We were dancing five squares at Duke City Singles’ first new dancer session last night. And there were even people under 40! And lots of energy! Hope we can maintain it!

I did what I could…kept it light, kept them laughing, tried not to lecture. It felt good, and people said they would come back…but we’ll see next week.

After I finished writing this, I read the sd-callers mailing list, where Tony O. had this to say:

people come to square dance lessons not to be taught square dancing, but to have a couple of hours of entertainment. We¹re trying to make square dancers out of them, and all they want to do is have a good time. Instead of giving them a good time, we try and cram call after call down their throat. We have been trying for years to make the new people adapt to what WE want to call/dance. For the same number of years, ]these new people have been showing us that this is pretty much not what they want (by not staying in the activity). We are trying to gear the people to the activity and not the activity to the people. Consequently, our numbers have been steadily declining.

For the rest of Tony’s thoughts, see the new, apparently publicly accessible sd-callers archives. Tony’s email is here: SD-Callers (no subject).