Mycroft,

See replies in-line below:

Charles M. Hannum wrote:
> Calling Chorus Jig would have made me glad to miss your session.  ;-)
>   
I'm not sure if you're joking here or not. If you're serious, then that 
would have been your loss. I always feel a little sorry for the people 
who don't understand the joys of the traditional dances or other 
formations (like squares, triplets or triple minors). Thankfully, there 
are still quite a few people who do. And as a caller, my job is to both 
give people what they want, and show them things that they may not have 
experienced before. Including dances that link us to our past and new 
ones that are part of our future.
> On a more serious note, don't take compliments from dancers as an
> absolution for everything that goes wrong.
I don't. But since my tendency is to beat myself up for little mistakes 
and generally assume that the dancers are not enjoying themselves, I 
think that I can take 10-15 compliments to mean that I put together 
three sessions that didn't suck.

Seriously, sometimes I have to snap myself out of my thought train and 
look at the faces of the dancers. Generally, they're smiling. Having 
fun. It's an important reality check to keep myself from sweating the 
small stuff.

I do understand that some people are out of touch with what is generally 
going on. That's why I take both compliments and criticisms with a grain 
of salt and pay attention more if I hear the same thing from more than 
one person. I also listened to the callers and experienced dancers whose 
feedback I solicited after each session. They gave me thoughtful 
responses which helped inform my report.

> On the other hand, I don't have any particular complaints about the
> dances you called that I danced to, FWIW.  But I missed both your
> first and last sessions.
>
>   
Um, Thanks. I think. I'm going to assume this is a compliment and not 
"damning with faint praise".

It was good to see you and chat this weekend. I'll see you on the dance 
floor soon, I expect.

Chris