In a lot of hobbies there are certain levels. For example, in Karate you progress higher with different colored belts and stripes on your belts. In a lot of sports you have a beginner, intermediate, and experienced levels. I love to cross-country ski and I know certain trails at certain parks are marked for different paths.

There's easy paths for those just starting out, where it's basically just a straight and narrow path. Those paths are generally labeled in GREEN for 'anyone can GO'. The next level would be in YELLOW for 'use some caution'. There are some obstacle courses to overcome on these treks. And, finally, there's the RED trails meaning, 'difficult', which is generally like a decathalon of cross-country skiing with more down hill twists and turns thrown in for a challenge. ( Usually, when I see RED, I stop. Then I turn around and go back to YELLOW. Mostly because I look ahead on the trail and see skis and poles scattered all around in the fields, sticking up from various snow mounds, resembling tombs of the unknown skiers )

You guessed it, there are different levels in square dancing, which a lot of non-dancers do not know. There is the introductory levels of BASIC AND MAINSTREAM consisting anywhere between 25 through 70 calls, depending on how far the caller/instructor takes you. The first 50 are the foundation calls which everyone needs to know if you want to dance Mainstream Levels and Higher.

Then there's PLUS dancing, adding another 30 calls, taking the dancer up to knowing and understanding about 100 calls. A lot of square dancers are happy at this level and stay there. The ones who want a little more of a push, without having to learn another level and another set of calls, sometimes seek out TOUGH PLUS dancing. These halls are generally labeled as APD ALL POSITION DANCING or DBD DANCE BY DEFINITION.

The dancers who want to take it up a notch, go on to ADVANCED dancing, where the are 2 levels of A1 and A2. Both levels combined (which most A dancers go for) consists of another 100 calls, which are often 3-6 basics moves put together and called something else.

Then the exteme square dancers who loved to be challenged move onto CHALLENGE, where there are a half dozen + levels of C dancing. The fun part of dancing Challenge is CONCEPTS. When I say fun, there are 2 kinds I am talking about. FUN meaning social dancing like the BASIC, MAINSTREAM AND PLUS Dancers who just love to be with people working together as a team dancing. And then there is cerebral FUN, like people who play video games, bridge chess, crossword puzzles and other fun brain games. That would be our Advanced and Challenge Dancers. And, hey, we are lots of fun too.

With having written all of that, I would like to illustrate, in the next few blogs, some video clips of the different levels. And, even to to the novice, you can clearly see the degree of simplicity through difficulty. Most of these clips are taken from a big festival out in California. I tried to find clips with different callers, so you can hear different people's styles of calling. Let's start in the very beginning, it's a very good place to start. HERE'S A LIST OF CALLS SO YOU CAN READ SOME OF THE COOL NAMES. http://callerlab.org/documents/ProgramDocs/BASIC_-_MAINSTREAM_-_LIST(06-09-20).pdf