Recently I had the chance to view things from an angel’s perspective.
No, I haven’t received any divine visions. This was the viewpoint of an entirely earthly angel.
Lemme ‘splain:
I go square dancing.
At least, I do sometimes, though it’s been a while. I decided to brush up my skills, though, by re-taking a class.
This involves more than you might think, because Modern Western Square Dancing is THE MOST SOPHISTICATED form of folkdance on planet Earth. It’s a ton of fun, but it also takes a good while to learn.
To help beginners along, square dance clubs typically include experienced members in the dances for beginning classes. It makes it MUCH, MUCH easier for the beginners to figure out what to do if they’re dancing with folks who already know what’s going on.
These more experienced dancers, in square dancing lingo, are called "angels."
And that’s what I’m currently serving as.
I’ve already been through a typical square dance program, so even though I’m a bit rusty, I can still be a help to beginners.
When I went this week, I was very pleasantly suprised at how reflexive it all still was for me.
Square dancing is a skill that is stored in a different part of the brain than where you keep propositional knowledge. Thus, as you learn how to do it, it becomes reflexive. You KNOW what to do instinctively, even if it would require you to think a bit to figure out how to put it into words.
After you’ve started to internalize it, it’s amazing to simply hear the caller name a particular move and you INSTICTIVELY start to do it, even if you’re not sure what the next part of the move is.
The closest analog I can think of is saying a prayer out loud as part of a group. Once you’ve internalized the prayer, you know how to say it even if you can’t (for the moment) remember what’s coming up in the prayer and even if you couldn’t say the prayer by yourself, only as part of a group.
That’s what square dancing is like.
If the caller says "Star through!" or "California twirl!" or "Send her back, Dixie style!" or "Sides face. . . . Grand square!" your body feels pulled to make the appropriate moves even if you could never articulate what those are and even don’t remember the later ones as you’re beginning the move.
It’s really surprising.
At least, that’s the way it works if you’re at angel-level. If you’re a beginner, you still have to think through the moves that the caller has just taught you. As you get more "floor time," the moves become reflexive–just as with any other skill.
It’s kind of like C. S. Lewis’s remark about how you at first have to learn your fixed prayers by rote memorization and it’s after you’ve done that that you’re truly liberated in prayer to think about the meaning instead of just the words.
If I remember correctly, Lewis may even have made an analogy to dancing and moving from the watching your feet stage to the experienced, graceful stage.
That is a fascinating analogy with prayer, and one I can relate to.
I grew up on the Apostle’s creed. Later as an adult I moved to a place where the Nicene creed is said at Mass.
Although I can always recite the Nicene along with a group, I cannot recite it by myself. I keep forgetting which line comes next, yet as soon as I hear the first word of the next line, I know which one it is and can recite by heart.
Your post reminded me of kneeling during Mass! I went to a Catholic grade school for 8 years. During that time, my mom slowly fell away from the Church, as did I. After college, I came back. By that time, the parish churches had done away with kneeling during Mass, but I instinctively kneeled.
Thank goodness I moved to a parish that went back to kneeling, because I couldn’t get rid of that pesky instinct!
The prayer / dance analogy is great.
I find that it is much easier now to meditate on the mysteries in the Rosary than it was when I was fairly new to the Rosary.
Like alot of things, it becomes more meaningful if you stick with it.
Tripod does not allow direct-links, Jimmy.
So, I uploaded the images to my Photobucket account.
Star Prom
Grand Square
Chain Thru
Those little dots have lousy square dancing outfits.
Hi Jim great to know you do square dance. i do line dancing and it is great fun. i see in your graphics the guys are all squares.
At my elementary school in College Station, Texas, we did square dancing “units” for a week or two at a time many times per year.
I still have those songs ingrained in my mind! (Shoo, fly, don’t bother me, ’cause I belong to somebody–I feel, I feel, I feel like a shooting star…).
I don’t suppose they do square dancing in elementary school anymore though. 🙂
I like the sound of this type of dancing (it sounds very concordian -think little women!)I imagine it might be more ‘countryfied’ than that though.
May I ask how physically fit you (as in me) would have to be in order to do this sort of dance? And whether or not you can go alone and participate in a group setting or whether it is best to take a partner to such classes?
Might look into that, sounds interesting.
God Bless.
Okay, I just looked up Square Dancing in my area, and we do indeed have it, but it says ‘mainstream and plus with Bob Evans’…I guess that isn’t the beginners…unless it means plus-size, in which case, BINGO! I qualify!
