As a reminder, the goal of the Supplement Teaching Guide, is to assist callers who may not have had much, if any, exposure to the calls added to the Plus list from the current A1 list. It is, in my mind, a stop gap measure to assist with new Plus classes beginning in September for those who need it. It is not a replacement of the Plus Teaching Guide which we will begin work on soon. Items worked on for this guide will be absorbed into the overall guide when work begins on that.
At this point we invite the committee to review the document. After the discussion period, comments will be reviewed and any administrative updates will be incorporated. Provided there is nothing glaring that needs to be addressed, a vote will follow.
Cut Off for discussion will be July 29, 2026.
I agree with Joe Dehn’s comments about the Introduction.
Also agree that the Quarter Thru family should be in the same order as their teaching order.
In reading through the document and testing the choreography, I have generated four pages of comments about various issues. These will be transmitted to appropriate people.
These comments include:
— Places where more clarity is needed regarding who is active
— Calls being used that have not yet been taught
— Singing call figures that are too long, especially when used for teaching purposes
— Some Extended Applications that stretch the definitions too far
— A few resolution problems
My general feeling is that many current Plus dancers in North America will have difficulty with this choreography. I am uneasy about this. I fear that too much change and too much complexity too fast is going to drive dancers away. Yes, we have definitions that include difficult applications that can be used when the dancers have gained experience with the simpler applications. However, we need to carefully judge our current dancers when deciding which applications will actually be taught during class.
I will have to beg off of leaving any comments. I just don’t have time to go through the document by days end July 29. All I can do it try to get through it before we vote on it.
I wish I had more time at present to go over this supplemental guide. Unfortunately due to a death in the family I don’t have the time to go over everything I would normally would. Some quick things I see; I’ve never heard of the call “Boys Scoot back, Girls Dodge”. I think someone is trying to use Scoot & Dodge like Scoot Back and I don’t see where that works. Left Tag, IMHO, should be used from R/H 2 faced lines , not L/H 2 faced lines. Again IMHO there are more questionable items but like I said, at present time I haven’t got time to get it done by 29 July. Please keep in mind that if we want our dancers to win, we need to let our callers and collogues to win also by giving them smooth, understandable choreography that is not confusing. This transition needs to be smooth without any road bumps in our documents. Have a great day everyone.
Partner Hinge
I believe “Partner” is the designation of the setup from which the call “Hinge” is performed. The call is “Hinge.” It is not “Partner Hinge.”
I believe the designation of _Partner_ Hinge at Plus is because of an implicit restriction at Mainstream that Hinge is to be called from a mini-wave only (i.e. Hinge may not be called from couples).
I don’t like the use of bold faced “Partner HInge” everytime it is used in the Partner Hinge portion of the document. If there is a strong need to remind callers using the Plus Supplemental Teaching Guide that we are using Hinge from a couple setup I would prefer “Partner” be put in Parenthesis (e.g. (Partner) Hinge).
Two supporting thoughts:
1. There are other instances of restricting the setups calls may be used at their most rudimentary programs. Linear Cycle is restricted to be used only from waves at Plus, and Chain Reaction is restricted to be used only from Quarter Tags only at A1. In neither case do we say “Ocean Wave Linear Cycle” or “Quarter Tag Chain Reaction.” We should not be saying “Partner Hinge.” The call is “Hinge.” That is all we should be saying.
2. What do you say when some dancers are in mini-waves while others are couples? e.g. From the setup you get from parallel ocean waves after the centers walk and dodge. I don’t believe any qualification is necessary. The call is simply “Hinge.” Not “Those in the mini-wave hinge while the others Partner Hinge” or any other such nonsense. The call is Hinge.
We should not be using bold faced “Partner Hinge” for every instance of hinge being called to a pair of dancers facing the same direction in the Plus Supplemental Teaching Guide.
Well, the definition does seem to treat “Partner Hinge” as the name — while at the same time clarifying that just “Hinge” means the same thing in the case of a couple. I think the real situation is that either can legitimately be used as “the name of the call” — basically the same situation as with “Partner Trade”. And we know that some callers are going to almost always say “Partner Hinge”, some will rarely if ever say it that way, and there are others who will use some mix depending on a variety of factors. This means that new dancers should be given a chance to get practice responding either way. Perhaps the best way to address that need in this context is to intentionally have some examples of each. There are six sequences on the “stand-alone patter” page, and each of them includes at least two instances of “Partner Hinge”. Maybe leave the first three as they are and introduce the idea of just “Hinge” by replacing the second instance in each of the last three with just “Hinge”. Then sprinkle a few more into the second (“teaching order”) patter page. Finally, an example with just “Hinge” from a situation where some people are in couples and others are in mini-waves could be included in the “extended applications” set.
Suggestions to fix some confusing wording:
(1) The very first paragraph begins “This document introduces the Plus Dance Program Supplement Teaching Guide, created to support the new calls added to the Plus Program adopted by CALLERLAB in 2025.” First, the reference to “this document” is confusing, because “this document” *IS* the Plus Dance Program Supplement Teaching Guide, so it looks like it is saying that the Guide is introducing the Guide. (Possibly the wording ended up this way because somebody wrote the _introduction_ separately, and used “this document” to mean just that introductory text, but then it got copied in here without that wording being adjusted.) The other problem is the “2025” — the list may have been developed before the end of 2025. but it wasn’t officially announced until January 2026 (date of the press release), and 2026 is also the year that we have been using all over the place in reference to when these calls will be considered to be part of Plus, so I think it will be more helpful to readers trying to understand the role of this guide to make the reference be to that year. Here is a suggested re-wording of that sentence to address both issues:
“This Plus Dance Program Supplement Teaching Guide was created to support teaching the additional calls for use in the Plus Program starting in 2026.”
(2) The 4th paragraph refers to “the committee”, but there is no previous reference to any committee. Possibly this was left over from previous communication where the reference was to the subcommittee that developed this set of material, but if so either that should be made explicit (e.g., by mentioning the name of that committee) or the reference could just be dropped. If it is intended to mean that the Plus Committee is making this suggestion, then change “committee” to “Plus Committee”. Also, if we are going to suggest learning equivalents, wouldn’t it make more sense in this document to use an example that relates somehow to one of these new calls?
(3) The first sentence under the heading “Supplement Guide Structure” says: “The Plus Supplement Teaching guide is divided into four sections.” But that is not how the _guide_ is divided — it is how the section for each call is divided. It might be confusing to use “section” twice — but “sub-section” would be fine, or “part” could also work. Or we could call the larger units “chapters”. Also, since “guide” is part of the name if the rest of the words are going to be capitalized then it should be too. Possible re-wordings:
“The chapters of the Plus Supplement Teaching Guide covering each call are divided into four sections.”
“The sections of the Plus Supplement Teaching Guide covering each call are divided into four sub-sections.”
“The sections of the Plus Supplement Teaching Guide covering each call are divided into four parts.”
The order of the section is not consistent with the teaching order (e.g., the section for Grand 3/4 Thru comes before the section for 3/4 Thru). To be consistent with the teaching order, the sections for members of that family should be in the following order:
1/4 Thru
3/4 Thru
Grand 1/4 Thru
Grand 3/4 Thru
Totally agree with that. The order should be “in order”.