17 Oct
2025
17 Oct
'25
3:57 p.m.
Come to think of it, in a room full of nondancers, is there any benefit to calling it
"box the gnat" or "swat the flea", vs "turn under right
hand" or "turn under left hand" or even "right-hand twirl, left hand
twirl"? They're similar weird names which don't include clues about what the
move actually is, and people who are unsure of how to do it anyway are going to have extra
processing time if they have to parse the call.
-- Alan
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From: Emily Addison via Contra Callers <contracallers(a)lists.sharedweight.net>
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 12:11 PM
To: Sivier, Jonathan E
Cc: Shared Weight Contra Callers
Subject: [Callers] Re: Teaching Box the Gnat / Swat the Flea
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Totally agreed. I love demos and I think that BtheG is a perfect place for it.
I'm just wondering if I could get away without doing a demo in a large room of all
beginners with the right verbal instructions. Orrrrr.... is BtheG just too weird??? ;)
I'm also generally wondering if folks feel they have better language to help dancers
move their bodies through BtheG :)
Emily
On Fri, Oct 17, 2025 at 2:51 PM Sivier, Jonathan E via Contra Callers
<contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net<mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>>
wrote:
I don't have a good set of words for teaching this sort of move, but I'd like to
encourage you to include a demo. You don't necessarily have to be the one doing it.
Get a couple of dancers who can do the move, or teach it to them in advance, and have them
do the demo. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and I think the same is true of
a demo. Given that different people learn in different ways some will respond to your
verbal instructions just fine, others won't and will be better served by seeing the
move in action.
Jonathan
________________________________
From: Emily Addison via Contra Callers
<contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net<mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>>
Sent: Friday, October 17, 2025 1:44 PM
To: Shared Weight Contra Callers
<contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net<mailto:contracallers@lists.sharedweight.net>>
Subject: [Callers] Teaching Box the Gnat / Swat the Flea
Hi Folks!
I'm wondering if you have tricks to teach Box the Gnat and Swat the Flea to a whole
room of dancers who have not done it before. (In this case, it's happening in an
otherwise very simple scatter mixer but I can imagine almost no one will know the
figure.)
The wording I've figured out is below.
I feel like it's wordy but it's also a hard move to pick up because it's kind
of weird what's actually happening. :)
Ideally, I'd love to be able to teach this without a demo but I feel like I'm
stuck with the demo. (If you have talk BtheG to a big room of non-dancers without a demo,
I'd love to hear your strategies).
Anyway - open to any and all feedback.
Thanks!
Emily in Ottawa
DEMO BoxTGnat from a hands 4
With your P - join R hands in loose handshake hold – no thumbs!
Goal is to trad places with your P so you end up in the spot there are right now.
BUT Lark/Robin will be doing different things to get there!
But little tug to start & raise joined hands.
Larks: you walk past your P into your P place. (could feel like behind/outside of the
circle)
Robins: you WALK under your joined hands, turning in to face ctr of circle & keep
turning until face P . You have stepped into THEIR place. Have them drill StF and BtG
over and over before starting the rest of the dance.
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