This morning was the first session of a Plain Bob Doubles course in East Dorset. There are 4 learners, and all of them came along, already able to manage a plain course on the Two. This was a nice surprise – it isn’t usual for the course to have such advanced trainees!

The trainer advised one of the learners not to look at the floor, and a short discussion followed. I want to take the opportunity to expand on that a bit more.

Look at the rope you are following

You will usually be advised to look at the person you are following. This enables you to strike nicely. The rope moves, and after the correctly-judged interval, your rope moves. Bingo, a perfectly spaced pair of blows.

My own experience

When I learned to ring, I was only really comfortable looking at the floor. When I tried to look at people’s faces, I felt overwhelmed by the sheet quantity of information and it was hugely distracting. I was struggling to learn my first method (as I have struggled with almost every facet of learning to ring as an adult) and when I looked up, my striking worsened. The fact was, I was happier ringing wholly by ear, and I didn’t want to look around.

However, not wanting to annoy my Tower Captain, I made a huge effort to look around more. I gradually got used to it, and found it less distracting, and more helpful.

I settled for a compromise – if I am confident in the method, I look just above the head of the person I am following. This lets me see the rope, Sally and hands as they move. If I get a bit lost, I look at the conductor and try to assume a puzzled expression, hoping for a word from the wise! If I notice someone is lost and I know they should follow me, I do the head wave to catch their eye. This discipline has enabled me to develop proper rope-sight – an impossible challenge if you don’t ever look at the ropes! The benefit of having rope-sight is that I can make adjustments if the bell in front of me is fractionally early or late. This smooths out any small errors and is good team playing.

Don’t Look Up

Actually, none of the ringers in this group were looking up, but many people do in the early stages. It is risky (something could easily fall through the hole and get in your eye), and it isn’t providing you with any useful information apart from the path of the Sally. If a learner is looking up, it usually means they are anxious about missing the Sally, so they probably wouldn’t be attempting Bob Doubles in any case.

Don’t Look Down**

If you gaze at the floor, you will miss all the useful hints people may give you that will help to put you back in the right place if you are a little bit lost. It’s fine later on when you are more experienced, but at the moment, when you are likely to make the odd method mistake, an occasional wink or a wave is a lifesaver! Of course you could be corrected verbally, but this distracts the other ringers (who have to listen out in case the correction is aimed at them) and it can be surprisingly hard to hear what is being said, over the sound of the bells. So the gold standard for a bit of correction is to receive it visually, and you need to be looking at the person giving it.

** When you CAN look down

You may notice plenty of experienced ringers who appear to be gazing at the floor. The whole band is absolutely confident of the method, and so they are ringing correctly at every blow. They don’t need any winks or waves, so they are listening to the striking and aiming to make it as perfect as they can. However, I would bet that 90% of them are, in reality, looking really carefully at the movement of the other ropes. They are using peripheral vision and can process the movement of a group of ropes at the same time. They are picking up lots of useful information from what they are seeing, and many of them will look up if they hear a mistake, and offer some correction. If you want to build this skill, practice using your peripheral vision when you are not ringing.

Ringing blindfold

I had to throw in this video for your entertainment! Please read the disclaimers at the start – pretty much “don’t try this at home”.

You may be surprised that the ringing starts with more than 2 minutes of rounds, as the band acclimatise to ringing without ropesight and the inevitable errors that creates. The rounds are a bit wobbly at the start, but after a while they iron out the striking until it is good enough to start the method. Thereafter the ringing is, whilst not up to that band’s usual standard, excellent by the standard of 95% of bands.