[r-t] Blue Line Difficulty

[Don Morrison]

​On Mon, Aug 28, 2017 at 7:29 PM, Graham John <graham at changeringing.co.uk>
wrote:
> Does anyone have any thoughts on the matter?

I'm skeptical that it is even a well-formed question. Consider the
following method:
​
3678x7.8x9.50.36.4x470.5.6x9.30.8x4.3.50.4x1,T  [m]

I'm guessing it must be close to 36 on your scale of distinct pieces of
work. Is it a hard method or an easy method? If you don't know Orion, it
will be a bear to learn. If you do know Orion it will be near trivial to
learn. Context is (nearly) everything.



How difficult something is depends strongly not only on what you know, but
what you're used to. I remember ringing a quarter of a simple, but
unfamiliar, right place treble bob major method. The strongest, most
experienced ringers in the band kept making trips 'cause things were
happening in ways they weren't used to. The relative babies of the band,
who weren't experienced enough to have those unconscious expectations, had
far less trouble.

Decades ago there was an "international striking competition." The band
representing the UK (or maybe England?) were eight members of that year's
winning band from the twelve bell competition. I'm told that when they, all
of whom regularly rang Bristol Max flawlessly, got together to practice
ringing an eight bell touch (albeit of a somewhat difficult method) they
struggled embarrassingly, 'cause many of them rarely rang major. Come the
competition the Australian (or was it ANZAB?) band was quite chuffed to
beat them. I think I've got that right, apologies if I'm miss-remembering.




One thing I've not seen mentioned is "How similar are some bits to other
bits, and how likely is someone to get confused about where they are in the
course" -- this seems to often be a driver of folks going wrong.




-- 
Don Morrison <dfm at ringing.org>
"If you feel we have failed you in any way we shall be only too pleased
to do it again at no extra charge."             -- sign in a dry cleaners
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