"You've lost me in a couple of places there. Next time I go dancing I will take my calculator with me. I still cannot see how a dancer of any standard can't get his two quicks on the beat."
Counbt the number of video frames between when the man's weight arrives on his left toe for the first quick, and when it arrives on his right toe for the second quick. On Mirko's video it is 23 or 24 in each of the first three measures. One beat on that video is 15 frames, therefore we can clearly see that the time between the quicks is a BEAT AND A HALF.
Two things seperated by a beat and a half CANNOT POSSIBLY BOTH BE ON THE BEAT!
"How far behind will that make the first step of the Reverse."
Perhaps you were not aware of this, but foxtrot slows land much closer to their second beat than to their first. The properly danced final quick does indeed steal time out of the next slow - but that is the way it is SUPPOSED TO BE.
And it's clearly what all of the top dancers are doing.
"We are out of time with the music."
Declare all of the worlds best dancers to be off time. Go right ahead. There are things I can readily point out that nobody gets right, so it is your right to make that claim also.
"I'll bet the guy who was being taught that all the steps were an equall length is tearing his hair."
It turns out to be much closer to the truth than what you believe. The first quick is shorter, but the second quick is often the longe
"So that I get this straight. Are you saying that the first step has two beats. The next step has one beat. ( that leaves one beat left over ) are you saying that the next step takes a beat and a half. You only have one beat."
No, the first step only gets about a beat and half. Actually even less than that. The second quick is the longest duration of the three steps.
Before you go screaming that this is wrong, keep in mind that what we have measured is not the duratin of the official "steps" but rather the time between the weight changes. The official steps (what are supposed to be SQQ) must be measued instead between the times when the feet pass.
But for the purposes of refuting you mistaken claim that both quicks land on the beat, we look at the time between the weight landings, rather than between the official step boundaries.
"You are out of time."
That the part that you just don't understand. You started the thread by pointing out how someone had said to accent the third beat, and I immediately responded that the accent was the fact that the third beat is the only one that has a step land on it. And now we have video timings to PROVE it.
I can see the source of your confusion though. You still dance the second quick of a feather as a beginner might, by placing the foot under your nearly stationary body. That small distance and near lack of any body flight during the quick means that it will have to be a short step - in both distance and in time. If you look at someone like Mirko, his third step is huge, because his body keeps moving and because he DELAYS THE PLACEMENT AND LANDING OF THE MOVING FOOT until his body has traveled a large distance. His step is big, and takes at least a beat and a half to execute. Yours is small and takes only a beat. But nobody is going to claim that you are on time and he is off, because he is on time in the WAY THAT MATTERS FOR FOXTROT.