Ringing Forums

public absolutely can tell the difference between good and bad ringing. — John de Overa

While on an outing once we went into the village shop to buy an ice cream, and when we mentioned ringing they said how nice it was to hear thei bells rung properly.

even our practices are public performances — John de Overa

They are public, but they are not performances!

It sounds to me like you are putting a lot of responsibility and stress on yourself, I don't think that's a good idea, either for you, or the band. I think you need focus on your and the band's enjoyment of ringing, the rest may well follow. It's hobby, not a job. — John de Overa

Yes, it's easy for a leader to take on too much of the burden, especially those who don't find it easy. There's a tendency to blame yourself for all the things that still aren't right, rather than accepting that you've managed to get some things right that otherwise wouldn't be.
It's an occupational hazard. An effective leader has to want to make things better, and that makes them sensitive to all the ways in which they could be better but aren't (yet).
Yes, a band needs to get satisfaction and reward out of what it does now, rather than postponing satisfaction until it achieves some (possibly unachievable) goal. But interpreting satisfaction as enjoyment is a short step from that over stated desire for ringing to be 'fun', an easy slide into superficiality. Ringing (in public) is a performance, not 'messing round with bells'.

How does a band decide where on the continuum it lies? Does a consensus develop? What role should the Tower Captain play in this? — Barbara Le Gallez

Decide is too specific. Individuals will have a natural tendency towards somewhere on the spectrum, and they will influence the aggregate position of the band. If they are similar the aggregate position will easily coalesce. What happens if they are different is more interesting. A keen majority might inspire a less keen minority to join them, or might put them off so they dig their heels in. A non-keen majority might encourage a keen minority to stop trying and take it easy or might make them frustrated. (And many other variants).
The Tower Captain's role is to help the band to coalesce and to find its purpose. How to do that will depend on the mix of individuals, and might not be easy. With a large band some two tracking might be possible, with the keener ones pushing themselves forward while others take it more easily, but with a small band one or two who 'don't want to' can prevent the rest doing anything.
Even a performance oriented band is about more than just ringing, and needs social and community elements, and these aspects can be used to help hold it together a band with more divided inclinations, and the sense of cohesion can then help outliers move towards the collective position.
Like all management, it's not easy, can take time, and can feel a bit dispiriting since there's always something not right yet

people struggle to progress beyong plain hunt and I believe that we expect them to pick up a myriad of micro-skills by magic — Rosalind Martin

That's very true. The most important thing a teacher can do is to try to determine through observation what the deficient micro skills are, and then work with the pupil to try to find ways to strengthen them.

we may over-focus on ropesight and memorising the circle of work, — Rosalind Martin

We obsess about ropesight as a magical power but it isn't ofte taught or even coached. And it's only one skill - a navigational aid. And memorising the circle of work is a relatively trivial task compared to the underlying skills needed to translate it into making the bell do the right thing.

, the missing micro-skills are mostly around bell handling. The plain hunt they have "mastered" is actually badly struck. They are not yet ready for bob doubles! — Rosalind Martin

Agree entirely. They've not mastered hunting they've merely found a way to survive getting through it after a fashion - often relying on lots of tricks that don't carry across to ringing a method.

I run weekly simulator sessions and as far as possible I make them participant led. It's a low pressure environment and if they want to spend half an hour practicing the same thing over and over, that's fine. — John de Overa

Yes, I agree. Much less pressure, and although I am typically sharing my attention between two or three people each gets more `individual' coaching and attention than they would in a typical practice (as well as getting far more rope time).

people's first attempts at PH are done that way as well — John de Overa

Many of the people in my sessions have been taught by others and already tried hunting the traditional way but the great value of using a simulator (without visuals) is to give them the experience of what ringing at the three different hunting speeds 'feels like'. I get them to experienced ringing rounds at 2h30, 3h and 3h30 peal speed before they try to switch between them while hunting.
That helps get over the problem with the traditional approach (whether learning numbers or counting places) that whatever the brain is doing the body wants to keep ringing at the same speed.

Techniques for gaining ropesight can be taught, but almost universally aren't, instead people are told to just hope for divine intervention. — John de Overa

It’s worse than that, they are often told to look at the bell they are following (or the one they are about to follow, though how they know which one without learning the numbers isn’t explained). Either way, looking at individual bells narrows the field of view and makes it harder to develop ropesight, ie the ability to make sense of what the other ropes are doing.

