I lined them up behind me, told the musician to start playing, said "Follow me and do what I do." And started walking to lead them into a circle.

 

It worked really well. They moved into a circle, clashed together on time, put their swords on their shoulders, linked up in an over the shoulder ring, raised their swords together, put them down on the other shoulder, raised up to open out into a ring, and progressed as far as the single under before we hit any real problems. By the end of the session, they'd mastered both the single under and the lock, and a second group that had wandered in was also starting to learn the dance.

 

Instant immersion is fun, but you can only really do with a single set. There are some sword dance teams that use this method for quickly running new recruits through a dance. They threw them straight in at the deep end to give them an overall feel for the dance and then teach them the details and timing later.