I notice that your quickstep syllabus includes the quarter turn to the left (heel pivot). I'm curious about this becuase I'm getting conflicting views on whether or not heel pivots are part of the associate syllabus. Your site includes it; Aria's dance pages do not. A DanceVision QS syllabus video with Victor and Heather does not. "The Revised Technique" does, but it includes the note: "the heel pivot need not be danced in lower grade tests." So obviously, I am confused. If you or anyone else could set me straight on this, I'd be grateful. Jonathan, thank you for making such a great website.

B. Collision

The I.S.T.D. book indicates that the heel pivot is "acceptable" for examinations, which means that it won't be a part of the oral or written exam, but can be used during a freestyle demonstration if desired.

More and more U.S. competitions are providing step lists these days as a guide for competitors. In the International style, the list usually outlines the ISTD syllabus, not including the "named variations" such as the heel pivot. For this reason, I would tend to avoid using it during a competition. You could probably get away with it, but it's not really worth the risk.

We created our step checklist for the purpose of helping teachers and students to monitor their progress with syllabus figures. We included the named variations simply to give people the option to include them, since they do exist in the syllabus (even if most people don't use them).

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson www.ballroomdancers.com