DevinRose –
I went to your site. Did you go to A&M/St. Mary’s? I noticed pictures of Veronica and Enrique on there too – we’re not friends, but I know who they are.
Benedict: Thanks! The pictures were working for me when I linked them from Tripod, but then they stopped.
UKOK: One does not have to be excessively fit for this type of dance. They do it even in nursing homes (they just do it more slowly).
Mainstream and plus are the two basic levels of squaredancing that they teach you. First you learn the mainstream moves, then the plus moves. Most clubs (after you graduate) hold their dances using moves from the mainstream and plus levels (there are more advanced levels, but they are not common).
Most clubs also hold classes to help you learn the mainstream and plus moves. This takes a while, though, so classes only begin every so often. Call to find out when the next class opens or if neighboring clubs have a class opening soon.
KristyB: Yes I did go to A&M/St. Mary’s. (I will send you a personal email so we don’t clog up Jimmy’ blog with non-square dancing notes! 🙂
“Modern Western Square Dancing is THE MOST SOPHISTICATED form of folkdance on planet Earth.”
You have obviously never been to a ceili. Those involve seriously complicated moves and are usually called in Gaelic.
Yes indeed, ceilis are far superior in my opinion, in addition to being the roots of square dancing and line dancing. Plus ceilis have great music. 😉 But I know what you mean about instinctively physically knowing the next move after you’ve been doing it for awhile, even if you don’t know it mentally.
Ukok: I forgot to mention that you don’t have to have a dance partner when you go. One can be provided for you (usually), which is a good thing because they try to put angels with beginners to make it easier and more fun for the beginner as they learn.
If you do have someone you want to go with, though, that’s fine, too.
Jimmy,
The fact that you instinctively know how to do it is something that we in Foreign Language circles call Total Physical Response and it’s the newest and easiest way to learn a foreign language. You set words to motion and they become stuck in your brain, never to leave. Sounds like the same thing for square dancing (which I used to do and plan to take up again soon).
Jimmy, thanks for the info.
I don’t know anyone who would be up for a night of square dancing with me (can you believe it, you’d think I was such a hot property right) so I might buy a video, shove the coffee table to one side and force the kids to be my dance partners…’little angel’s!’ (at least until I summon the courage to brave it and go along to an organised dance session)
God Bless.
Reminds me of my Ballroom dancing days. I took enough of it a few years back, and every time something plays I’m right back on it!
Suzanne,
How does that work, exactly, for words describing morally questionable actions? 😉
Jimmy,
I am a bit surprised that a post about square dancing lacks your trademark “YEE-HAW”! I have a fair amount of experience square dancing myself, though this comes from doing it twice a year with Catholic Alumni Club of Pittsburgh. Very informal, and very beginner oriented, because they expect there will be first-timers each time they have it. Still, I think I manage pretty well considering that I’m in a wheelchair and everyone else is standing up. 🙂
The prayer/dancing analogy would work with other things, as well, in my experience: acting & stage combat. With acting, one learns the words in conjunction with the blocking (or, stage movements) &, very soon, it becomes pretty much second nature. One must keep concentration up because there are always other variables that could cause a derailment. Many times a performance will end & either I or a fellow actor will say, “Did we do such-&-such scene? I don’t remember” & everyone else will say, “Yes, we did – you were there!” ‘Tis a very interesting phenomena!
As for stage combat – it’s much more like dance. It is choreography, really, just with swords, quarterstaffs, etc. And as you were describing the caller & the dancer’s reactions to the call, Jimmy, I was reminded of learning fight choreography in the early stages of rehearsal for a play. It’s somewhat similar, once you learn the fight master’s lingo. The cool thing is, once the fight is in your muscle memory, you can really get that thing moving’! Takes all kinds of concentration, though. Wouldn’t do to skewer someone with a musketeer blade during a perf! (They’re blunted but still could do some damage.)
Jimmy,
The reason they were working at first is because the pictures were stored in your browser’s cache. Since your browser already knew which picture to associate with the link, it did not try to contact Tripod for them.
I’m finding that true with ballroom and Latin. After a short lesson where I ‘get’ the basic step, I totally forget it, except that I can -do- it, if that makes any sense.
Susanne, more about this language thing, please?
The reason they were working at first is because the pictures were stored in your browser’s cache. Since your browser already knew which picture to associate with the link, it did not try to contact Tripod for them.
I thought that might be it.
Thanks for your help!