The point of the quoted stipulation is that there is no official prohibition of the inclusion of the Fox Trot at the Bronze proficiency level.


My goodness. Aren't we wearing our snobbery on our sleeves these days. Your contemptuous attitude toward dancers who may have less experience or less money to spend than you explains your behavior on this board perfectly.

Tango has been part of Silver and NOT part of Silver over the years. The schedules change.

Poorly executed moves can be seen at all levels of amateur and many levels of professional competition.



jj

"My goodness. Aren't we wearing our snobbery on our sleeves these days. Your contemptuous attitude toward dancers who may have less experience or less money to spend than you explains your behavior on this poard perfectly."

It's a lot simpler than that. A dance student fundamentally needs to develop some physical skills and strengths not present in the non-ballroom population (ex-ballet people included) before it will be possible to attempt to execute the actions of international foxtrot in a way that will flow naturally.

How do I know this? From watching, teaching - and most importantly, from trying to do it too early in my own development. Until you can sustain a gliding movement of your weight and roll your feet properly, no action in the foxtrot is going to be anything other than fake.

For this reason, most thought-out dance programs delay the introduction of the foxtrot until after a healthy amount of work developing the concepts and foot and ankle strengths of the swing dances has been done in the context of waltz, quickstep, and perhaps the rhythm foxtrot or its American cousin. It's useful to be able to give these students some real-world competition experience in the dances they are practicing on a day to day basis, hence the bronze competition division - usually offered without a foxtrot to complicate things. About the time students are ready to start working on foxtrot in lessons, they are making the bronze finals if not winning, and their first competitions ventures in foxtrot will naturally coincide with their transition to the silver division.

"Tango has been part of Silver and NOT part of Silver over the years. The schedules change."

Offerings of individual competitions may change frequently. Recommendations in sanctioning body rulebooks much less often. I think if you dig up an old rulebook, you will see that tango has a long history of recommendation at the silver level.

You are correct. It is simple. As a beginner, you had difficulty with bronze Standard Fox Trot so it MUST be too difficult for every new dancer and they shouldn't even be allowed to learn it.

What better way could there be to develop those gliding movements than to practice figures which involve them? Unless, of course, you lack the stamina to spend enough time doing so.


Again, you're trying to put words in my mouth. I never claimed that Tango has NEVER been part of USABDA's Silver Standard schedule. My point is that the offerings change and will continue to change.

If you dig into old rulebooks, you'll also find that Fox Trot has been part of the Bronze Standard schedule in the past and will be so again.

jj

"How do I know this? From watching, teaching - and most importantly, from trying to do it too early in my own development. Until you can sustain a gliding movement of your weight and roll your feet properly, no action in the foxtrot is going to be anything other than fake.

You are correct. It is simple. As a beginner, you had difficulty with bronze Standard Fox Trot so it must be too difficult for every new dancer."

No, you absolutely do not understand.

As a beginner I did not have difficulty with foxtrot that I could attribute to those issues. Instead, it was only later in retrospect, looking at others and comparing to my own previous dancing that I understood what was fundamentally missing in both cases. At the time I had been quite exasperated by the lack of foxtrot offerings in bronze. Only later did I come to understand the good reason why that was so.

"What better way could there be to develop those gliding movements than to practice those moves which involve them? "

You actually can't build them this way, because without the underlying strength you will end up doing the wrong action. Only by building the foundation skills doing simpler actions (waltz, quickstep, etc) can you get to the point of physical readiness to do the foxtrot in a way that reinforces good habits rather than bad ones.

Essentially, if you start in doing all dances, your early foxtrot efforts are wasted (or in reality, counterproductive) and it is your waltz and quickstep efforts that may eventually lead to the first hints of genuine foxtrot action.

"My point is that the offerings change and will continue to change."

Not disputed. However, official recommendations have been fairly stable, and it's official recommendations that tend to be reflected in the more important competitions - for example, the national championships.

"If you dig into old rulebooks, you'll also find that Fox trot has been part of the Bonze Standard schedule in the past and will be so again."

