CliveHarrison. Among Social Dancers and low grade competition dancers anything that is in a Promenade is usually pretty bad. If they were given an exact amount of what is allowable from the very beginning they would have a clear understanding of what it should be. I would get them to, on a piece of A4 paper, put a dot right in the centre and draw a line to each of the top corners. That I would explain is Diagonal to the wall with the LOD and Diagonal to wall against the LOD. Halve the distance to the left and halve it again and again. With the ladies left toe pointing LOD that is about how far the RF should be from the mans LF with the sides of the body over the feet. Which would be about two floor boards wide give or take nine inches.Has any teacher at any time ever spoke like that. I have struck only one and that was on an Open Impetus. Which he carried through to an Open Telemark and spoke about the two floor boards wide also on a Promenade in the Tango. At that time he had only just arrived back from the UK.

I suppose that if the sub-species of social dancers and all those low grade competitors were being told such rubbish, they would be well served by asking around to see if anyone could introduce them to a decent teacher.

Most people are familiar with diagrams showing "Directions of Steps or Positions of Body in Relation to the Room" (Alex Moore's coming immediately to mind). We have the right hand side of the diagram helpfully marked "Side of Room", and the Centre is to the left. LOD is up and against LOD is down. We have the eight directions we all know, and can see how to interpret the alignment instructions given in the technique books. However, as the social dancers and low grade competitors presumably couldn't be expected to own technique books, we hope that their teachers will explain in terms that their limited capacity for dancing can comprehend.

Now, we have your diagram. Centre is centre, and we have but two lines, both extending from the centre of the paper to the top corners. But the paper isn't square: it's A4, so the angles are not right - never mind. By careful deduction, we spot that the line leading to the top right corner must be diag to wall, but of course, we find that the other is the exact OPPOSITE of diag to wall against LOD - for it is diag to centre.

Back to those lines: three quarters of the way from the centre point to the corners we mark the two lines (label them: "Toes here, stupid") and measure the distance between the points: 6 1/4 inches, give or take). Hmm.

Now I take my partner onto the dance floor, and facing DC, I dance an open telemark. Our feet didn't end up where the diagram said. Where did I go wrong? I think I'll just stick to social dancing, thanks.

The first thing that you "did wrong" was to take Polished seriously.

A good instructor will demonstrate a figure and then repeatedly correct its execution by the students until they can consistently perform the figure properly. Their points of reference must be on the dance floor and not a piece of paper.

Dancing has no use for protractors and compasses.

jj

Hey, P/s/Q, how about the subspecies of illiterate ballroom dancers and low-grade intellects posing as experts?

Do yourself and the rest of us a favor and have an educated colleague proofread the nonsense that you call writing before you post it on this or any other site.

BTW, those "social dancers" which you so casually disdain provide the bulk of the financing for ballroom dancing around the world.

jj

You need to realise .. NOW... that dance is about opinion.. some factual some theoretical.

Some teachers will have differing opinions , and the " book " as you are so fond of quoting, is a GUIDE .

Dance cannot be done with a slide rule .

The size of movement is ,in somecases , in relationship to the specific person .
No " trained " dancer is going to intentionally disregard sound theoretical practices .

Let me pass on this nugget that Scriv. once noted

" Dont get hung up on your feet and forget how to dance ! ".

many on this site seem to frequently lose the plot ..

Remember,....

Paralysis by analysist

Ah, this site is great! Where else can you get so much entertainment without a subscription?

You will never dance an open telemark well by worrying about where to put the feet.

What you should do is worry about where you want to send the bodies and what type of action you want to occur in those bodies.

The feet simply fall where they have to in order to support the desired movement of the bodies.

Understand the bodies well, and what the feet should do is obvious enough to usually not need comment.

But try to dance the footprints, and your bodies will be a mess.

Anonymous. You said. Dance the foot prints, and your bodies will be a mess.
Not if you keep your feet under your body. They become one. I was once told on a Reverse Turn Foxtrot to get my bottom around and in the correct position, which is simply another way of keeping my foot on step two under my body and not putting my foot outside the line of my body.

"Anonymous. You said. Dance the foot prints, and your bodies will be a mess.
Not if you keep your feet under your body."

You should pay more attention to your language, as you've just agreed with me without realizing it.

Keeping your feet under your body is precisely what is necessary, and the only rule you really need for the feet.

The problem is that when people "dance the footprints" or have specific goals for where their feet "should" go, they end up putting their feet elsewhere than under their body.

What they need to do is learn to send their body in the right direction, and then simply keep their feet under it.

This is why good teachers rarely waste time specifying exactly where the feet should go. Instead, they teach their students to use their bodies in such a way that automatically results in feet placed to support the bodies - most of the time without any thought about the foot position!

I most heartily agree with whoever said that this is a great site for free entertainment!!
At the risk of adding to it (in the wrong way) just a few comments about telemark.
The 2 problems i've had to overcome, and which i see so many beginners yet to overcome are:- looking at the floor, and failing to kep the right side (man) stretched to keep good shape. Both of these problems look much worse than step 3 being a couple of inches incorrectly placed. And both faults occur even with the body kept over the feet (or vice versa).
Just one little nugget i'd like to pass on.
We all listen to our teachers and put their suggestions into practice. However, get a video camera out and record that practice. When you actually see yourself doing something awful, it has great impact. What was that saying "tell me and i may remember, show me and i will understand?"