Hi to all,
I did read somewhere that, 'words cam mean different things to different people'.

The naming of ballroom figures could be an example of this. One example of this is the Natural Turn.

I've always understood it to be a 'reverse' of what the 'natural' is.

I always enjoy reading how some figures became named. i.e. The Whisk. To me an amusing story and I like it. But, having spoken to the late Alex Moore he told me that he named the Whisk and he first used it in the Slow Foxtrot as an alternative to the Change of Direction at a corner. He gave the figure the name, 'whisk' because of the action of crossing the foot behind. He originally danced this with a circular action with the foot leaving the floor before it crossed behind the right foot.

He had a photo of himself dancing with his partner, Pat, on the front of his book, Ballroom Dancing. You can clearly see the left foot, off the floor, before it crossed behind.

It would seem that the Tipsy Chasse in the Quickstep would have been named after a tipple or two. Again this is not the case. It happened when a dancer, John Wells, stood on a loose shoe lace which caused him to loose his balance while dancing the chasse.

I was partly amused by the story of a North of England teacher, who had a successful school on the East Coast. This teacher was in training for his fellowship ballroom. He decided it would not go a miss to have a lesson with Alex. Never having been to Alex's studio, he arrived about an hour early.

In one of his other rooms a student's class was being held. Alex told this teacher to join in instead of sitting waiting.

The teacher stood at the back of the class and listened to some explanations of technical terms. All this was 'old hat' to him, but has he told me, it was better than just sitting, waiting.

After his lesson, Alex, gave him his bill. The teacher was so indignant when he said to me, 'The bast*** also charged me for standing at the back of the student's class!' >
nice chatting.