I see from different dancing documents that a figure in this document is Gold, but in others, it is Silver or disappears. Could anybody tell me the most recently ISTD syllabus. Thank you a lot.

Waltz2u

Yes, for Latin dances, there are 5 books. One for each dance.

You guys mentioned all those other places, and you didn't even bother to throw in a plug for our own website? What happened to the love?

Ok, I guess I'll have to do it myself...

Ballroomdancers.com has the ISTD Ballroom and Latin tech books. See our store: www.ballroomdancers.com/Shopping/

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

Sorry, Jonathan. I think as Keh said, we assumed that lovetodance had already checked here. Plus I don't keep track of which online stores sell what, so I just pointed out the most obvious answer -- get the books from the publisher. You know we all enjoy this web site.

As for the color of the books, lovetodance, yes, the ISTD standard/modern technique book is gray and has waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, and tango. Viennese waltz is a separate publication by the ISTD, basically what looks like a bunch of photocopied pages stapled together with a blue paper cover. Nothing really special, but I got it for completeness. The latin (or latin american as the ISTD likes to call it) books are red and there's one for each separate dance, five total. The change from one latin book to five happened with the revisions a few years ago. The IDTA books, should you care, are both hardcover with paper slip covers -- the standard has a blue cover and the latin has a red cover. I forget what the color of the actual covers themselves are though.

--
James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall

You could spring for the latest technique books (the Latin ones have jst been redone to have a book per dance). The last change in the Modern syllabus that I know of was a few years ago. The Latin changes are still pretty new.

If you don't want to buy, go to the source on the web - www.usistd.org has a step list under Standards/Steps (in the left menu).

The reason you won't find certain figures listed in the new syllabus is because they're considered developments of other figures. The developments are listed under their more basic/standard figure and aren't given their own separate slot in the syllabus. I'm not aware of a specific combination called Underarm Turn and Split Cuban Breaks. Split Cuban Breaks should be listed as a development of plain Cuban Breaks though. Underarm Turns are listed, I believe, as a development on Spot Turns (as are Switch Turns). A couple of possible "missing" figures from a check of my notes would be rumba's Kiki Walks (dev. of Progressive Walks), Alemana with R to R hand hold (dev. of Alemana), Syncopated Cuban Rocks (dev. of Cuban Rocks). I'm sure there are others, but those are a few old syllabus figures I remember from rumba that became new syllabus developments.

The ISTD latin syllabus changes were done just a few years ago, 1998-2000. The standard syllabus hasn't changed in a long time. My copy of the book is from 1994, but it's a reprint (with ammendments). Some ammendments were also made in the 1993 reprint, but the newest listed edition/revision is the 10th from 1982. Viennese waltz isn't in that book, but it's been the same for as long as I can remember (which I'm sure isn't as long as some). A short e-mail exchange with the USISTD indicated there were some figure shifts a few years back, but I didn't get an exact year. Closed Changes Backward moved down from silver to bronze and the Reverse Fleckerl moved down from gold to silver. There's talk of adding some figures to V.waltz now, too, but that's a separate topic. BTW, I think the comparison Keh mentions is this file:
http://www.eijkhout.net/rad/data/istd_itda.html
a combined ISTD/IDTA syllabus from the rec.arts.dance FAQ. Also, you can drop the #lat from the istd_syl.html link and go to the top of the page if you want, instead of going directly to the latin section of it.

--
James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall

You can also order the books directly from the ISTD (http://www.istd.org/) or the IDTA (http://www.idta.co.uk/). That's what I did. It turned out that even with the overseas shipping this was cheaper than buying them from most places here in the States. You might also want to try a local dance studio. I know that one studio in my area sells the ISTD technique books, so you might be able to find one in your area that does as well.

--
James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall

Lovetodance,

Those are not American Style books on our website. They are Int'l style. The confusion stems from the fact that they are entitle "Latin American Technique", however, the word American in this case does not mean American style. "Latin America" is where the Latin dances originated, before they were modified in Europe to what is now known as the Int'l style.

Don't blame me for the poor choice of title... the ISTD is responsible for naming the books.

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

Thank you all, Dronak, Keh Gough, and Jonathan.
Finally my confusion was cleared up. The title "Latin American Technique" is somewhat confusing.
ltd

I have checked the Ballroomdancer's com for the ISTD syllabus you are discussing, but I only found the list of American style latin books. Would you, someone, tell me how to purchase the ISTD syllabus for Latin dances in US?

Thank you.
ltd