regards,

rumbalei

Begin facing LOD.

• RF fwd between lady's feet. End facing DW.
• LF side & slightly fwd, part weight, continue to turn on RF. End facing DC against LOD.
• Cont. to turn on RF and take full weight on RF. LF held behind RF. End facing LOD.
  
• LF to side & slightly forward. End facing DW.
• RF crosses behind LF, part weight. End facing DC against LOD.
• Untwist on RF, then LF to side, small step. End facing LOD.
  

Natural Fleckrel, lady's part:

Begin backing LOD.
[LIST]

123. Side-Cross-Side
456. Run-Run-Run

Technically, the first and third run will end up crossing anyway, due to the strong rotation. But when you think of them in terms of runs, it breaks down into two distinct sets of actions, each being three beats. That makes for very easy memorization.

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson

Thanks! I do, too. And it actually does more than just give you an easy way to think of it for learning purposes. It also tends to the correct feeling of forward & backwards rotation at the appropriate times (this is a long topic in and of itself, so if you like, we can discuss it later).

Correct: Fleckerl.

...although I wouldn't be surprised if I myself misspelled it at some point. I still forget.

Incidentally, the correct Austrian pronouniation is flecke-l, making a nice guttural sound right around where I put the hyphen (two separate syllables, one for the e and one for the guttural sound). I had a German pro-am partner last year who would be driven crazy by everyone pronouncing it "FleckERRRREL". ;-p

Underturned. Plain & simple. Actually, you only need about 1/4 more turn. With continued rotation between the last step of the fleckerl and 1 of natural, and considering that you want to have a good strong right side leading going into step one of the natural, you really do only need about 1/4 more on the fleckerl itself. And really, 1/4 more turn over the course of 12 steps shouldn't be too difficult.

As an exercise, you can work on increasing the amount of rotation per step by dancing fleckerls to slow waltz. Take the time on each and every step to do slightly more rotation than you are naturally inclined to, by staying slightly longer and swiveling the standing foot before placing the next step.

Don't worry about speed, being to slow for viennese music, etc. Peoples' biggest pitfall in fast dances like VW and Quicktep is being too fast, and not taking the time to develop movements.

Slow roast 'em... You'll improve your technique, you'll get the needed rotation, and I guarantee you'll have no problem getting them up to speed with the music when the time comes.

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

Thank you very much for your instruction, Now I can memorize the steps.

But could you please tell me usually how many times to dance the fleckerl?

Best regards,

rumbalei

Keh: Correct. 3 forward runs (which essentially ends up being cross-step-cross) followed by a side-cross(behind)-side action. The last measure of the natural fleckerls is side-cross-side, and it is followed by the Natural Turn. I suppose you could also do a RF closed change, but with all of that rotation, why bother breaking the flow?

I see a lot of people these days also just skip the reverse fleckerls, and just take their reverse turn to the middle of the room and dance straight into a contra check, followed by the natural fleckerls. I've even seen a couple begin the entire dance with the contra check to natural fleckerls. But that's about the only variation you can get out of it... you really don't have a lot of options with these things.

Regards,
Jonathan

Thank you so much for your reply.

1. Sometimes I just dont know when to put my left foot behind or right foot behind the other foot when dancing the fleckerel in the second beat of each bar, is there some rules to memorize?

2. Could you tell me how much times usually to dance the fleckerel? I usually dance 4 times (8 bars)reverse fleckerel and then a contra check then 4 times (8 bars) natural fleckerel.

Best regards,

rumbalei

1. I really like the way you use run, run, run to describe cross, side, cross in fleckerl.

2. Now I have seen at least 3 different ways to spell fleckerl, can you point out once for all the correct spelling?

3. Upon finished dancing the fleckerl, at times I found myself in a position that my back is towards LOD, so it was easier to do a RF back closed change. ( Sorry, in my previous post I mistakenly typed LF in stead ). What could it be that I don't ended up facing LOD after fleckerl?

Regards,

Keh Gough

Keh Gough