Plain Hunt on 6
Plain Hunt on 6
This is a plain hunt with 6 bells where all the bells are hunting. This is similar to Plain Hunt on 5 but since all bells are hunting leading is a little trickier. It isn't clear to me why this isn't called Plain Hunt Minor.
This is time that I rang when all 6 bells were working rather than having the Tenor covering [Glossary: covering]. The basic terminology as relates to Plain Hunt is described elsewhere.
The example below shows one cycle of Plain Hunt on 6 bells. The cycle is complete when you have occupied each of the 12 possible positions, i.e. 1 to 6 hunting up and down. [h indicates handstroke, b indicates backstroke ]
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | b |  Rounds |
| 2 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 6 | 5 | h | |
| 2 | 4 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 5 | b | |
| 4 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 3 | h | |
| 4 | 6 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 3 | b | |
| 6 | 4 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 1 | h | |
| 6 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 1 | b | |
| 5 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 2 | h | |
| 5 | 3 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 2 | b | |
| 3 | 5 | 1 | 6 | 2 | 4 | h | |
| 3 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 6 | 4 | b | |
| 1 | 3 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 6 | h | |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | b | Rounds |
What has to be achieved is clear enough, but how? If you have learned how to do call changes then you know how to move to follow another bell. The "easiest" way to learn plain hunt is to learn which bell to you will follow on each stroke and then change as necessary. Continuing with bell #5 as the example you would proceed as follows:
6 3 1 2 4 6 lead lead 3 1 2 4
This is quite easy to learn though when first trying it is tricker than the changes made when doing call changes since a change is required on every stroke not just hand-strokes. In other words, thinks happen twice as quickly!
Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on your point of view, learning these sequences by rote is not very extensible. When I started to learn Plain Bob Doubles I realised that when having to memorise 40 cycles rather than 10 my memory is not up to it.
The more versatile approach is to learn to know your position in the cycle. This is trickier and involves "rope-sight" which I am trying to get the hang of. It is also a little more resilient since if someone that you are meant to follow goes wrong you know where you are meant to be.
If you use the counting places approach your places would be (this time it is position not which bell is to be followed):
6 6 5 4 3 2 1(lead) 1(lead) 2 3 4 5
