To anyone who would like to put a pause, hold, or stop in their feather step:

Please follow Quickstep's technically advice literally and avoid anything ever suggested by "anonymous". This will maximize your chance of achieving your goals.

And of course anyone who has a clue about foxtrot will already know that they need to do the exact opposite...

You will not do the first of your Feather at the same speed as the two quicks that follow. Why do you think there are slows and quicks.. The heel arrives on the first beat and the toe reaches the floor on the second beat and the moving foot arrives into a balanced position before it goes on to become a quick. I have deliberatly not gone into the breaking down of the two beats into four halves and what takes place on each. See John Wood for that. Also as you should know the Featherstep doesn' t finish untill the end of fourth step where there can be 3/8ths of a turn. Even your car knows that at some point it has to slow down to make a 3/8 turn. Not unless you are a racing car driver. Do watch for that very slight pause within the Reverse Turn. It would be nice if you could stick to a subject that you do understand and stop trying to be some kind of super gureu.

"You will not do the first of your Feather at the same speed as the two quicks that follow."

You are indeed correct - but not in the way you think. In fact, I will do my best to do it the way championship dancers do - by making the "slow" slightly SHORTER than the 2nd "quick"!

"Why do you think there are slows and quicks.."

They are great units for planning choreography. But they are not very descriptive of how the actions are actually danced.

Something a whole bunch of people have told you time and time again, but you persist in ignoring, to your own detriment...

"Do watch for that very slight pause within the Reverse Turn."

Absolutely non existent. Slowing yes, pause you had better hope not. Oh, I forgot, you want to pause, well everyone who wants to pause can take your advice, and everyone else can laugh at you...

Are you not the one who introduced the word pause. Now your saying there is no pause. I'm with you in the first place. I believe that to turn I cannot go in two directions at the same time. One diagnal to the centre and at the same time to back LOD. Without there being something in between.A pause of some indeterminate length.

"Are you not the one who introduced the word pause. Now your saying there is no pause. I'm with you in the first place."

No, you were the one who argued for a pause. Deny it and I'll have to dig up the quote where you did so.

Anyway, regardless if you now claim you don't want to pause after all, a pause is precisley what the technique you argue for will create.

Wheras to avoid pausing, it is necessary to either use the kind of body project that I have been explaining, or else contort the bodies into really ugly positions in order to foolishly try to remain balanced.

Your taking a battering this morning aren t you. As we are about to extend backwards. We stay on one spot and our knee starts to bend to the front as our leg continues to extend to to back. What would you call that. Just the body, not the leg and knee. Would you call that not a pause in travell.

"Your taking a battering this morning aren t you. As we are about to extend backwards. We stay on one spot and our knee starts to bend to the front as our leg continues to extend to to back. What would you call that. Just the body, not the leg and knee. Would you call that not a pause in travell."

I'd call it a FATAL MISTAKE!

Yes, the action you have described is a pause.

The problem is that you are doing it wrong. While something that feels a bit like what you describe occurs, it is actually only supposed to occur in relative terms. The body does not "stay on spot", instead it is actually moving across the standing foot during this time. But yes, there's a phase where it almost feels like your knee is moving against the direction of travel, though it probably isn't. Unless you make the MISTAKE of PAUSING THE BODY - then you will KILL THE CHARACTER OF THE DANCE, and yes, your knee would move against the travel.

Of course, there are teachers who will ask you to pause your body in a lesson and bend your knee forward. The thing to remember is that this is a PREPERATORY EXERCISE - it is not HOW THE FOXTROT IS DANCED by those who have the necessary skills to do it right. EXERCISES intended to build skills often break the proportions that would be present when those skills are applied to actual dances.

But smarty pants students sometimes forget this... they learn only the exercise, and never actually learn to the dances themselves!

So I'll say it again, anyone who wants to pause in their feather, listen to quickstep... everyone else, who has some clue about the nature of foxtrot, will simply laugh and move on.

Clentch you fist in front of you and swing it to the right and then the left continuously. Is there a point where it stops to come back. If there isn' t it keeps on going. Come on now wake up and get into the real world.

"Clentch you fist in front of you and swing it to the right and then the left continuously. Is there a point where it stops to come back. If there isn' t it keeps on going. Come on now wake up and get into the real world."

What in the world does that have to do with anything????

You've descried an oscillation movement.

Foxtrot has oscillation, yes, but superimposed on continued movement. So there is NEVER ANY STOPPING in the ordinary figures (feather, reverse turn, etc), only in the specifically checking or pausing ones.

Come on now. Dance a Feather Step with a half a turn into a Reverse movement. What is happening on your left leg. Is there a pause or not as you place your second step. What about the lady. Answer this one carefully. Otherwise it will be brought up again.
Again in all our dancing there are pauses. It wouldn' t matter if it were Fred Astair or you dancing ballroom. You are not like a tin of beans coming down a conveyer travelling at an even speed.
How can anyone do a pause wrong. Either it is a pause or it
is not a pause. Read your paragraph four.