The bobs, oh the bobs….

OMG – the bobs that keep on coming.
We decided as a handbell group that the thing about handbells that tripped up most of us (well 66% of a total of 3 members), was the transition from one lead to the next. We can navigate the patterns and usually rattle through the middle bits of the leads, but as we approach the lead ends either we forget where they are (despite actually waving the treble in my right hand in my case), or are so busy thinking about What Happens Next that we muff either the last row in one lead or the first in the next. Again and again the method collapses because of those wretched interruptions.
Human nature being what it is, the first reaction is to minimise the challenge and avoid the tricky bits as much as possible, but good sense dictates that we need to tackle the bits that scare us the most and conquer them, so we decided to make ourselves bob at every opportunity and force ourselves to face our weakness. If we had to change and change and change again, then we would have lots of practice and experience many varieties of bob.We decided to ring original ( ie plain hunting) but bobbing wherever and whenever. We would use the clever little notation IXIX as our guide and nothing else.
I was immediately out of my depth because it was soon abundantly clear that I had no idea what that clever little notation IXIX actually meant in practice. Of course I could parrot what is says in the book : the bell ringing in first position stays the same, 2 becomes 3, 3 becomes 2, 4 stays the same, 5 becomes 6 and 6 becomes 5 , but I had no idea what that meant in reality. The call is made, but when do you swap? The next handstroke? Backstroke? Next but one? Do you anticipate what you should have been doing and apply the formula or do you apply it to what you are doing at that very moment? Each time I crashed spectacularly it was hard for the others to work out what I was trying to do. Was it my timing that was out? Was it that I had chosen the wrong new pattern to follow? Was I correct and one of them wrong? With so many variables, straightening out the muddle was not easy, but the glory of 3 people collaboratively working on such a problem when no one has an immediate answer is that you have to really think. It would have been easy for someone who knows these things to have said “ trebles do this, tenors do that, 3 and 4 do the other”, but by working it out from first principles ourselves, we learnt far more than expert guidance would have taught us.
I realise now that I had no idea what IXIX actually meant and why it is so vital that the bob is called at exactly the correct time. If there is any doubt as to which row it applies to, I risk swapping the wrong ones over and haring off on the wrong path entirely. If the bob is called correctly, I now know to ring once, assess my position and make a seamless transition. Of course it is not always seamless, but at least I know what it should be, even if I do not yet have the capacity to execute things faultlessly.
There is a lot to be said for sometimes being forced to reinvent the wheel. Unfamiliar Bobs are no longer so terrifying. I understand why sometimes one is unaffected (because you were due to do that anyway), and why you may be forced to make 4ths (because the 5 and 6 are not letting you join in the dance). A seemingly simple exercise has taught me so much. Then I had a very pleasing thought – if I can make my brain apply the notation correctly to two bells, how much easier will it be to apply a similar notation to 1 bell? Quarters on tower bells from inside no longer look quite so overwhelming. Now all I need to do is learn to handle a bell with the finesse that allows me to know exactly when and how to pull the rope in order to slip gracefully in to the place that I know is meant for me. A slightly more difficult proposition, but I will probably have a few months to consider the problem from every angle before being called upon to try and execute it.

Oh – and then there are the singles……