This blog post is the permanent home of a link to this book on my Google Drive. The book is a work in progress, so there are many empty chapters. When the book is complete I will of course update this text.
The FFEEL Convention is an approach to bridge learning and instruction that tries to put Fun First, Everything Else Last. FFEEL (pronounced “Fuh-Feel”). I was originally going to call it Fun-first Everything Else Last, Magic Ensues, but the focus group erupted into chaos when I announced The FEEL ME Convention. So, FFEEL.
Bridge instructors and students alike may look at FFEEL and think that it is nothing new. Heck, it relies on one of the most widely-used series of instruction books. Look closer and you might find some differences from the usual approach to beginning bridge.
Chapters are very short. They are intended for presentation in weekly sessions that also feature worksheets to be discussed as a group, discussion of previously-played bridge hands from live club sessions, and playing of randomly-dealt bridge hands—no boards, just shuffle and play. Making the chapters short leads to radical oversimplification of the material. This is a feature, not a bug.
Hand valuation isn’t taught until Chapter Ten; opening bids are taught in Chapter Twelve. In my experience with other classes and books, those topics are usually tossed at students as they walk into the first class; they then assume a defensive crouch that doesn’t let up for the duration of the months-long class.
FFEEL features only four conventions, preferring natural bidding in most cases.
The major difference between FFEEL and other approaches that I have witnessed is the commitment, described in the first chapter, to teach at the level and pace of the least knowledgeable person in the class, to rigorously (but politely) discourage premature introduction of intermediate or advanced topics (or anything not in that day’s lesson, actually), and to not advance to the next chapter until everyone understands the current lesson. If that means repeating a chapter in multiple sessions, so be it.
Given that weekly sessions will always include new worksheets, new analysis of recently-played club boards, and party-style card play, it is my hope that covering the same material repeatedly will not bother those who have mastered it—or that those who think they have mastered it will discover something that they might have missed, or will simply improve their speed and quality of comprehension through repetition.
I call it “Fun First” because, in my opinion, most classes or instructional materials are “Math First” and “Point Range Memorization First” and “Convention First” and, while these topics are necessary, I think the typical emphasis on them drives away beginners who have not been in a classroom setting for decades, and in whom the capacity for systematic thinking needs some time to get warmed up and functioning at speed.
I have taken a few beginner classes over the years. All were taught by excellent, knowledgeable instructors and were helped along by volunteer coaches. But another common thread was that, especially in the early going, students actively dreaded when boards were placed in front of them and they were expected to bid and play based on whatever complex (to them) thing had been put up on a whiteboard or flip chart or worksheet.
We are learning a game. It should not be like elementary school gym class, where half the students dreaded the ball coming their way.
Dread and stress are great motivators for some, and if you opine that some folks are not catching on, the most common response from teachers and experienced players is, “You learn best by playing. Everyone just needs to get through the class and start playing at the club. That’s how I did it. I never met anyone who couldn’t learn bridge.”
Um…yes you did. You met the people who dropped out of classes, didn’t you? Though I hasten to add that it’s not that they couldn’t learn bridge; it’s that they didn’t learn bridge.
Check your conversion rate. How many who start the class a) finish it; and b) ever play at the club? Is that good or bad? Are we losing people who might, with some hand-holding and a lot of repetition, become club players? I think we are losing people in the early going, but of course I’m just me and I’m working from a small sample size. FFEEL is admittedly an experiment and may in fact turn out to be exactly the same as any other method, with similar results.
I just started holding the weekly FFEEL sessions. The first one was, by all accounts, fun. My fellow students, all of whom just recently started playing at the club but who feel lost a good bit of the time, said that it was beneficial and they liked the casual card play. They were not at all insulted by spending a session reviewing opening bids—they do not have them memorized yet. Teachers: do you know what your students do and do not know? Are you launching into conventions and other refinements in front of people who are not yet solid on the concept of the golden fit? Watch their eyes when you are teaching; solicit feedback; play casual games with them; listen to them; tailor your instruction to address what they are not absorbing.
If fun and enjoyment are the only positives, that’s enough for me; but I really think, based on our back-and-forth discussion of the very basic things we covered, that our play will improve.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
Feel me?