Beware of anyone who tells you that their answer is all you need to know.



Opinions are often open to challenge. The definition I quoted verbatim directly challenges yours.

Nothing in this statement suggests that what I told the OP is all that he needs to know. You're ignoring the fact that the OP is relatively inexperienced.

If you want to try to cherry pick my posts to find something to whine about then relax and take a seat in the same row with anymouse.

Please give me an example of the use of CBMP which does not involve body turn.

jj

JJ, I have nothing to prove, either to you, or to anyone else here. Your recent posts have taken a very argumentative tone, and that's a matter for you, but if you want to assert something that is directly contradicted by standard technique definitions, then the ball's in your court, not mine.

The 'book' that is usually quoted by armchair experts is Alex Moore's 'Ballroom Dancing'. There, he says: "CBMP is the position attained where either foot is placed across the front or the back of the body without the body turning. It is, therefore, a foot position, but in some cases CBM is used at the same time."

Whining isn't really my style, but may I suggest, in reply to the invitation, that while CBMP IS stepping onto OR across the line of the other foot, in response to the OP is not correct to say:



because if the required foot position was 'forward and across', it would invariably say so. It didn't, so it wasn't.

On page 6 of The Ballroom Technique (9th ed.), under the heading "Positions of the Feet," Moore quite clearly describes CBMP as "A foot position where the foot is placed on or across the line of the supporting foot, either in front or behind to maintain body line."

The quote presented by the OP is equally clear: "Right foot forward in CBMP."

This ain't rocket science.

jj

True enough. Moore (again) The Revised Technique: "CBMP - this is obviously a foot position and not a body turn."

If you look at page 15 of Moore's Ballroom Dancing, under the heading "Contrary Body Movement," Moore claims that the term Body Swing can be used interchangeably with CBM.

In other words, Moore never really understood what CBM is or how to create it. This point is made abundantly clear in the following breakdown of the turns which doesn't even mention the thighs. He thought that body turn is initiated in the shoulders.

You can hang your hat on Moore if you wish. As terence points out repeatedly, his book is really only useful for exams.

jj

"In other words, Moore never really understood what CBM is or how to create it."

Absurd. Rather obviously he understood the topic a lot better than you do - recall he literally wrote the book on the subject.

"This point is made abundantly clear in the following breakdown of the turns which doesn't even mention the thighs."

Nor for that matter do most of the worlds dance teachers, who traditionally prefer to speak instead about the knees. Though I do end up speaking about the thighs a fair amount with my students.

"He thought that body turn is initiated in the shoulders."

I find that passage a bit less than optimal for today's purposes. But do you know for a fact that when he was writing it, that's wasn't how it was being done?

"You can hang your hat on Moore if you wish. As terence points out repeatedly, his book is really only useful for exams."

Keep reading it, year after year, as you learn more about dancing, and you'll discover that to date you've only scratched the surface of the insight it contains. Even as we change aspects of how we do dancing, there's still so much relevant wisdom to discover in that old text.

But as with any book about dancing, you should read it for insight. Don't look to it for precise instruction. That's really the great tragedy of the exam system - people try to literally dance what is in the book for their exam, realize it does not work for their everyday goals in dancing, and so once the test is over throw the whole thing out and go back to what they were doing previously. If instead they read the book to understand the underlying principles and mechanisms, they'd find those still apply to how we dance today. And more importantly, still aid in finding overlooked ways to improve in the achievement of todays goals.

So to take the issue of CBM, what is not important is what Moore said about the sequence in which it occurs in different parts of the body. Rather, what is important is the organizing principle he helped establish of what CBM _is_ and where it is or isn't employed. That has stood the test of time quite well - even as opinions of how, when in the course of the step, and where in the body CBM is to be done change widely from authority to authority and era to era.

It's odd, then, isn't it, that NO teaching society has adopted the jj/anymouse technique of dancing. They continue to revise their texts periodically, but the principle of the distinction between CBM and CBMP has endured for decades, and it continues to be perfectly secure as the model for that aspect of standard technique.

I don't know whether Terence would like to contribute to this discussion, but while he has frequently made the obvious point that the standard texts are a guide and starting point, he has never (in my recollection) suggested that anything given (and taken) in its proper context is incorrect.

However, there is no published technique bearing the name Terence, either, so we have to look to such figures as Geoffrey Hearn for guidance on 'Advanced Figures', which is accompanied, as you will recall, with an extended review of the basic technique and areas of current development. Does he there have anything to say that supports your proposition? No.



It didn't take long.

From my original response:

Instead of just dealing in simple and straightforward advice FOR A NEWCOMER, you can't resist taking a discussion into advanced areas for which he is most likely unprepared.

Between your ego and anymouse's irresistible pseudo-intellectual claptrap, little is conveyed other than confusion.

BTW, does Hearn offer anything to support your position?

Still waiting for that complete reference that I requested earlier.

jj

What for: Moore's Revised Technique? Mine's an old copy: "The Revised Technique of Ballroom Dancing, 10th Ed (1982) published by ISTD, p4 (Positions of Feet).



I think you are confusing me with someone else. I didn't, did I?



I don't think most beginners are likely to be very interested in thighs, or, for that matter, in your opinion dismissing the work of a figure such as Alex Moore. And you have the cheek to accuse ME of egotism!



I don't have a position. I accept the standard technique, and its not for me to justify the accumulated experience and expertise of both ISTD (Moore) & IDTA (Howard). As I said earlier, the ball's in your court, there, isn't it?

Hearn actually says nothing either way, why would he? The technique is clear enough. I think we are agreed over what the standard technique says (you've certainly cited nothing to the contrary), but your position seems to rest on the view that Moore doesn't understand as much about it as you do. I'd say you were skating on rather thin ice, with that one.