M1: 23 Sep 2017 - Writtle

EACR held a Module 1 Teaching Bell Handling course on Saturday. 15 ringers from Essex and neighbouring counties came along to Writtle’s spacious ringing chamber for some guidance and inspiration.

After the obligatory creeping death (introducing oneself) around the room Graham kicked off with a brief background on how ART came into being. It was fast paced and that set the tone the rest of the day. We covered the importance of repetition for muscle memory and exercises that can be used to set correct posture. After whizzing through backstrokes, handstrokes and making up faults to correct we moved to raising and lowering bells. There was much emphasis on preventing faults being better than attempting to cure them, and there was a continuous emphasis on observation skills (which proved useful the next morning whilst lowering in peal!)

After a short lunch we returned to the ringing chamber for a video of teaching and poor handling correction and a test on how we would fix a particular handling problem. There was just time for a quick dash to the bookstall before heading home.

Can’t wait to start teaching and use the techniques from the day.

Teaching Bell Handling

Practical advice for teachers, right from the first lesson.