How to teach method ringing to 3 learners, with only 2 or 3 experienced ringers.
We are very lucky at Desford to have a group of enthusiastic learners, three of which have recently been ready to move on from call changes. Unfortunately, for a lot of our practices the only other ringers are often just myself and Mark (Ringing Master), and less frequently our Tower Captain Greg. We also have three ringers who unfortunately can’t make it very often. In a lot of other towers this might have been seen as a disadvantage, but on the other hand it means that just about every piece of ringing is for one or more of the learners, and they get a lot of rope time on practice night.
As Mark and I went on the ART training courses in October ‘22 and February ‘23, we took the effort to take our learners through the Learn the Ropes levels quite vigorously. It came at an ideal time for Kay, Claire and Rich, as they were at the rounds and call changes stage in their learning, so we did a lot of place making and dodging practice, plus Big Change Little Change (BicLic), Mexican wave, and numerous standing practice games (though I don’t think we ever got to the end of Twinkle Twinkle without someone making a mistake!).
This set them up really well for their next stage in learning – but how were we going to teach them method ringing when there were often only two other method ringers?
We had to get creative. I “invented” a few methods – only to discover they already existed, albeit not necessarily found in the red book! And we are trying out a different route to get from plain hunt to ringing inside to methods.
Moving on to Plain Hunt
The first steps did not involve plain hunt at all. Using BicLic and Mexican wave we had got our learners used to moving their bell in a predetermined pattern. Now we wanted to bring in an element of ropesight. Ringing the treble to Bastow Little Bob involved a skill that they had already mastered – ringing short places repeatedly – but added in the new skill of looking to see which bell they needed to make 2nds over.
Ringing an inside bell to BicLic with the changes occurring every handstroke was a step on the way to plain hunt 3. We progressed this into whole-pull plain hunt 3, so the learner would need to look out for different bells. It didn’t take very long for them to move on to plain hunt 3. It sounds very simple, and many teachers might think why bother with it, but as we didn’t have enough ringers to have a stander-behinder, the simpler the better. The learners achieved it quite easily, gained confidence (and a sticker!), and weren’t put off by the idea that method ringing might be difficult.
Once they had mastered this, in the next stage we put 2 learners in at a time to ring plain hunt 4. We started with one on the treble and one on bell 4, and once they got the hang of that put them on the inside bells. Mark and I each took charge of the learner closest to us to talk them through what they needed to do. Another benefit of using lower numbers means it is easier for a less experienced conductor/teacher to ‘stand behind’ the learner whilst also ringing themselves.
At this point we regularly had one or two more ringers around, so as well as getting the learners to treble to various minimus methods, we were able to get them plain hunting on 5 (with and without a cover) and on 6. When we had started teaching plain hunt on 4 we emphasised the skill of ringing by rhythm – not worrying too much about which bell to follow but hunting up and down at a steady pace. This helped out at this stage, especially ringing on 6 where at first the learners found there were too many bells to see who to follow, and yet they rang plain hunt very well.
We also rang a variety of minimus methods, in particular ones where the order of bells that the treble follows is not always the same on the way down as it is on the way up. The aim here is to get the learners used to looking out for ropesight, to rely on speed and pace as a tool to help them ring in the right place, and to learn not to glom onto the wrong bell – we frequently point out that if you have to ring at the wrong speed to follow that bell, then that bell is probably not the one you are supposed to follow!
Those who were capable of ringing our tenor were encouraged to ring behind as much as possible. This helped them practice rhythm, listening, and ropesight, and also gave them extra rope time. We would often have all three of our learners ringing at once, two ringing plain hunt and one on the tenor. Ringing bell 2 to plain courses of Grandsire also fits in here – the skills being practiced being the same as trebling to a method, with the added bonus of being in a different position in the rope circle – don’t forget to look to your right for the treble!
First steps in method ringing
In many towers, this would be where the learners would be introduced to the wonders of “the circle of work” and plain bob doubles. This is not something I would recommend doing with two learners ringing at the same time, and with no-one to stand behind either! So with a little but of research I discovered some more methods to try out.
The first we tried was Melsonby Little Minimus (the 6 bell version of which turned up a few weeks later in the RW as Penultimus Minor – p359 of 19th April issue this year). In Minimus the treble hunts to 3rd place (good practice to turn around in 3rds, not just when you run out of bells!).
- Rules for inside bells: plain hunt on 4, the order of the bells will change. If the bell who leads after you (the first bell you follow in 2nds after you lead) is the treble, then ring 4 blows in 4ths. The bells you follow when in 4ths with be bell A, treble twice, bell B. You will find yourself alternating between ringing 2 blows in 4ths and 4 blows in 4ths.
- Skills learnt: making 4 blows behind. Learning what piece of work to ring by when you pass the treble. Looking out for where you pass or meet the treble.
When we had at least 3 experienced ringers available, I wondered whether we could ring Little Bob Doubles, the closest method of which turns out to be called Baldrick Little Bob. As expected, the treble hunts to 4ths. Of the other bells, 3 and 4 do the same work, and 2 and 5 do the same work. We put our learner on the 2.
