Timing - a vital issue

This is a collection of six articles on the subject of timing, specifically the timing of the caller in delivering a series of figures for modern square dancers. The topic was a contentious one among leaders in the modern square dance community. Articles here come from The American Dance Circle, quarterly publication of the Lloyd Shaw Foundation; Sets in Order; the website of the Square Dance Foundation of New England, and others.

Jim Mayo, the first chairman of CALLERLAB, writes, "In the early 1980's I was chairman of the CALLERLAB Caller Training Committee. I edited, over several years, the Technical Supplement to the Caller Training subject list. The most challenging part of that was the section on timing. I set up a committee with Dick and two supporters of his timing understanding/ philosophy and myself and two who agreed with me. The Leger supporters were Walt Cole and Decko Deck and the two on my side were Bill Peters and John Kaltenthaler.  It took two years of intense negotiation to create a chapter we could all support.
 
"The primary issue is that Leger always believed that timing was essentially fitting the dance to the music and by that he meant the phrase. In traditional square dancing I agree with that - almost. In MWSD I believe that interpretation became obsolete because we included many calls that took other than 2,4,8  beats to execute. I think our ultimate agreement was possible because Dick accepted that reality even though he disagreed with it philosophically. ...

"Creating and getting the document approved was one of my more challenging tasks."