[Callers] Re: Last minute newbie bombs

I have moved away from circle mixers as a first dance for new dancers. In approx order of importance, here's the skills I think new dancers need to learn in order: 1. It's okay to make mistakes / keep dancing / etc (quick mention on mic) 2. Getting moving to the beat of the music (just getting them dancing does this) 3. Shared weight as a concept, which, in turn, shared weight allows much easier and clearer nonverbal guidance by other dancers to pick up moves. 4. The swing, which requires which-role-is-on-which-side**, which in turn is done much more clearly in a line rather than a circle, which means that Progresssion as a topic is part of this. And this also includes teaching dancers that different people have different swings based on body size, shape, and ability (which absolutely is behind the desire to want a new dancer to dance with someone experienced). While I like that mixers make sure dancers learn swings from different people, mixers don't teach progression, nor who winds up on which side. I see new people in mixers frequently inadvertently swap roles mid dance (sometimes multiple times), and it causes confusion. Mixers also means you have no anchor person (a partner) to know to return to, and a dancer is having to adjust to a new partner every time through the dance. In this regard, it both adds another level of mental processing and also undermines the goal of "meeting other people on the floor". While I agree with Maia on so many things, this last bit just doesn't happen in mixers. One gets a better opportunity to meet people just by taking hands four - at least that's 3 other people in your starting hands 4. As a second or third dance? Absolutely. But I won't do mixers as intro dances (unless it's a room entirely filled with new dancers, where I'm building skills up more slowly, but, in that case, it doesn't apply to the conditions the OP asked about). So, short version: 2 walkthroughs, as mentioned previously, and I will take time to add a couple pointers (shared weight, hand placement on shoulderblades on swing), and, usually, picking an easy dance like Greetings (always a neighbor swing dance 1 of an evening). ** and, side-note: this continues to be my strongest reservation about Positional Calling in Contra. Best regards, Julian Blechner He/Him Western Mass On Tue, Aug 5, 2025, 1:15 PM Richard Hart via Contra Callers < contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net&gt; wrote: