Dear everyone
I'm a little confused right now. I took international style ballroom dancing as an extra-curricular activity at university in South Africa for about 4 or 5 years, and then again in London for a year. The steps, syllabus etc. was obviously the same. Recently, back in South Africa, I've started taking classes from a franchise studio in what I assumed was American style ballroom. It's a very popular American franchise, but I don't know if I'm allowed to say the name. Anyway, here comes the confusion: The technique I've been learning in this franchise doesn't look anything like the American style technique showed in the videos on this website! For instance, I've been taught to give small forward and backward steps in the waltz, while in the videos on this site, these are long steps. Actually, most of the time the studio seems to be really set on small steps (which for me, with my dancing background, is difficult!), but I don't see the dancers on the videos on this site giving such small steps.
And a few other things I've noticed, like for instance where I've been taught absolutely not to step on my whole foot on a backward step -- in the Cha-cha, I think -- the lady in the video steps back on her whole foot. What syllabus have I been learning? Help?

Some teachers/studios start people out with a scaled down version of Waltz. Step length and rise/fall are minimized. The videos on this site are correct. Where we dance, unforetunately most people never get past this scaled down Waltz.

We were lucky and had teachers who pushed big steps and rise/fall, early on in our lessons. That resulted in Waltz/Foxtrot becoming our favorite dances.

Try not to take big steps with the feet, instead try to move the body. If the body moves a lot, the step will end up bigger, but because it had to be to support the body. Wheras if you just move your foot a long way, all you've done is moved your foot - when what you should have done was sent your body.