- Rules: plain hunt on 5, ringing 4 blows in 5ths, lead and make 2nds over the treble and lead again.
- Skills learnt: the pieces of work: make 2nds; and long 5ths from plain bob, including where you pass the treble.
Then we moved on to Single Court Minimus. Another method without any dodging, but an opportunity to learn what to do by when you pass the treble.
- Rules: If the bell that was leading before you lead was the treble, hunt to 4ths place and ring 6 blows, if it was not, hunt to 3rds place and back.
- Skills learnt: making 6 blows (more difficult than you think!), hunting to a penultimate place and turning around neatly, ringing by where you pass the treble.
Preparing to dodge
Meanwhile, we took another look at dodging, and we started to practice dodgy call changes. (I know, for lots of method ringers call-changes are always a bit dodgy!) Here we ring call changes, but when a call is made the pair of bells swapping has to do a dodge before ending up in their destination position. This is to teach that a dodge is not just a static do-si-do which leaves you where you started but a movement in a direction. We are still trying to get the hang of this!
Problems the learners encountered mainly came down to understanding whether to ring quicker or slower for the first blow in the dodge. It is worth continuing to practice this, as knowing whether to ring quicker or slower at the dodge often seems to be a problem learners have in ringing bob doubles, and bob minor (particularly in the 5-6 dodges). Also worth doing when discussing the theory of dodgy call changes is mentioning whether they are doing a down dodge (moving down a place) or an up dodge (moving up a place).
We also practiced treble bobbing on two – as seen in the blue and green lines in this diagram. As we put the learner(s) on the 2 and/or 3, when we expanded this to treble bob hunt on four we kept the treble doing both dodges with them on the front, and the 4 doing both dodges on the back, so they didn’t have to think about picking up which bell they needed to work with. As that was successful, we also rang treble bob hunt properly.
If we had only had two experienced ringers, we could have rung Bastow minimus (see above) with the learner on an inside bell (and another ringing the treble). This combines the treble bob work at the back with plain hunt. In both Bastow and treble bob hunt it is worth pointing out to the learner that the work moving from the front to the back is hunting, and that they are combining hunting with dodges.
Into the future
At the time of writing, this is as far as we have got with our experiment. The next stage might be to ring Bayles – this is more commonly used whilst ringing plain bob doubles to get a learner to repeatedly ring a piece of work (one of the 3-4 dodges), but can also be used as a stand alone exercise. The idea is for the learner to ring the 3. They will just plain hunt and ring the 3-4 up dodge, passing the treble at the same point as in plain bob. This can be rung with only 2 experienced ringers, as long as the learners on the 1 and 2 can ring long 5ths, and hunt to 4ths and make 2nds over the treble, respectively.
Bowerchalke Little is another method which only needs a couple of experienced ringers, as bells 1, 4 and 5 are just hunting, though learners on these bells need to be able to pick out a different order of bells to follow. Bells 2 and 3 alternate between making 2nds over the 2, or making 3rds from the back. I can see this as a good way of introducing how to find thirds place in the middle of plain hunt – from my own experience I know that it is the 3-4 down dodge in plain bob that is most difficult to master because of not being quite sure where to stop hunting and start dodging. Being able to see where 3rds place is will also be useful when moving on to other methods such as St Simons.
Getting the learner to ring bell 4 to Bayles would also be beneficial at about this point, repeatedly practicing that difficult 3-4 down dodge, and having the benefit of passing the treble in the correct place.
We may then go back to ringing Baldrick Little, the same method as above, but this time we can put one of our learners on the 4. Start by hunting down to lead, hunt up to 3-4 up, followed immediately by 4 blows behind, then 3-4 down to end.
Maybe then we’ll let them ring Plain Bob!
Conclusion
Our three ringers have three very different aptitudes when it comes to moving on to method ringing. One of them would have coped very well with the traditional route of straight in to plain hunt, and then on the plain bob; and at the other end of the spectrum, one is finding even our tiny steps of learning a challenge. As we are experimenting we are reminded that the best route is to go at the speed each individual needs; but with limited resources of experienced ringers, sometimes that is not always as fast as we would like. We do hope that by giving them a variety of exercises to try that we are not holding them back, more that we are teaching skills that will come in useful later, as well as keeping practices fresh and novel.
Our ethos in teaching is not to push learners on as fast as possible. Our most important goal is to set them up to have an enjoyable ringing career. We emphasise fun, progress – even if it is in tiny steps, and to keep trying. Our motto at practice night is “you’re allowed to go wrong, its practice night”, but as the teachers we aim to include enough variety of things that no-one spends the whole practice night going wrong. Its not uncommon to see learners get stuck at plain bob doubles, then give up because every time they ring they make mistakes. We chose/are choosing this progression of methods and exercises not only to cope with the fact that we don’t have a lot of inside ringers, but to also teach skills bit by bit and give a more gradated route to method ringing – something that as a ringing community we may need to consider more especially as now we are mainly teaching older adults who don’t pick things up as quickly as teenagers do.
Rebecca Banner
Download a page with all of the methods mentioned here: Moving onto Methods
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