Ropesight is the ability to see which bell you need to follow, every time you pull. Like everything else, it takes practice and, like most things, it's not simply a black and white issue. It's possible to ring your bell in the right place in the row whilst nonetheless not being able to see which bell you're following. In fact, I always think ropesight is a slightly over-rated skill; you can lose sight of the fact that there are other ways of keeping a bell in the right position. In fact, if you always ring your bell at the right speed, it follows that it must be in the right position, whether or not you can see who you're following. I'm not saying that you shouldn't aim to develop ropesight, but I am saying that you shouldn't get too hung up on it; it's just another part of your ringer's toolkit. Some ringers ring mostly or even entirely by ear, and, if there's a fire-out going on (that's when lots of the band all go wrong at the same time), it can become impossible to see where you're going amidst the chaos; you simply have to fall back on ringing at the right speed and counting your place.

In most methods, there's an underlying regularity to at least some of the bells you follow. It can be a big help and take a lot of the pressure off your developing ropesight skills. It's called coursing order and is the subject of the next lesson. Before we get on to that though, here are just a few more points about ropesight.

• Remember that it's impossible to follow a bell if your bell isn't under control. Keep working on your bell-handling!
• When looking to follow a bell, move your eyes, not your head, and definitely not your whole body.
• Don't get too fixated on one bell; it might be the wrong one that you're staring at!
• Don't stop while you work out which bell to follow. You'll automatically be in the wrong place!
• If you're ringing the 2nd, don't forget to keep half an eye on the bell on your right (the treble).
• Concentrate on ringing at the right speed: slower to hunt up, quicker to hunt down.
• If you get lost, don't panic. Keep going at the right speed, counting your place, until you get back to lead.
• Don't look up to follow bells at backstroke. Keep your eyes level, or even slightly below.
• When hunting up, follow the bell that followed you in the previous row. It takes practice to get the knack of this, so don't despair if you find it tricky.
• Ropesight hunting down is even harder (though there are tricks to help, as you'll see soon).

Sorry, there were quite a lot of 'dont's' in that list. I know that educational theory says that we should say 'do' rather than 'don't' but actually, I don't care! Sometimes, 'dont's are easier to explain than 'do's.

A problem I regularly see is learners struggling with ropesight because they've been asked to develop it and rely on it too soon. That's why I've left it until Lesson 27 before mentioning it. It's also why I started you on Flying Dutchman as your first venture into ringing changes on tower bells, so that you could get the feel of hunting without having to worry about which bell to follow. If your bell isn't in right place, it's impossible to see the ropesight anyway. Knowing the order you're going to follow the other bells in allows you to concentrate on ringing at the correct speed and stay in the right place. However, once you start ringing more complicated things, learning all the bells to follow becomes very inefficient and very difficult. That's where your developing ropesight skills, coupled with your listening skills and a bit of knowledge about coursing order will start to come in useful.

One of the best things you can do to develop ropesight is to stand behind a bell while somebody else rings it to whatever you're learning. You might find this video useful. It's a treble's eye view of Plain hunt on 5. It goes through once at normal speed, then in slow motion. I tend to think that the slow motion version is actually less helpful, because it destroys the sense of riunging at the correct speed. Remember: to hunt the treble on five bells you're going to do:

• four slow blows (2nds, 3rds, 4ths, 5ths place, holding up at both handstroke and backstroke)
• one 'rounds speed blow' ( your second blow in 5ths place, at handstroke)
• four quick blows (starting at backstroke, 4ths, 3rds, 2nds, lead. Keep the bell moving briskly at both strokes back down to lead)
• one rounds speed blow (your second blow at lead. It's at backstroke and you'll need to hoild it up a bit)

See if you can see that on the video, along with the bells that the treble foillows at each handstroke. If you can't see the order in which the treble passes the other four bells, look at the first lead of Plain Bob Doubles in the previous lesson to see which bells the treble follows.