"To add to that we have stepping on one as an introduction."

Very unusual. I suspect that your extreme confusion about foxtrot timing leads you to erroneously conclude that this is happening, in cases where careful measurement of the timing will prove it isn't. I won't say it's never done, but it is extremely, extremely rare,

"Both Mirko and Soale step on one on this tape."

Nope, you are simply wrong. Don't guess, MEASURE THE INTERVALS BETWEEN THEIR STEPS, and you will find that they take an entire measure of time to dance the SQQ. You simply get confused because they redistribute the timing within those three steps, and because the time period starts slightly after the beginning of the bar, and doesn't end until slightly after the begininng of the next bar.

"I think you will find that on an instruction tape they will all teach normal timing which is an introduction step on 3 4. and 1 2 on the first of the Feather."

They aren't going to screw up their dancing just to satisfy your odd idea of timing. Take a loot at their timing, frame by frame, and you will see that you are wrong.

Here's a nother bigshot for you: Sinkinson and Jorgensen at Blackpool 98. Slower music than Mirko, but same sequence figures:

Feather:
step one 21
step two 19
step three 30

Reverse:
step one 20
step two 17
step three 30

F. Finish:
step one 21
step two 17
step three 31

Notice that Sinkinson's second quick is even more drawn out than Gozzoli's. It's the BETTER PART OF TWO BEATS LONG!!
If his first quick lands on the third beat as everyone assumes it should be, that puts the second quick landing most of the way to beat one of the next measure!

So tell me, how much longer are you going to go on BLINDLY IGNORING THE FACTS IN UNIVERSAL EVIDENCE???????

Forget about frame by frame. Do we measure the speed of a racing car at Salt Lakes frame by frame. Of course we don't
If at 30 bars a minute we have two seconds for each bar, four beats. Then if I dance a Slow as two beats. There is something wrong if I can't get the next two Quicks on the remaining two beats. Anybody can do that walking or dancing. Can't they. But if I am a competitor my musical expression takes over.They do play around with the music to suit themselves. Don't they.
The original thread simply quoted from a lecture given by Irvine in which he taught to accentuate the first quick. Then suddenly there you are frame by frame. Later it was added that if we get the two quicks on the beat with the music the slows will look after themselves. Which they will.Which in its self is a good lesson and makes the pupil listen to the music.Isn't that right. Heaven knows what your theories are on a Quarter Turn and Progressive Chasse in the Quickstep. I think I might have difficulty not stepping on the beat.
Incidently Billy Irvines first quick and Len Scrivener's thoughts seem to compliment each other in the Foxtrot. Don't they.

"Forget about frame by frame. Do we measure the speed of a racing car at Salt Lakes frame by frame. Of course we don't"

Yes, actually you do - if you are for example trying to see who won.

You want to ignore the frame by frame analysis because it PROVES YOU WRONG.

"If at 30 bars a minute we have two seconds for each bar, four beats. Then if I dance a Slow as two beats. There is something wrong if I can't get the next two Quicks on the remaining two beats."
Anybody can do that walking or dancing. Can't they. But if I am a competitor my musical expression takes over.They do play around with the music to suit themselves. Don't they."

Which means that in fact, no skilled dancer does dance the slow as two beats. But they do dance the SQQ as precisely four beats.

And there is your mistake. You see Sinkinson or Gozzoli drawing out the prep step into the first measure. If you were to do that, you would still try to end your second quick at the end of the first measure - you would shortchange it and have danced the prep step plus the feather as QQQQ.

But that's not what the video proves them to be doing - instead, if you count the frames, you will find that they draw out the third step of the feather exactly as far into the second measure as the prep step carried over into the first measure.

They give the three steps of the feather step four whole beats, just not aligned with the barlines. But if you dance the same prep step they did, you would cut the feather's three steps short so as to still end on the barline - a very beginner mistake.

"The original thread simply quoted from a lecture given by Irvine in which he taught to accentuate the first quick. Then suddenly there you are frame by frame. Later it was added that if we get the two quicks on the beat with the music the slows will look after themselves."

