"Cotswold?" Really? Why?" The dancers did not
take the news as well as Cecil had hoped. He knew that the dancers were proud
of their style but did not expect them to be so defensive. "What can they
do which we can't?" Cecil had a job of explaining but he persevered.
Eventually the complaints died down and the dancers accepted that there may be
some things which they can learn. They were willing to give it a try.
"For his sins, Brian did have one thing right," said
Cecil. "We have become lax. We have taken our skills for granted. But no
more. We will train harder than ever before..." There was a cheer from
some of the dancers in agreement, "We will regain the trust of the people
who we protect..." another cheer, this time louder, "we will regain
our bells!" With this, the team cheered and applauded, although only
briefly, in a restrained manner and without any whoops.
The trainer's name was Gerald. He had travelled from Lower
Slaughter and was proficient in the ways of Cotswold morris. His uniform was
all white with a blue and red sash and a slightly tatty top hat. There were a
few muttered comments about stain removal but nothing which he hadn't heard
before. After the warm up, he took charge and gave a brief demonstration of the
moves which he would be focusing on. The dancers all watched his feet and
realised how much more precise his stepping was than their own. The men were
highly skilled in their own discipline but this was like learning a foreign
language. It all looked familiar but was actually very different.
After practising stepping, Gerald taught the dancers to galley.
This involved lifting a leg and spinning the ankle around whilst turning on the
spot. The arms were held out to the side during the spin. Gerald made it look
easy, graceful even. Derek was the first to fall over, clattering like a Jenga
stack on the hard wood floor. The move felt almost alien to some but others
took to it well. After a little while they moved on to beetle-crushing,
followed by capering and hockle-back. The last two were moves which they
already performed as they appeared within the Lichfield dance routines which
were in their repertoire. The Cotswold version was however quite different and
this proved the most difficult part of Gerald's lesson. Making a slight
variation could change the use of the step entirely. By the end of the session
the dancers were smiling and enjoying themselves. Even those who had initially
grimaced at the idea. They were leaping higher than they had in years, were
more nimble on their feet and were flicking their handkerchiefs with much
greater accuracy. Gerald had a warm sense of achievement, Cecil breathed a sigh
of relief.
*
The next day ushered in the next training session. There was no
let-up, time was against them. Rapper dancing was not something which any of
the team had tried before. It was an art form all of its own. Spectators would
usually remember the swords, double handed blades held at either end by two
members. The foot work was really the difficult part. It involved a non-stop
clog dance technique which was picked up quicker by those with clogging skills.
The practice swords were flexible and blunt, in the past before the peaceful
times had been ushered in, they were as sharp as samurai blades. They didn't
use the well-known metal folding technique as it would make the steel too
rigid, but the blacksmiths still managed to render the edge sharp enough to cut
through bone if necessary.
Once that the footwork had been learnt enough to carry out the
basic moves, the dancers were given their weapons and the trainer, Cheryl,
moved on to the formations. Her all black outfit with a green sash around her
waist was reminiscent of the clothing of the ninja. The two disciplines were
very closely linked. The dancers formed a ring with a blade between each of
them. Each move would start and end in the same position. They involved a lot
of ducking and jumping, weaving and swinging, all whilst performing the clog
dance which they had worked on in the morning session. Metal scraped on metal,
wood tapped on wood. The sounds were accented by the odd gasps from the team
when they nicked a finger or twisted ankles. Cecil played the tunes quicker
with each attempt until by the end of the day they were at full speed, a blur
or feet and sword, perfectly in time with the bellows of the melodeon. Cheryl
had a warm glow on her way home from a job well done.
*
The final day raised a laugh when the team saw a molly dancer
walk through the door. There is a scene in 'Wind in the Willows' when Mr Toad
escapes from jail dressed as a washer woman, the trainer was bedecked in the
same style outfit although more elaborate and flouncy. He was used to the
reaction, being the jokers of the morris world. Few took them seriously.
Although the morris reputation was one of skilled, vigilant heroes, the molly
reputation was at the bottom of the scale. "What are we learning
today?" asked Derek, "how to sweep up when we are finished?" The
main weapon of the molly dancer was the wooden broom and each dancer was issued
with one.
"These are your brooms. There are many like them, but these
ones are yours. Your broom is your best friend. It is your life. You must
master it as you have mastered your life. Without you your broom is useless.
Without your broom, you are worthless. You must sweep your broom true. You must
sweep cleaner than your enemy who is trying to kill you."
"That was a bit over the top wasn't it?" asked Agnes.
"Your brooms and your selves are the defenders of your
country," the trainer carried on, barking out the well practised phrases.
"By the end of today you will be one with your brooms. You will feel lost
without it, and you will be complete only when it is in your hands." It
was hard to take the man serious when he was wearing a large white bonnet and a
spotty blouse. The stern look on his face suggested however that he was very
serious. The dancers eyed each other to gauge whether this bloke was for real.
The clue which persuaded them was the high pitched squeal when he called them
maggots. They fell in line and very quickly started doing exactly as ordered.
They never did learn the man's name but by the end of the session they had a
knew found respect for the broom and indeed, they felt a little lost when they
had to put the brooms away.
Three days of solid training had left the dancers tired and
sore, yet energised and ready to take on the world, or Brian at least.
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