If others don't see it like that, how do they see it? — Barbara Le Gallez

That's a fascinating question, which could be the subject of some interesting research.
I don't know all the ways ringers think about ringing, but just from observation it's clear there are some quite different views. To understand them I think you would need to account for several dimensions, for example:
Importance:
'I ring because there's a gap in my life it happens to fill' through to 'I can't imagine ringing not being a major part of my life'
Performance quality:
'Ringing is an enjoyable social activity, I don't think about quality' to 'Ringing is a performing art, I try to ring as well as I can'.
Purpose:
'I ring to satisfy myself' to 'I ring as a service to the church / community'.
And so on. As I say, it would make a good research project.
At the day to day level, we just have to recognise that we don't all have the same motivation, qualitatively and quantitatively.

I think there might be a bit more to it than that.
From what you say she sees the ringing on offer as either enjoying where she is or tackling the next pitch of a (steep) climb. Masochists and those who are competitively driven will choose latter while anyone else will choose the former. And the longer they do so the harder it may be to change.
To keep a band of less driven (and often busy) ringers moving requires the offer of something less start than a gruelling climb up the next pitch.
(As another aside, that's why I gave up rock climbing and took up fell walking. You still go up - usually a lot higher - but it's less stressful, you can vary the pace, take detours to anything interesting, and enjoy the view as you go, as well as at the summit even if it's not a high one. That's better than hanging around on a cold damp rock face interspersed with strenuous pitches clinging on by your finger tips and at risk of 'peeling' at any moment.)
In a ringing context, if the band has regular enjoyable and not too strenuous excursions through interesting terrain anyone on the sidelines is more likely to want to join in.
I realise that's easier to say than do, but it seems a more achievable target than 'everyone up at camp 3 by the summer'.

How to MOTIVATE a ringer who has reached a plateau and wishes to stay there, and becomes stressed when I guide her towards the next ascent? — Barbara Le Gallez

You are right, it is about motivation. Maybe there are clues in the language used to pose the question. Should we be using mountaineering analogies in the first place, since most people do not aspire to climb mountains?
Even if we do, a plateau is a good place to be, because it's easy to move around with little effort and there are good views to all around laid out below you. Also, you cannot go up from a plateau, it is a flat top.
I think the concept in your mind is a ledge, a level part of an ascent where you can rest ahead of the next climb. I don't think that is how most people think about ringing, even the ones who want to progress (and the ledges I've sat during climbs were not places you would want to hang around anyway).
You said she just wanted to 'have fun'*, ie to enjoy her ringing. That's fine. It's possible to enjoy doing familiar things and it's possible to enjoy playing round with novel things, including laughing about it when you get it wrong. It all depends on what mood you are in.
In the right mood, trying something new, messing up a bit, maybe succeeding a bit and maybe learning a bit in the process can be fun, and even fodder for yarns in the pub. But in the wrong mood it won't.
Harking back to my hang gliding days my instructor said he would never tell me when to fly, I had to decide that for myself. On that occasion I didn't, but if I had done I would have been in a very different frame of mind if I had decided, rather than having to go because it was my turn.
Not sure whether any of this will help, but you never know.

people can be adamant that they are counting places — John de Overa

People can also be thinking about places but where they are bears no relation. The ‘overheard’ story in this episode of The Learning. Curve was based on a real incident. https://cccbr.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/200305.pdf

. can ring plain hunt well (by counting places) — Barbara Le Gallez

That's positive. I assume you mean she doesn't (consciously) follow a remembered sequence of ropes. If she can do that well then she must know where she should be, and she has a sense of going quicker or slower to get there. And if she really can ‘do it well’ she must have developed the ability to hear that she is fitting in ok.
It shouldn’t be too onerous a step to extend that to things like continuous dodging or repeated place making, and then to treble dodge hunting.

I can only do things the way I can do them — Barbara Le Gallez

That seems ok if it works.