No, you won't, because there is no "schedule" in the rulebooks. What there is is a recommendation. Can you cite a year in which the rule book included international foxtrot in the recommendation for bronze? Can you site a year in which it was competed at the USABDA national championships?

OK, the rule for taking any profound action is "take seven deep breaths"and not "take seven hits from the bong."

Your statement is so ludricous on its face that I wonder about your sanity.

And how do you build those foundtion skills? Through other exercises? Guess what - you can do those other exercises incorrectly as well.

The reason for taking instruction is to learn to execute the actions properly. Practice follows instruction.

You've been accusing me of having a limited vision based on poor quality instruction. The statement quoted above clearly demonstrates that you do not understand how to use instruction.

The rulebook does not make such a recommendation. It lists which dances must be included.

With some research I will answer your questions.

jj

Added: That was easy: 1999 (1999 USABDA National Results). You can page down to or just search for "Heat 52": "Adult A Bronze International Standard (W/F/Q)."

"And how do you build those foundtion skills? Through other exercises? Guess what - you can do those other exercises incorrectly as well."

Yes, you absolutely can do them incorrectly as well. However, when you have foot rise without outside partner in the rise condition as in waltz or quickstep, you have a much better chance of getting the elements right in isolation.

Similarly, when you have drawn out slows in rhythm foxtrot without foot rise, you have a much better chance of getting the rolling through the feet correctly.

Finally, quickstep presents the first opportunity to learn about continuity of weight movement in a situation where you can let the movements run-out safely, something that won't be possible in foxtrot until the underlying technique of the more challenging positions is sound enough to accomodate that much carry-over of movement.

What waltz and quickstep let you do is build the skills one at a time, where you have a fighting chance or practicing them right. Foxtrot makes you deal with it all on the same step, with the results that the student invariable adopts a "fake" version out of pragmatic necessity.

Nonsense.

Do you have an amateur partner?



jj

"What waltz and quickstep let you do is build the skills one at a time, where you have a fighting chance or practicing them right. Foxtrot makes you deal with it all on the same step, with the results that the student invariable adopts a "fake" version out of pragmatic necessity."

Nonsense."

Well, you can either continue to demonstrate your ignorance, or you can crack open the syllabus book and notice that bronze foxtrot has foot rise and outside partner coinciding while bronze waltz and quickstep go outside only when coming from a lowered position where the body is easily projected by a standing foot that is flat on the floor.

So what? The variance in styles does not prevent anyone from practicing all of the different movements.

You learn the moves from a competent instructor and you practice them until they are mastered.

Time on the floor is the most important aspect of any dance student's education.



jj

""notice that bronze foxtrot has foot rise and outside partner coinciding while bronze waltz and quickstep go outside only when coming from a lowered position where the body is easily projected by a standing foot that is flat on the floor."

So what? The variance in styles does not prevent anyone from practicing all of the different movements."

It is a not a variance in style, it is a huge variance in physical difficulty.

Both the necessary body movement for sound outside partner action, and foot rise, are substantial challenges.

Waltz and quickstep present these challenges in isolation from each other, where the student has a chance of developing them properly.

In contrast, foxtrot's most characteristic figure, the feather, requires projecting the body into an outside partner position that is supported from the toes of one foot. Beginners cannot do this yet, so they try to dance an outside partner position without projecting the body, which is to say a fake outside partner position.

The readiness of a student to meaningfully learn the feather step is easily determined by the state of their inside partner body projection from the toe - for example, can they sustain forward movement on step two of a waltz or quickstep natural, or are they still turning off of it too early in order to keep their body weight on the strong ball of foot without having to carry it through the still weaker toe? If they haven't solved this problem in waltz or quickstep, they should keep working on it there where the substantially greater demand of body projection for outside partner does not add its requirements to that particular action.

And that's the forward half - there's a whole other class of combined issues with ankle stability in high heels when going backwards, that are again practical to sort out in the inside partner and seperately the no (body/partner) rise outside partner cases and impractical to approach in the combined case.