Hello Jonathan,I would also like to say that I value your videos very much. Since you mention new ones, can I ask when those might appear? And the additional "standing" videos, i.e., such as the "Featured Steps" for the samba, that haven't been posted yet? Please take this as some encouragement to get them up! It's easy for us to take for granted the work that goes into them, and so maybe its important to let you know it *IS* appreciated. I've been visiting your site for years, and it's been helping me improve my dancing from the start -- and your standing archives and variations clips have been a foundation of that improvement. Thank you, and please keep up the good work

Hi, thanks for the comments.

You're right, black stinks. Actually, that's a fact I've been aware of for quite a while now. I try to avoid it for the most part, but the weekly variations in t he past have been filmed wherever and whenever I was able to talk a couple into performing. This has occasionally meant that I took a couple on the spur of the moment, in whatever they happened to be wearing at the time.

I rarely film un-planned variations anymore, so you'll be happy to know that it's been a long time since I've filmed anybody in black pants. If you happen to catch such a variation again, know that like the Rumba video you just commented about, it's probably a rerun of an old, old variation, and it's probably on its last run.

As time goes on, I've been slowly weeding out the oldest and least popular variations. For every new variation I film, I remove one old one from the pool, so that as time goes on, the quality continues to increase, while the size of the arsenal stays the same.

You will also be happy to know that we are actually filming our first set of instructional VHS videos this weekend, and in honor of the occasion, I had a suit tailored in the perfect shade of tannish-gray. The same suit will also be used for all new video clips I film from now on. I'll post a picture of it as soon as we finish the shoot this weekend and I get a chance to capture a still from the video.

Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

Jonathan, thanks for the reply. The video clips are the best part of this site and are actually an inspiration to become a better dancer. I have also learned some new steps from this site. Keep up the good work. thanks Ken