This is about as usefull as arguing over if the week starts on Sunday or Monday...

Anonymous I don't think so. Ballroom Dancing has a great history. I doubt if any Ballet student thinks that Pavalova was a cake.

It's a pointless argument because both written descriptions result in the same dancing.

If you want to argue about something, argue about something where there's a difference of opinion as to what you should actually do.

I know nothing about the book but if you use the Step,Swing ,drift principle in the feather step you have to finish in the down position on the RF . To stay up on the toes is not the completion of the drift and therefor not the completion of the whole movement.

"I know nothing about the book but if you use the Step,Swing ,drift principle in the feather step you have to finish in the down position on the RF . To stay up on the toes is not the completion of the drift and therefor not the completion of the whole movement."

That is not the completion either, as you are by then starting to make a new swing.

See Douglass Adams...

If you want to find an ending - ie stop, you have to do an inefficient halfway rise - to the point where your motive energy has been converted/dissipated, but your feet are still flat on the ground. We see this in the hesitation figures... A prep step is the act of lowering from such a position to build up speed and begin the normal swing cycle.

Ha,the chicken or the egg.Do we lower to rise or rise to lower? I do know if I have to stop in a competition because someone is in the way I would rather be in the up position than the down, but that may be an indication of a major falt in my dancing

"I do know if I have to stop in a competition because someone is in the way I would rather be in the up position than the down, but that may be an indication of a major falt in my dancing "

No, actually it's an indication that your reflexes are tuned to the physics of the situation even if you aren't fully aware of the why. When you are up you are moving slower or potentially not at all (foot closure) and so you can wait there, or if necesssary lower vertically with no horizontal motion to a hesitation type of position.

But when you have swung down you must be moving and would have to do somewhat ungraceful (in terms of coordination, especially with partner) things to stop.

A detail many people are probably overlooking is that the rise and the fall of the three step formally happens over the course of only two steps, not three.

It is most common to give figures commencing from the rising step and possible tack something onto the end to indicate what follows.

Dave. I'm begginning to understand why the Feather Step has that extra step, when you wrote about being down at the end of step three.

Annonymous,pleas use a different pen name.Thanks