Actually you are putting things out of order. You quote Irvine's comment, but you also added a wildly inaccurate guess about what it meant. You were correctd about that immediately

You then brought up the beginner idea of putting both quicks on the beat, and were corrected about that.

Only then did we get into the frame by frame analysis measurements - to PROVER WHY YOU ARE WRONG - they show that the time between the quicks is at least a beat and a half, and in some cases almost two beats.

"I think I might have difficulty not stepping on the beat."

I think so to - and it's clear this is why you still can't understand foxtrot. Foxtrot is not about stepping on the beat, it is not about stepping at all - it is about moving the BODY in time with the music. You have to stop thinking about the moving leg and start thinking about the BODY, or you will never get beyond the level at which you have so long been stuck.

"Incidently Billy Irvines first quick and Len Scrivener's thoughts seem to compliment each other in the Foxtrot. Don't they."

To a degree, yes.

If you'd give up on your mistaken desire to put the second quick on the beat, you might eventually learn this dance.

If you can tell me of any tape or teacher of dancing who teaches what you are writting then I will stand corrected.. I'll be waiting a long time wont I. At least you have got rid of that idea that the body is in front of the feet. Must have been when you watched frame by frame.Isn't that right.
Do you ever listen to yourself.
Here you are taking a class A bronze Medal Class. You explain that the music is four beats to a bar. The Feather step up to the third step takes one bar of music. Now class make sure you don't step on the beats. I mean do I need to go on.
I think you might have danced a lot without music. I could almost guarantee that you have difficulty staying in time with the music when it is playing.

I'm catching up with this posting. It's very interesting.
Even at my modest level of dancing i would not use the strict S-Q-Q (2 beats - 1 beat - 1 beat)structure for the foxtrot feather. I tend to dance it 1.5, 1.5, 1. I do this because it feels much nicer. I try to 'hover' a little on the second step (i.e. before i place my right foot in CBMP). This is expecially true for the reverse turn and definitely for the reverse wave. In a lecture, sinkinson explained that he almosat dances the reverse wave as Q, S, Q . This is probably because the second step is the showy one, and he wants to make it last as pong as he can.
I think i'm generally, but not exactly, with anonymous here when he wrote some time back
""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.""
The preparation step (i assume this means the driving step off the left foot which would be done at the start of a routine going into a feather step - this is what we do)is most definitely taken on beat 4, with the first step of the feather with the right foot being on beat 1.

but i would like to clarify one thing. Especially about anonymous's figures, which are very interesting. These measurements (which are in frames but easily converted into beats) - how did you measure them exactly? I count the first 'slow' as the interval in time between placing my right foot on beat 1 and placing my left foot on ''beat 3'' (except it's not beat 3, but i hope you know what i mean). Applying this to your figures gives 1.5 beats for this first 'slow'. Is this how you did the measurements?

"but i would like to clarify one thing. Especially about anonymous's figures, which are very interesting. These measurements (which are in frames but easily converted into beats) - how did you measure them exactly? I count the first 'slow' as the interval in time between placing my right foot on beat 1 and placing my left foot on ''beat 3'' (except it's not beat 3, but i hope you know what i mean). Applying this to your figures gives 1.5 beats for this first 'slow'. Is this how you did the measurements?"

Actually I did it the other way.

First we need to recognize that when we measure to the placement of the feet, we are not measure the durations of the official steps at all, as those would have to be measured between the points when the feet pass.

What I measured was the time during which the foot which takes a step is the moving foot. So for example, for the first step, I measured the time between the weighting of the prep step (left foot) to the weighting of the first step (right foot).

That's of course a matter of choice. It doesn't really matter if you assign the intervals to the step that ends them or the step that starts them.

The whole reason I got into measuring intervals was to prove that the interval between the "quicks" is far longer than the one beat quickstep insists it should be.

