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Longsword
Had a great evening last night.
Anonymous Morris have a new band member, been with us for a few weeks now and fits in very well. He's a gamer. (there's a lot of geeks and gamers in Anonymous Morris)
We have a general policy of encouraging the band to learn a couple of dances - this allows me to get to dance, and the other musicians find it beneficial as it's easier to play for dancers when you have the sense of the timing that comes from actually having done it. We also have several musicians who like longsword, so we've been working on a longsword dance mainly for the band (it only needs one person to play the music for longsword).
We're working on the Helmsby II dance which is mostly (though not entirely) traditional. It's one of the most complicated dances out there - I figure that if it's worth doing longsword at all, then it's worth doing a showy one.
Asked Chris if he'd like to give it a shot, and he took to it like a duck to water, turning the correct way every time. He says it comes of being both a musician and a mathematician and I agree. Longsword is a bit of a mathematician's dance. It's all topology and rotations and you do need to be able to visualise the patterns in your head.
In case you think it's an easy dance, I'm also working with a group of 8 year olds at a local school. The last two weeks, we've been doing the 'double under'. That's a single figure from the Helmsby dance (it comes up in a lot of longsword dances). Most of the children have got it now, but a few are still struggling. By next week, at least a third of them will have to relearn it.
a 'double under' is almost impossible to describe in words. Here's an example from a web page I just found "1&2 make arch, 6 passes under turns under right arm, faces 1 stands close to and outside 2 making second arch with 1. 3 4&5 in turn pass under the double arch turn to left and return to places 3&4 passing under 5's sword get out as double over." (you have to visualise dancers in a ring in numerical order from 1-6)
It's almost impossible to follow - even I'm finding it hard and I know what they're talking about.
If you look at this video of the North Skelton dance, you'll see a double under (repeated three times) at 1:45
North Skelton (named after the village where it was originally recorded) is the dance we are teaching the children (we're missing out the figure where everyone in turn goes over a sword, as we've only got 7 weeks in total). My friend Paul is doing most of the teaching with the children - he's a retired teacher and taught his children longsword for many years - he's got a very accurate idea of how long it takes for them to learn the dance.
Chris got the double under right pretty much first try and every time after that. And he had no problems with the pousette or the single over, etc. etc.
It is a lot easier when you are doing it with people who already know the dance, but even so, I was a very happy bunny.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth where it has
comments.
Anonymous Morris have a new band member, been with us for a few weeks now and fits in very well. He's a gamer. (there's a lot of geeks and gamers in Anonymous Morris)
We have a general policy of encouraging the band to learn a couple of dances - this allows me to get to dance, and the other musicians find it beneficial as it's easier to play for dancers when you have the sense of the timing that comes from actually having done it. We also have several musicians who like longsword, so we've been working on a longsword dance mainly for the band (it only needs one person to play the music for longsword).
We're working on the Helmsby II dance which is mostly (though not entirely) traditional. It's one of the most complicated dances out there - I figure that if it's worth doing longsword at all, then it's worth doing a showy one.
Asked Chris if he'd like to give it a shot, and he took to it like a duck to water, turning the correct way every time. He says it comes of being both a musician and a mathematician and I agree. Longsword is a bit of a mathematician's dance. It's all topology and rotations and you do need to be able to visualise the patterns in your head.
In case you think it's an easy dance, I'm also working with a group of 8 year olds at a local school. The last two weeks, we've been doing the 'double under'. That's a single figure from the Helmsby dance (it comes up in a lot of longsword dances). Most of the children have got it now, but a few are still struggling. By next week, at least a third of them will have to relearn it.
a 'double under' is almost impossible to describe in words. Here's an example from a web page I just found "1&2 make arch, 6 passes under turns under right arm, faces 1 stands close to and outside 2 making second arch with 1. 3 4&5 in turn pass under the double arch turn to left and return to places 3&4 passing under 5's sword get out as double over." (you have to visualise dancers in a ring in numerical order from 1-6)
It's almost impossible to follow - even I'm finding it hard and I know what they're talking about.
If you look at this video of the North Skelton dance, you'll see a double under (repeated three times) at 1:45
North Skelton (named after the village where it was originally recorded) is the dance we are teaching the children (we're missing out the figure where everyone in turn goes over a sword, as we've only got 7 weeks in total). My friend Paul is doing most of the teaching with the children - he's a retired teacher and taught his children longsword for many years - he's got a very accurate idea of how long it takes for them to learn the dance.
Chris got the double under right pretty much first try and every time after that. And he had no problems with the pousette or the single over, etc. etc.
It is a lot easier when you are doing it with people who already know the dance, but even so, I was a very happy bunny.
This entry was originally posted on Dreamwidth where it has
no subject
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Nice touch with the elevated concertina player in the video.
no subject
I love teaching at conventions.