We have been debating at our studio the best way to teach Slow Foxtrot for the first time to relative beginners.

We are agreed that we wouldn't tackle the dance at all until we had covered the other swing dances to a reasonable standard, but then opinions diverge over a methodology of introducing figures and amalgamations, that could be used in dancing socially.

We tend to start with a Feather Step, Three Step, Feather Step pattern along LOD, with a Change of Direction used as a simple corner figure (and we worry about dancing THAT figure correctly, later on) before continuing the basic pattern on the new LOD.

May I canvass opinion (from teachers, mainly!) as to what they would do next? My view is that there's no getting away from introducing the Heel Turn and working on the basic amalgamation of Feather Step, Reverse Turn, Three Step & Natural Turn, but there are alternatives, and I would be interested in others' experience.

This is what I was taught many years ago: Feather step, Three step, Feather step, Three step,....

And this is what I have been teaching too. However, my students were feeling bored, they found the heel-toe-toe, heel-heel-toe pattern monotonous and muddling.

So one day I decided to change my way of thinking and introduced a basic amalgamation: Feather step (to DW), 1-4 Reverse Turn checked to Basic Weave, Three Step, Closed Impetus (in the corner), Feather Finish, Three Step, Natural Turn.

The students found it enjoyable, felt they were really dancing, worked hard and got it!!!

It is wrong to think that a Heel Turn is something unachievable. Just explain it patiently, no rush, repeat it as many times as necessary and let matters take their course.

The important thing is that your class will work knowing that what they are trying to learn is real dance, not just repeating two basic figures.

P.S. I think the Change of Direction is a more difficult figure to explain than a Heel Turn

Oh, I agree. Heel Turns are frequently badly danced by social dancers with many years' experience anyway, so I think it quite OK for beginners to turn almost any way they like (just to start with), as long as they turn, get their feet together and rise out of the figure.

I can't come up with a convincing FT amalgamation that avoids HTs altogether, anyway, so think that the class might as well just get on with it.

I agree too, that a Change of Direction can be viewed as a more difficult figure, but it can be fudged, quite successfully, just to get around a corner, and we do dance it properly quite quickly.