I just want to ring for fun — Barbara Le Gallez

Ok, have fun making small steps

you were ringing too fast and so were in the wrong place when you dodged — Barbara Le Gallez

It’s better to focus on the positive and what to do rather than on the negative or what not to do, so start with that first as an introduction to any correctives. For example (assuming you are talking about hunting down):
Think how she got to be in the wrong place, did she leave the back too soon, hint down too fast, miscount and mentally arrive at the dodge a blow later than she should? In each case you can give positive advice, eg: Make sure you stay both blows at the back before starting to come down. Make a gentler speed change so you come down at the right pace. Remember you arrive at the dodge on a handstroke and take the reverse step on the backstroke.
That can be followed by describing the the pitfalls to avoid, eg arriving too low to do the dodge.
I’m assuming small numbers, but on 8 (or more) things often go wrong on the way down, of which the learner is unaware but which scupper their attempt to be in the right place. For example backstrokes often tend to revert to rounds speed, forcing an excessive correction at handstroke, which destabilises things.
Try to observe closely what she actually does, at the fine scale, which might enable you to suggest ‘try to … as you …’. And then work together to see if she can learn to do them, or at least become aware of that aspect of what she does.
Sorry a lot of words. Hard to know what might help in the abstract without actually seeing.

Lucy’s point about adults being uncomfortable with things they can’t do well is true. Youngsters ‘learn things for a living’ as Phil Gay once said, but as they grow older they give up what they aren’t good at and only do things they are (reasonably) good at. For most people the last physical skill they learn is driving, in their late teens.
I remember being very frustrated and disappointed trying to learn hang gliding in my mid 30s. I expected to to be as natural as cycling but it wasn’t and I kept doing the wrong things. In the end I gave up (probably a good thing given the accident rate).
In your case I think you need to unpack what’s behind ‘I can’t do it’, which could mean two different things.
It could be if it is a simple statement that the keel ant skill/knowledge/knack is absent then the way forward is to work with them to identify what is missing and try to find explanations and exercises that could help to fill them.
Alternatively it might be an escape message, like the day I stood at the top of the hill without the courage to make a flight because I didn’t have confidence in my ability to fly safely. In your case it’s obviously not as safety fear, since he/she is willing to ring, but it could be a fear of failing to make whatever improvement step you are asking to be attempted because it feels impossible. If that is so you need to find out why and try to find a way round it or to break it down.
Either way with an adult you need to work together to find out what the problem really is. What is ‘it’ that can’t be done? Then explore the problem and find ways round it. You might need to come at it from different directions rather than straight on.
Good luck.

So if no softner = too hard, and normal dose of fabric softener = too soft, there is presumably an optimum dose somewhere in between.

Back in the 70s we found some ropes that were dirty and covered in old grease from leaky earrings. I put them in the washing machine (a twin tub so no fancy cycles). I can’t confirm that the sally colours merged into a pinky grey, it they didn’t soften, quite the reverse, they became too stiff to use.

that’s an interesting idea. I wonder how much demand there would be.
The nearest I know is something our branch has had for several years, a wedding volunteers list.
Anyone willing to be asked to ring for weddings (at other towers than their own) is on the list. Any tower that is short for a wedding can send details to the list and anyone interested replies to the sender.
About a quarter of our members are on the list, and it gets used occasionally, once or twice a year, though no one used it last year.

I used cell functions to do an indexed LookUp that returned the Transposition string for a given Place Notation — Stuart Palin

A bit of an aside, but I do that in a spreadsheet to help with composing. I enter calls in the appropriate place in the WBMH columns and it calculates all the coursing orders for me. I still need to inspect them but it saves all the rubbing out and recalculating when I make a change early in the composition.

being able to talk through points slowly, being able to judge if I am getting my message across and trying different ways of explaining points is more effective than the real-time comments that learners normally get from someone standing behind them — Paul Wotton

I wouldn’t class standing behind as mentoring, it’s just reactive support. However, following up after the ringing stops can be a good opportunity for a mentor to offer considered comment on the ringer’s performance, with more immediacy than when offering off line advice.

I think I’m saying that an open culture where everyone feels able to offer advice, and everyone listens to advice which is offered (not necessarily the same as accepting it!) is what we really need. — Richard Pargeter

Yes and no. That is a good culture, but I think it falls short of mentoring. In a culture of open comment people will comment when the need arises, but something significant is needed to trigger the comment. So advice is likely to be limited to situations where something has gone awry. But with mentoring there is an expectation of regular feedback.

To have a simulator installed suggests the tower has an interest in teaching beyond just regular practice nights — John de Overa

Sadly that's not true. Many towers install a simulator mainly to provide cheap sound control. And of those that might have installed it to use as a teaching and development tool, that is oftenh driven by a keen individual so after he/she becomes inactive the simulator sits unused.