Hi anonymous
When you say "the time during which the the foot which takes a step is the moving foot" i think that would be slightly different from the time between the weighting of the feet. However, i think it's close enough to how i visualize it to make negligible difference.
On another point - when you say it doesn't matter if you assign the intervals to the step that ends them or the step that starts them - i think perhaps you didn't mean to say this. When we say a 'slow' we surely mean that the interval to the following step is a slow - not the interval from the previous step.
I agree that the 'official 'steps start when the feet pass, that's why these sorts of discussions can be very confusing. However, i generally think (and measure from a video if i'm doing this)of 'steps' starting from the placement of the foot. There's been this discussion before but all the slow waltz videos (and dance competitors) i've eve watched placed their feet on the beats. i know foxtrot is a subtle dance and it's not so simple as this.
One thing though is for sure - i don't normally place my steps exactly on the beats in foxtrot when i'm dancing well. We start our comp routine with the classic feather - reverse turn - feather finish - 3 step - natural turn and in all of those figures i'm getting onto the first quick (nominally beat 3) about half a beat early. It feels right that way.

"On another point - when you say it doesn't matter if you assign the intervals to the step that ends them or the step that starts them - i think perhaps you didn't mean to say this. When we say a 'slow' we surely mean that the interval to the following step is a slow - not the interval from the previous step."

No, I really meant that it doesn't matter - because neither one of these intervals is the slow. Instead, the interal between feet passing is the slow. When we speak of intervals between step placing/weighting, assigning them to the previous step vs assigning them to the next step is purely a matter of personal opinion, because officially they straddle the boundary between steps.

"I agree that the 'official 'steps start when the feet pass, that's why these sorts of discussions can be very confusing. However, i generally think (and measure from a video if i'm doing this)of 'steps' starting from the placement of the foot."

Yes, most people initialy do that - but I hope you are starting to see why it's counterproductive in foxtrot. I mean really, are you going to time your steps to a fraction of beat requiring two decimal places? No - you are going to time the overall movement of your body to match the overall progress of the music.

"There's been this discussion before but all the slow waltz videos (and dance competitors) i've eve watched placed their feet on the beats. i know foxtrot is a subtle dance and it's not so simple as this."

Exactly - foxtrot is not waltz. Or maybe we should say, foxtrot music is not waltz music. The steps are much more similar between the dances than the music is. A plausible model (though not a very good one) is to say that we dance waltz's three steps against foxtrot's for beats. That's not really right... but its probably more accurate than trying to literally interpret SQQ would be.

"One thing though is for sure - i don't normally place my steps exactly on the beats in foxtrot when i'm dancing well. We start our comp routine with the classic feather - reverse turn - feather finish - 3 step - natural turn and in all of those figures i'm getting onto the first quick (nominally beat 3) about half a beat early. It feels right that way."

Well, I'd recommend you try to hit that third beat right one as doing that is rather common advice. To do it, you will probably need to draw out your second quick so that you are starting your initial slows later. Wheras most people waist a lifetime starting the slow too early and then trying to wait for the music to catch up to them so that they can put the first quick on beat three. Don't get ahead of the music and wait for it to catch up to you, let yourself get "fashionably late" so that you can drive to catch up to the music.

In the Waltz, emphasis on the first beat is where the downward action to begin the swing to the second beat occurs. The swing is important in order to allow the lady to come thru the "door" you opening for her. Nothing happens on the third beat except your are collecting yourself to drop into the one again. In the Foxtrot its important drop down on the slow(first and second beats) to create the swing on the third beat in order to "swing" the lady thru on the finish on the four beat. It's really all about where the swing action happens.

"In the Waltz, emphasis on the first beat is where the downward action to begin the swing to the second beat occurs. The swing is important in order to allow the lady to come thru the "door" you opening for her. Nothing happens on the third beat except your are collecting yourself to drop into the one again. In the Foxtrot its important drop down on the slow(first and second beats) to create the swing on the third beat in order to "swing" the lady thru on the finish on the four beat. It's really all about where the swing action happens."

Mike, you have the right idea, but you are describing the downswing about a half step to a step later than where it needs to happen.

By the time you actually take place the first step of each figure, you need to be going up, not down - the swing from the first step to the second is upwards. You are right that it's power comes from a downswing, but that downswing happens during the third or final step of the previous measure, reaching it's lowest point when your legs are apart before you arrive on step one.