Teaching Tips

Combining strokes

Having got your novice ringer ringing the separate strokes proficiently, it is always a little nerve-racking handing over control of the bell so that they can put both strokes together. We share some helpful tips from Helen McGregor.

A balanced ringing style – which hand is doing most of the work?

Many learners don’t achieve a handstroke where the work is equally shared between the hands. What you often see, to a greater or lesser degree, is the right hand in charge of the sally, taking hold of it before the left, doing most of the pull and releasing it later than the left. Let’s look at the origin of the problem and then some ways to resolve it.

How long do I go on working on improving handling style

To help us as ringing teachers understand how long we should continue to work with learners we need to learn about the learning process. Learners will need a different approach to teaching when they are at the different stages of learning.

Teaching the rhythm of the lead

Helen McGregor explains an exercise which works very well at teaching the rhythm of the lead.

Do your learners struggle with changing the speed of their bell, particularly at backstroke?

By the time learners move onto Plain Hunt they need to be comfortable with speed changes so they can devote their attention to the bell’s path, not being overly distracted by the mechanics of getting the bell to ring in the desired place. This skill starts developing from the earliest handling exercise through to the end of Learning the Ropes Level 1 when the learner can raise, lower and set a bell. Many of the LtR Level 2 exercises contribute to the refinement of this skill and with a little imagination, you can find others too.