Well, I was indulging in my favorite vice, thinking too much, and decided to try to solidify some of my thinking about the double figure of 8. The goal is to find the quickest, most pleasant way to teach this beautiful and fun figure.
The top drawing here, is a drawing of a double figure of 8, as seen from inside my head. You can see why I think of this as a "train set you got for Christmas".
The second drawing is one that was sent to me later by Chrystal, of a double figure of 8, as seen from inside
her head. Read the comments section for more about these pictures. Basically, I think Chrystal's wins, so the following comments will serve merely as a whimsical historical perspective on the issue, but which helped me understand a lot.
In my picture, you can see that no one walks
around anyone because there is no one standing inside the loops. Instead, everyone walks the same track, starting from different points on the track. Counterintuitive though it is when you're standing on the floor getting ready to start the move, everyone walks around the track in the same direction.
Theoretically, you could have four little train engines, all chugging around the track, one after the other, cheerfully avoiding each other so long as they observe one simple rule: "ladies first".
It is easy to see how you teach where the train crossing is - first corners and second corners merely point at each other, arms extended, and it lays out exactly where the track crosses. Harder to see is the part of the track which curves outside the set. Would it make sense to lay down some sort of token (a shoe, perhaps? or a plate of cookies?) between man 1 and man 2, and between lady 1 and lady 2, for the dancers to walk around as the upper couple "casts" around the outer curve of the 8 to start?
I think what we need here is some sort of "X" prize for the person who comes up with the wording to teach a new set of dancers this move in under one minute. I did it once, but it was an unfair test - they were four of my colleague Ben's friends and probably had a collective IQ of 800. Oh, and they saw the drawing.
What I did, with much protest from my calling friends standing nearby, was to have the ones simply walk a figure of 8 on the floor
without the twos. Then the twos without the ones. Then both together, invoking the ladies first rule. I'd like to try it with
just the ladies, and then just the men. It might work better that way because you see immediately that you're leading and/or following someone, and you're going the same direction.
Oooooh...just thought of something. How about having
first corners do it first? The guy walks the outside of the 8, the girl walks across the train crossing. You're doing (and showing) both parts of the move at the same time, but simplified, by having just two people moving. It's quite clear in this move that lady 2 follows her corner around the track. You could then have the second corners do it, and remark that here, gentleman 2 follows his corner around the track. When everyone does it, you can point out that the lady 1 and gent 1 follow their (same gender) neighbors around the track. Re-emphasize the ladies first rule, and it should work fabulously.
Oh, and how awful would it be to call it a "simultaneous figure of 8" instead of a "double figure of 8"? No one does two eights. Each person only does one. We call it double because two couples are doing the figure of eight. It would make more sense to call that a "quadruple figure of 8" because four people are doing it! But even better would be the term "simultaneous figure of 8," for both accuracy and simplicity. Is there some sort of ECD academy where such suggested changes can be submitted?
Or have I reinvented a wheel?
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