YOU were the one that brought my credentials to question ( the comment it could be all fantasy ).. go back and read your own post .

It never ceases to amaze me , when one is challenged in the form of an accusation, the accuser , when confronted , suddenly has no desire to back his claims .

As to posting.. you claim the " right " to express, but seem to not give that same right of challenge to other posts.

That is the very thrust of debate .

I would also add, that your comment about " body bag etc " was to my mind , pejorative and somewhat racial.

You managed in one sentence to degrade the population of numerous latin countries .

Terence, I'm not going to bicker with you: your repeated statements about your credentials are as tedious as they are pointless, and I'm not the first poster to say so.

I don't know who you are. You might be who you say you are (whoever that is), or you might be a sado who has adopted the persona of someone else. Checking the credentials of that "someone else" proves nothing whatever about the poster here who keeps reminding us that they "used to" compete, and that they "used to" examine. I don't care, and I've said why.

As for my supposed "racist" comment - get lost! You don't know the city I'm talking about, and my comment is about the place, not the people. There are so few latinos here, that if there were a club, it would probably just be a front for "white trash" to sell each other sex and drugs. I'll stick to social dancing thanks.

"I wouldn't want to stop them, but if the MUSIC is saying 234&1 (or 123&4), and anyone in the room is doing the opposite, then they're not dancing at all, IMHO.

So that means that most sequence dancers can't dance"

So if the music is saying 123&4 and the sequence dancers are doing the same then surely they are dancing. (Limitations due to age and infirmity permitting, but not all sequence dancers are pensioners.)

I have some friends who dance sequence and social ballroom/latin. They have attended several lessons where the teacher has tried to make them break on 2 and they usually have a problem. At one stage this stressed them so much that they almost gave up social dancing and they certainly stopped the lessons.

They often tell me "We cannot dance on 2" and I usually reply "You just did!". The difference is in the music being played. Give them a good latin rhythm and they will dance on 2 without thinking about it. One of their teachers used to use a sequence album for their beginner classes "because it has a solid beat" quite oblivious to the fact that it was the wrong beat.

Yes, of course they are. I didn't say otherwise. But nearly all "modern" latin music played in venues likely to be frequented by sequence dancers does have the pattern 234&1, so NOT to break on 2 does unforgivable violence to such music. It looks ridiculous too.

The answer has to be to listen, and then to dance. How often have you seen someone waltz 231 231? They keep it up for bars on end, sometimes the whole song - but it's a marvel to behold such determination, or such indifference.

"But nearly all "modern" latin music played in venues likely to be frequented by sequence dancers does have the pattern 234&1"

There I beg to differ. A large proportion of the CDs intended for sequence dancing have chas with the pattern 123&4.

I was listening to a new ballroom latin release today and I'm sure there were some 'universal' chas in there with timing 123&4& to allow either interpretation.

SocialDancer.I don't understand this argument at all. Sequence Dancers don't need special music to break on beat one. They just step forward on beat one at the beginning of their dance.. We let beat one go by and step on two. They do exactly the same with a Rumba.Do you think that they need a special Rumba also. I can asure you that when they buy a disk they buy the same disks we would buy. More than likely by the same orchestra

The only special thing sequence dancers need is for the music to be arranged as a 4 bar intro followed by a number of complete 16 bar groups.

Yes they will step on beat 1 because that is what they are conditioned to do, just as you are conditioned to "let beat one go by and step on two." What I am saying is that because of the way much of the 'sequence' music is played they are not necessarily wrong stepping on 1, and you would not necessarily be correct when stepping on 2. It comes down to fitting the dance to the music.

I'll try to explain with examples, using a waltz as the initial example because hopefully everyone can agree on this one.

(waltz) Boom Bang Bang, Boom Bang Bang

(ChaCha 1) Boom Bang Tom Tom Tom, Boom Bang Tom Tom Tom

(ChaCha 2) Boom Bang Bang Tom Tom, Boom Bang Bang Tom Tom

As for buying CDs, the average sequence dancer would not use Casa Musica, Prandi or DanceLife. They might use Ross Mitchell or some Gunter Noris or Tony Evans. There is a high probability they will use keyboard artistes such as Bruno Brooks, Denis Heywood, Monty Pearce, David Lobhan or the better Larry Green, David Last or Richard Keeling. I doubt if any of these would be your first choice for latin.