To turn, turn will be our delight

[venta]

In any normal circumstance, saying "turn left" to someone is a useful, sensible instruction. At least, providing the person you're talking to is able to get their left, er, right.

Somehow, though, when dancing rapper this phrase loses any meaning.

I'm not quite sure what the problem is. I think it might be partly that the person being told to turn is required to turn on-the-spot rather than in a more usual left-turn sort of sense. It might be that being caught in the middle of a tangled whirl of metal is disorientating. Or it might just be that when someone is already confused, shouting "left! left!" at them is never really going to help.

We've tried various strategies to deal with this. Saying to someone "turn the easy way" doesn't help. In theory, it should. The "easy way" is either the "short way" if they know which way they want to end facing (ie turning 90 degrees instead of 270), or if their arms are twisted, it's the way that untwists them. Again, this sort of instruction tends to result in a rabbit-in-the-headlights sort of panic as someone tries to work out which way to go.

I suppose this is the sort of reaction seen in other cases, too, when someone is confused and is required to act quickly and correctly. Quite why the stricken dithering is the human body's best way of coping remains a bit of a mystery. We all seem to do it, though.

Quite a common way of explaining turns is to say something like "turn left shoulder back". This is the same way as "turn left", but gives you something a bit more definite to grasp hold of if you're feeling a bit bewildered. Move your left shoulder backwards. Now keep turning that way.

Sometimes, though, describing things via the surroundings work better. After a failure with some "turn outwards" instructions to someone a few weeks back, I eventually opted for saying "face the window every time you turn". This of course, has its downsides... next time we're dancing in public rather than in our practice hall, you have to stop and work out where the windows, the toilets and the fire exit are to orientate yourself.

Last night we had one of your Occasional Mabels (people who live too far away to make regular practices, but can be drafted in for emergencies) along, as she's coming with us to Burton at the weekend. She kept getting a particular turn wrong. Instructions like "left shoulder back" and "the easy way" having failed, a useful description was eventually reached:

Turn as if you're going to punch Liz in the face with your right hand.

She got it right every time after that.

Scared now.

Comments

'Tis a gift to be simple...

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

...what is it about spatial orientation that isn't? Any time it matters all my words desert me, and I end up desperately pointing and shouting 'that way! That way!'.

Sometimes it's even the right way.

Except where it's left.

Re: 'Tis a gift to be simple...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Indeed. It does seem to be a skill that leaves most people (either directing or following directions) right when it would be really useful to have it.

And one notional Shaker kudos point to you, ma'am :)

Re: 'Tis a gift to be simple...

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

I'm now pondering how the rest of the lyrics fit the situation.

It's quite scary, really.

[beckyl.livejournal.com]

Surely it's a compliment to the fact that at all points you were on your mark and thus able to be used as a fixed reference point?

Or maybe you just need to develop good blocking reflexes real fast...

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Does this work for non-rapper purposes? We need a planned, scientific experiment.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Of course it does.

The disadvantage is that when I don't have both hands taken up holding rappers I can punch you straight back.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Ok, now we know your weakness. All we have to do to disable you is to fill your hands with rappers. Which are well known safety devices. Obviously.

I say "we"...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes, when all I've got to hand is a few two foot lengths of sprung steel you'll be perfectly safe approaching. Honest.

[elethiomel.livejournal.com]

The inability most people seem to have of giving (or understanding) accurate directions and descriptions is one of my endless sources of frustration and general pet hates - why can't people get used to clock-face directions or any fixed reference points. I remember the sorts of conversation I used to have with my mother in the car as a kid:

"Oooh look - a hot air balloon!"
"Where?"
"Over there."
"Where?"
"That way!" [hand waves around a 90 degree arc of sky]
"Where over there?"
"There!" [finger stabs same general area, Steve gives up in frustration and/or an argument ensues]

Conversely, the same conversation with my father would be:

"Hey look - a hot air balloon!"
"Where?"
"Um... 2 o'clock, about a thousand feet up. Ten degrees left of the church or so."

So much easier.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've had a bit of difficult with clockface directions of late.

If, for example, I were trying to tell you that a hot-air balloon was at two o'clock, do you:

(a) assume that you are standing in the middle of the clock face, and look slightly to your left
(b) assume you are standing facing the clock, and look up and to your left ?

(Or more simply, is 12 straight forwards or straight up?)

Either of these works, it just tends to matter with the directer and the directee think they're using the same one.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

Surely either way 2 o'clock would be to the right?

[venta.livejournal.com]

Er, yeah, er, that's what I meant.

I hasten to add that I do know my right and my left, it just seems I don't know which way clocks work.

(I blame the clock on my desk, which, since the entire dial rotates, has the numbers on it anti-clockwise. And my clock at home does actually run anti-clockwise.)

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Well, especially with the elethiomel family, I guess the convention is taken from fighter pilots (and, I assume at least some other pilots). In that case, aeroplanes are always located at the centre of a clockface, with their nose pointing at 12, and oriented in (what I think is) the obvious way, with 1 on the right and 11 on the left.

By extension, so are cars and people. But some people seem to get confused if you say "turn clockwise" because they don't know whether you mean clockwise as viewed from above or from below. I don't really understand that.

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

Ah now see I hate that. One of my housemates (and indeed thinking about it most men I know) give directions along the lines of "then you go North", North? How do I knoe which way is North? Can only assume men have some internal compass women are missing.

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

Umm... I almost always know where North is. If I don't, I can generally work it out.

I don't ask for directions either.

Oh dear.

[venta.livejournal.com]

You're not a girl at all, really, are you ?

Actually, I do remember reading somewhere that being able to locate north in any situation was a very Scottish trait. Sounded like a load of old cobblers to me. I shall regard you as an unfortunate anomaly rather than supporting evidence ;)

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

But, but, but how?
(Though I does have to be said that I am the extreme end of the scale and perfectly capable of getting lost ven if I vaugly know the area. I am however a great navigator - give me a map and I'm fine!)

[davefish.livejournal.com]

I can't manage that, nor can I read maps effectively.

On the other hand, thinking of it as 'Having an adventure' rather than 'Being lost' makes everything seem much more positive.

[chrisvenus]

Nah. We all just like confusing women when giving directions so we can then claim that women are rubbish at navigating. :)

[snow-leopard.livejournal.com]

I am GREAT at navigating, I am just incapable of judging distances and can get lost on a tuppenny piece!

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually... would this housemate of yours be inskauldrak ? If so, maybe I do have to take this Scottish theory (http://www.livejournal.com/users/venta/110613.html?thread=1416469#t1416469) slightly more seriously.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Internal compass? I have one on my wristwatch.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

Quite why the stricken dithering is the human body's best way of coping remains a bit of a mystery.

My initial response to this was to point out that the body is being asked to do something at odds with either flight or flee. Finding oneself confused in the middle of a rapper dance, running away or attacking seem like fine options to me, pretty much anything else would leave me dazed and confused.

This pontification was of course absolutely proven¹ by the solution to the directional dilemma of your Occasional Mabel. Had you tried "Run like buggery!" as a direction, she'd have got that right too no doubt, though perhaps less usefully.


[1] - I've seldom seen a finer example of absolute proof. Not that I've looked.

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Have you ever seen buggery running?

I haven't. But I'd guess it's more at a hobbling speed, rather than "really fast"?

[http://users.livejournal.com/_corpse_/]

Maybe it's shorthand for: "Run like buggery was imminent!"?