dancers, you need to explain and show the terms and through repetition of a mixer they soon learn too.

In the mixers they will learn some of the very basic steps, positions and directions that will be used over and over - (walk, forward, backward, face, side, close, Center of Hall, wall, backaway, together, inside hands, outside feet, Open Position, Butterfly, to the right and to the left).

Now it is time to present a valuable tool. "Left Footers One-Step" by Bruce & Shirley Johnson to the original music on Decca and also on Grenn to "Balling The Jack" music. This gives you two melodies, one rhythm, (One-Step which means you step once on every beat or count), many positions, directions, figures, movements without steps or change of weight. The original "Left Footers" has no introduction or added ending as does the second one so after learning the original dance you can add the extras with a new learning experience and they can feel the pride of one more accomplishment. The footnote on the Grenn record suggests you give only the A-B sections at first by doing A and BB. After the dancers are more proficient you can drop the second B and introduce C. They also suggest the dance as a mixer by twirling the lady forward to a new partner on measure sixteen of C.

  1. POSITIONS: Open facing, Semi-Closed, Closed, Sidecar, Banjo and Left-Open.
  2. DIRECTIONS: Apart, Together, Forward, Backward, Line of Dance, Reverse Line of Dance, Facing, Center of Hall, Wall, Turn In, Right Face and Left Face.
  3. MOVEMENTS OTHER THAN STEPS or CHANGE of WEIGHT: Point, Touch.
  4. FIGURES or STEPS: Apart, Together, Balance, Twirl, Walk, Side, Close, Acknowledge, and Step.
  5. GENERAL TERMS: Introduction, Beginning, A, B, C, Ending, Punctuation, Face, Turn, Partner, Inside or Near Hands, Outside Feet, Beat, Count, Left Foot, Right Foot, Inside and Hold.

These terms just mentioned can be found in ROUNDALAB's Phase System and Teaching Progression. In future articles, you will see the Pyramid of growth in Round Dancing.

Remember the quote from Benjamin Franklin:
"Tell me and I forget"
"Teach me and I remember"
"Involve me and I learn"

Roundalab Journal, Summer, 1982