"Anononymous. I thought you would be drawn into this. Richard Gleaves says on his tape that in a competition or a demonstration he always counted every beat for at least eight bars or so."

Wierd... but "at least eight bars or so"
strongly implies that he STOPPED counting once he felt comfortable and settled into the ARTISTIC tasks of dancing.

If you stop counting and rely on feeling too soon, before your feeling is worthy of trust, you will be sloppy. But if you never stop counting and trust your feelings, you will not be DANCING.

Dancing can only occur when you move past concern for the details. Of course, you can only get away with moving past concern for the details when the details are GOOD. Counting is one TOOL that can help improve them. But it is not, ultimately a part of dancing, instead it is a part of preparing/training to dance.

Anonymous. I knew you would come into this one boots and all. From then on he counted under his breath. Next time you go to one of your world Champion teachers I would suggest you ask them if they count. You might learn something. I have met people who reckon they cannot hear the beats let alone count them. That person relies solely on their partner. I would suggest that anybody having trouble whenever they can, put a disk on and count every beat from beginning to the end in eight bar phrasing. usually there is a four bar introduction followed by 64 bars of music. The way to count is 1234 2234 3234 through to eight.As John Wood on his tape says each four beats are like the pages of a book. in a chapter we have eight pages. In the whole book we have eight chapters. Anonymous. Now do you believe the way to go is to count.
If you don't count you will have no idea whether you are dancing. 1234 or 3412. You will most likely slip from one to the other throughout the dance. Social dancing it is not going to matter. Get into competition and you'll be done. So please don't try to take dancers to your the path of wretchedness.

students count.

ARTISTS DON'T.

Sometimes artists have to go back to being students during the week, so that they can be oustanding artists on the weekend.

Anonymous. Don't write rubbish. You can't name me one teacher or coach or competitor in Latin or Modern who doesn't count. If you don't you will go off time that's garanteed. You might as well switch the music off. Do you dance to music or are you in one of those studios where there are several lessons going on at the same time and you rarely if ever get a choice of music. Is that why you insist that you don't need music to dance to. To me it would seem like it is. If that is the case and you carry on you will never be musical and on time..I know of a teacher from here who went to another state to teach. He told me he was amazed that girls there weren't counting the beats and had no idea how to.
If you ever did Latin the Rumba. With the lady often apart and and doing a different timing to the man. If both were not counting it would not be a success. The other Latin dances are the same. Unfotunately in a close hold as in Modern one or the other leaves it to there partner to keep time. Just think about it. Two people dancing, neither are capable of counting the beats. Both , as you say relying on there artistic skills which will be different. what a mess. One may hold onto a slow longer than the other completely disregarding the musical beats. One last thing. If you don't count the beats how do you tell you if it is a Waltz or a Foxtrot being played.

"Anonymous. Don't write rubbish. You can't name me one teacher or coach or competitor in Latin or Modern who doesn't count. If you don't you will go off time that's garanteed."

You inexperience is showing...

The reality is that counting is almost a sure-fire way to be always slightly off time.

Yes, when you don't yet have a reliable feel for the music, counting is a good place to start.

But at some point, when you have developed a reliable feel, counting becomes an extra thing interfering between you and the music. And that is when you have to stop doing it.

Perhaps from time to time your feelings will get a little shaky and you will want to practice counting some for a while. Perhaps you do it at the beginning of each song. But in the long run, COUNTING INTERFERES WITH MUSIC. It is an extra, though-based translation stage that must go away if you want to intimately involve your body with the music.

Anonymous. Have you ever strummbed your fingers or taped your foot to a piece of music. Do you strum to the beat or do you strum between the beats. If you do it on the beat are you not counting if you did it between the beats are you not counting. Do you find it possible to tap your fingers off the beat. Try it if you can, or anybody else for that manner. Lets have an answer there.
Lets get serious. how can you after a Tipple Chasse Quickstep change the timing to four quicks on a Running Finish. Could you on one Fallaway Slip Pivot Waltz do the timing 1 2 3 and. As well as another 1 2 and 3.without counting. How about a Tele Spin. where the lady has one more step than the man. The man has to let one beat go by. Can you do that without being aware of the number of beats. I don't think so.
And you completely left Latin off the agender didn't you.

"Anonymous. Have you ever strummbed your fingers or taped your foot to a piece of music."

Yes. And most music teachers try very very hard to cure students of that habit. In the end it actually gets in the way of interpretation. Instead of ear to finger/tounge/diaphram, you insert this wholly unecessasry foot stage in between. I've known conductors who will scream at you from the podium if they see you tapping your foot.

"Lets get serious. how can you after a Tipple Chasse Quickstep change the timing to four quicks on a Running Finish. Could you on one Fallaway Slip Pivot Waltz do the timing 1 2 3 and. As well as another 1 2 and 3.without counting."

By directly interpreting the music.

A student first puzzling this out may need to the use the tool that is counting. But a DANCER just moves to the music, with no intermediate stage necessary.

Your posts strongly indicate the worldview of a beginner/intermediate who thinks they know everything based on the authority of the quite limited information available to them... when in reality, there's a whole world of championsship practice of which you've seen only the glimpses packaged for sale to the general public or passed on by those on the edge of it.

Take occasional lessons with true champions (not average quarterfinalists) and learn about some of the things set winners apart from those quarterfinalists.

"How about a Tele Spin. where the lady has one more step than the man. The man has to let one beat go by. Can you do that without being aware of the number of beats. I don't think so."

Absolutely. Try participating in your partner's dancing. You may not be changing weight there, but she is, and you have a role to play in that.

Anonymous. I thought you might have asked. Why would it be neccessary to change the timing. But you didn't.

"Anonymous. I thought you might have asked. Why would it be neccessary to change the timing. But you didn't."

It did strike me as a little wierd, but it's not always necessary to pass judgment on others artistic choices.

Especially when there are more glaring errors in their technical methods!

If you have a choice of disagreeing with someone where they have gotten a basic, widely known thing wrong, always go for that, rather than the opinion issue.

In the end, when you get to the point where you can stop counting and simply interpret the music, you won't have to worry about what is changing the timing or not. Because you often will not even conciously know the timing you danced - you will simply know that you danced what fit the music. Change the style of music within the same dance and a different timing might result. Dance the same figure at a different point in the phrase and a different timing might result. But you do not necessarily have to be aware of it, once it is a part of you.

You can construct an appoximation of dancing numerically, and that is a good thing to do as a STUDENT. But when dancing becomes as natural a part of your life as walking, you will not be thinking about its technique simply to do it. You will still study of course. But a lot of the time, you will simply be a DANCER.