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To turn, turn will be our delight
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.
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.
'Tis a gift to be simple...
Sometimes it's even the right way.
Except where it's left.
Re: 'Tis a gift to be simple...
And one notional Shaker kudos point to you, ma'am :)
Re: 'Tis a gift to be simple...
It's quite scary, really.
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Or maybe you just need to develop good blocking reflexes real fast...
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The disadvantage is that when I don't have both hands taken up holding rappers I can punch you straight back.
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I say "we"...
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"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.
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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.
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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.)
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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.
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I don't ask for directions either.
Oh dear.
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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 ;)
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(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!)
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On the other hand, thinking of it as 'Having an adventure' rather than 'Being lost' makes everything seem much more positive.
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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.
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I haven't. But I'd guess it's more at a hobbling speed, rather than "really fast"?
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