I start a new one, because the later postings have narrow width . This is a continuation of the same title by Dave and last post on 12/15, 2005.
I am new to dance, only about three years. I started by taking lessons at community centre as at my age (over 60), I treat this as an excise for body maintenance and for fun. Later I was hooked and beginning to take lessons from real dance studio. I came to this site over a year ago. Learned a lot from the rich info the site provided (thanks Jonathan) and this dancetalk.
English is my second language and my typing speed is terrible. But this time I want to contribute some thoughts to ask few questions some other beginners may share.
For people never taking dance lesson before to do a forward walk, most of them will walk similar to this site's learning centre shows (may be the heel of moving foot not sliding along the floor). But if ask them to move the foot sideways that foot will landed flat not on toe as Waltz's 2nd step ask for. Same for the 3rd step of closing. So we do have to learn how to place our feet, where and WHEN.
The time the foot landed is a very clear and defined instance, so is the very beginning of a music beat we heard. We beginners sort of automatically associate them together as the step timing. Now you experts say step one in Waltz is the moving leg just pass the standing leg (RF) (by Dave 12/14) or (RF have to land on previous beat 3&). That is very difficult to do even on the paper. Say step 2 will be LF side slightly forward & RF (a) just leave floor? (b) half way close to LF? (c) close near LF? And how to define step 3? Of cause one can say this: step 1 (RF just landed) on 3&, step 2 (LF just landed) on 1& and step 3 (RF just landed) on 2&. Or the actual foot steps half beat time ahead of music beats.
Now come to Foxtrot. Since step sheep says step 1 slow, step 2 quick, step 3 quick. I was doing: my RF landed on beat 1, moving my LF slowly to arrive on beat 3 (T), moving my RF to land on beat 4 (TH). After reading this discussion 2 times I still don't have clear idea of how to dance it right. Some one mentioned dance step 1 on beat 2, but then it seems to come to QQS just like David had mentioned at very beginning. I make a table below. That is how I understand "slow" and "quick". Hope someone can correct me and tell more about how to dance Foxtrot right, preferable associate foot landing with music's beats.

Music beats---3---4---1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4---1---2
Dance steps--pre-----1--------2---3---1--------2---3---1-----
Foot landed----L--------R-------L---R---L-------R---L---R----
Count as--------S--------S------Q---Q---S-------Q---Q---S----


Music beats---3---4---1---2---3---4---1---2---3---4---1---2
Dance steps------pre------1---2---3--------1---2---3--------1--
Foot landed---------L-------R---L---R-------L---R---L-------R--
Count as-------------S------Q---Q---S-------Q--Q---S--------Q--