See Your Friends Dancing – In 30 Minutes!

Honest, we know it can be done. We’ve done it!

But let’s back up a minute. We’ve all experienced the joy of square dancing, but we’ve also all experienced the frustration of trying to explain to our friends and family just exactly what this preoccupation of ours really is. What is there about this activity that intrigues us so much? Why do we spend so many hours with it? Words just aren’t sufficient to convey the attraction or the concept of square dancing.

The only really effective way for them to understand the square dancing experience is to have them actually experience it. But, of course, this means having to learn to square dance, and that in turn means having to overcome one of square dancing’s major obstacles, a commitment to 30 weeks of lessons. Most people find that just too high a price to pay for the possibility that they too will enjoy it. They see you so involved, they’d love to learn more, but 30 weeks??? That’s quite a commitment.

Therein lies our frustration. Here’s an activity that

- we love so much
- has meant so much to us
- provides healthy, physical activity
- has introduced us to so many friends
- an activity that we know first-hand can be so addictive

yet we don’t have an effective way to show our non-square dancing friends.

We know that if there were only a simple way to expose them to our world, there’s every reason to expect that many of them would be as hooked as we are. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there were some way to convey the thrill of square dancing to people, without such a high price of 30 weeks?

Well, your wishes have been answered!

CD Workshop has created an audio Compact Disk (a CD) to address this very situation.

This CD is just like a normal music CD; it does NOT require a computer to play it.

With your help and the assistance of our CD, you can indeed have your friends square dancing in a very short time. We’ve test-marketed it and seen the magic happen time and time again.

Now, we don’t want to mislead you here. We’re not saying that novices can attend your favorite dance with you with only a few minutes preparation. That’s not possible.

But where in the learning process do we begin to consider new dancers to be actually "square dancing"? Indeed, when do they consider themselves dancing? Do beginners see themselves "dancing" in, say, the third week of lessons? Of course they do. Whether you consider them dancing at this point is somewhat irrelevant. They do, and that’s the important point. They think they’re "square dancing", they love it, and in many cases, they’re hooked already.

So, you see, our main goals are to:

Main Goals of Mini-Squares
 
   1 - Expose non-square dancers to square dancing
 
   2 - Let them feel a sense of accomplishment by actually dancing
 
   3 - Let square dancing do the rest. 

This is the basis on which we created the CD, "Mini-Squares".

Teaching Your Friends

The CD consists of 60 square dancing sequences organized in 6 Steps. Each Step introduces from two to four new calls, and each Step has several sequences associated with it.

There’s no "teach" on the CD. This is where you come in. You know these calls, so who better to teach them to your friends? You can explain and demonstrate a few calls to a couple of your friends much more effectively than can the best caller to a floor of several squares. Individual instruction is always more successful, and don’t underestimate the power of actually showing or demonstrating the calls to people. Remember, you’re not teaching a class, you’re only showing your friends.

This is a powerful teaching approach that's been highly successful in our tests with many people. We didn’t want to use space on the CD with canned teaching. You can do it better. (However, we have prepared hints and suggestions for you on how to teach all the calls. You can view those here by clicking the "Using the CD" and "Calls Definition" buttons on your left.

Mini-Squares Criteria

We organized the material and selected the specific calls in Mini-Squares based on the following criteria:

   - Groups of 4 dancers which we call "mini-squares".

The reasons for using mini-squares are because it’s so much easier to gather 4 people (say, yourself and 3 other people) than it is to organize a full 8-dancer square, and the amount of space needed is significantly less. We want to eliminate as many barriers as possible to exposing new people to our activity. With a mini-square it becomes possible to "dance" in much smaller facilities 

   - A living room, perhaps a den, maybe a dorm room.

Our experience is that 4-person mini-squares convey a strong sense of 8-person square dancing to non-dancers, and believe us, it’s a much more effective medium of communicating what square dancing is all about than trying to describe it verbally.

And even for current square dancers, mini-squares present a different experience, can be quite educational, provide an outlet for square dancing in many more situations than at a formal dance, and most importantly, this CD makes it easy to have fun!

Calls that require no more than 4 people to execute - which, of course, is necessary with mini-squares. This includes calls like Scoot Back and Swing Thru and excludes calls like Spin Chain Thru, Load the Boat, and Relay the Deucey. There’s nothing wrong with the latter three calls, it’s just that they require 8 dancers.

Exclude calls that have a gender associated with them like Star Thru and Slide Thru, that is, calls that require men to always do one thing while women always do another.

Because of the absence of gender-related calls, a mini-square can consist of 4 people of any combination of gender. You’re not restricted in recruiting people. Gather 4 of one gender, 3 and 1, or 2 and 2, it doesn’t matter. Try it with your two sons, for example. We don’t want to possibly jeopardize your success by requiring one of them to play a female role. All you need is four people, and they can square up in any fashion you want. As a matter of fact, we encourage you to repeat the sequences by having people square up in different positions. It’s good practice.

Calls that are fun to dance. Let’s face it. Some calls are more fun to dance than others. We primarily picked calls that have movement and provide variety. People can experience the thrill of continuously moving to the beat of contemporary music without having to stop periodically.

All the music was specifically composed and recorded by or for CD Workshop to provide beat and excitement. People will really have fun dancing these sequences, so the CD can be an excellent window into the world of square dancing. Several of the tunes we used are (or at lease were) available as patter records from Misty Mountain Dance Records.

Other Uses of Mini-Squares

The Mini-Squares CD can be utilized in various ways besides exposure of square dancing to non-dancers.

We’re optimistic that non-dancers will become inspired by this experience and become motivated to take formal square dance lessons.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see increasing numbers of people enjoying our activity? We’ve seen our numbers dwindle in recent years, and the Mini-Squares' approach could provide the impetus for a rebirth.

It’s been so frustrating for many of us trying to encourage our friends to become interested in square dancing. We can talk to them, take them to a "one night stand", perhaps even bring them to lessons, but so often they get turned-off for some reason.

Our attempts seem to echo the old adage, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink". Well, Mini-Squares changes the approach. It doesn’t attempt to lead people to the proverbial water; it attempts to make them thirsty!

The sequences in Mini-Squares are fun, and many people will want to repeat them many times.
Don’t underestimate the appeal and the power of repetition. It’s the basis of many very popular forms of dance, like Round Dancing and Line Dancing. It’s also present in our activity in many of your favorite singing calls.

Current square dancers will enjoy dancing these sequences too.

While the first couple of Steps are pretty basic, once you get into the higher Steps, the sequences can be quite educational and fun. Calls are used from both right and left-hand setups, and the choreography certainly utilizes all position dancing. There are no standard positions for any call since the material doesn’t recognize men's and women’s parts separately.

For example, in dancing the call Spin the Top, you may be an end one time, and a center the next. It will begin in right-hand waves, in left-hand waves, and from facing couples.

Without a doubt, this CD can provide many hours of educational fun for experienced Mainstream and Plus level dancers, especially at the higher numbered Steps.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this Mini-Squares was created primarily as a means to enable current square dancers to expose our beautiful, addictive activity to their friends. We believe many more people can and will enjoy square dancing if only they are able to experience it. Our approach is to minimize the required numbers of people, the space needed, and the time commitments to lessons. We believe the critical issue is to

Get them dancing as quickly as possible!

The thrill of square dancing is in the dancing. The sooner people can actually dance, and feel a sense of accomplishment doing it, the more receptive they’ll be to joining our activity.