"One of the "rules" of floorcraft, that I was taught very early on, on the social floor, was always to dance into a corner (and NEVER across it), and then to come straight out of it again on the new LOD. It is amazing how many times you see the rule broken by people who should know better. "

This is by no means an absolute rule.

For example, it does nobody any good for you to try to dance into and then back out of a corner that is already full of people.

No rules are "absolute", but it's still a good rule. No one has any really good reason (and certainly not at a social dance) to hang about in a corner. The least obtrusive dancers on the floor are maintaining steady progress around the LOD at about the same pace as the other couples around them. The nuisances are either making no progression at all, or are whizzing about, usually in all directions.

"No one has any really good reason (and certainly not at a social dance) to hang about in a corner."

Good reason or bad one, you see clusters of people stuck in corners a lot. Sometimes it's due to inexperience, sometimes due to people who should know better trying to do things they shouldn't, and sometimes its due to aspects of the room such as furniture, food table, roof pillars, etc that partially obstruct the line of dance.

"The least obtrusive dancers on the floor are maintaining steady progress around the LOD at about the same pace as the other couples around them."

Which is precisely why you might want to cut off a corner that's filled with a traffic jam. If you go into it, you just add yourselves to the traffic jam and bottle up the flow even worse for those behind you. If you avoid it skillfully, you help keep things moving and hopefully let the jam in the corner start to dissipate.

We reverse lead/follow roles frequently, and one of the things that still gets me when I lead is The Corner... I get stuck in a box (I can only dance bronze figures when I lead, and that's not the best, and if NOBODY is on the floor- or looking for that matter- some open footwork) and I just keeeep rotating, hesitating, rotating, hesitating until I'm "lined up to go"... it's very sad really.

I agree with you, of course, but would still maintain that we should avoid cutting a corner where is it practical.

What with all the old people who have conveniently "forgotten" whatever manners they ever had, and the second-rate competitors, trying to use a social floor for practise, we need all the courtesy we can muster.

Anonymous. Bill Irvine who for years was the Master of Ceromonies at Blackpool on the many times I was there, would regularly anounce from the stage, usually in the Quickstep, that if you do not dance towards the two corners at the end of side one and the begining of side three those judges who are on each of those corners will not mark you. They will not even look at you. What was happening was some couples would half way down side one cut straight across the floor to the opposite corner. This caused no end of trouble and collisions.

"Anonymous. Bill Irvine who for years was the Master of Ceromonies at Blackpool on the many times I was there, would regularly anounce from the stage, usually in the Quickstep, that if you do not dance towards the two corners at the end of side one and the begining of side three those judges who are on each of those corners will not mark you. They will not even look at you. What was happening was some couples would half way down side one cut straight across the floor to the opposite corner. This caused no end of trouble and collisions."

There's a big difference between cutting off an entire corner in a large room, and avoiding the point of one in a small room when that corner already contains more people than it can hold.

Do you really think you do anyone any benefit by adding yourselves to a traffic jam?

And don't even think about going in there to do a line. If you are going to do that at a social, you need to do it with an awareness of traffic flow both in front of you and behind you, which rules out doing it in an already crowded corner.

"Lines" are usually going to look silly, anyway, on a crowded social floor.

Anonymous. Do I understand you correctly that you believe its OK to completly avoid dancing towards the bottom end of the Ballroom and to cut across from a 1/2 to 3/4 of the way down that side and to head diagonaly across the floor towards the opposite corner. Is that what you are in favour of. If the Ballroom is small and it is a competition then there should be no more than six on the floor at any one time. If it were a Social Dance on a small floor then most of your routine should be left at home.......
I'll add this. Very Interesting . The WDC, thats the professional people, are holding a World Amatuer Medalist Championship this Sept 26th in Montreal. Also they have formed a Social Dance Comittee. All of this can be found by going to their web- site.

"Anonymous. Do I understand you correctly that you believe its OK to completly avoid dancing towards the bottom end of the Ballroom and to cut across from a 1/2 to 3/4 of the way down that side and to head diagonaly across the floor towards the opposite corner."

That's not what I said.

What I said was that adding yourself to the crowd fully inside a corner does not help the situation for anyone.

There's a big difference between that and cutting across "1/2 to 3/4 of the way down" ESPECIALLY on a floor as long as they have at blackpool.

However, no one will complain about a guy who manages to always be on the opposite side of the room from the crowd. In fact, they'll call him masterful.

"If the Ballroom is small and it is a competition then there should be no more than six on the floor at any one time."

Never heard of a semifinal? Or an all-on comparison round? You might note however that this is a thread about social dancing, not competitions.

"If it were a Social Dance on a small floor then most of your routine"

Using social and routine in the same sentence pretty much proves that you have no idea what you are talking about.