It would take a day for me to type its history- will be as succinct as poss.
First-- NO q/step initially--- it had peabody in its syllabus which is what many believe is the template for Q.S.
Q.S. was added to the Gold in the mid fifties .
The sylabus contains dances that most have never heard of , let alone seen -- Balboa-- Guaracha and Peabody for e.g. .
The american system was formalised by A. Murray pre 1939 . After the war, several people contributed to its update and annotation in Amer. style-- notably Lore Haille.
The current stucture is based upon the english medal system, and was implemented by Archie Dixon ( former Scot. champ ) brought over to the toronto studio in the early fifties .
He laid out the Intern. syllabus for the " chain ".The amer.was in place .
As to the Comp. side-- i was instrumental, in introducing intra studio comps in LA in the early sixties-- regional comps were already very common .In fact, my last prof comp. was in 1961 at the regional in LA ( 32 studios-- was at the Palladium --- Tito Punte was the Latin band !!)
Since those days, both the F/A and A/m chains, have been highly prominent in the comp world, and have produced several world class dancers-- notably Joe jenkins with nancy and Larry silvers with Betty-- (joe was third in the world in '72 and larry was 8th in latin ) both in Intern , style .
I was their original coach before they hit the big time .
The prime reason that the system grew and survived ?-- Pro/ am-- that ,is now being promoted by the WDC, and had a very successful event last yr in ARG.(? )
