Yeah I agree with Ladydance on this one.

You know, I would think that it would have been easy for me to come into a discussion board, offer my help and not have people jump down my throat. I'd like some of you to take a moment to stand in my shoes. Honestly I will try answering your questions to the best of my ability, but if you could try to understand where I'm coming from, it would be helpful. As a teacher, I know that it is easy for something to be explained in a confusing way. Because I do not know how each of you learn, it is difficult for me to explain things in a way you all can understand them because EVERYONE learns differently. Please tell me if you disagree with that. Working with you at a studio is an entirely different situation from writing on a forum. I am surprised at how rude and immature some of these people are. So, since you do not want my help, I will not give it. I do not like to brag about how long I've been dancing or how much I know, but you can be sure that what I had to say would've been helpful to you. Maybe the forum would actually grow more if the people in it weren't so rude.

"You know, I would think that it would have been easy for me to come into a discussion board, offer my help and not have people jump down my throat."

You know, you would have gotten a lot better reaction if you had spent some time reading the posts that were already here before jumping in and acting as if your presence would revolutionize things.



If you would try to understand what is already here, you would realize that there are many ready to answer questions to the best of their ability. When such questions naturally occur.



Many of the "questions" you have been offered so far are test of your knowledge, asked by people who already know the answers very well...

You will also discover with time that some here have highly specific ideas of what words mean - for example, when terence asks what your qualifications are, he means specifically which teaching society(s) you have been certified-by-examination in, because that is what the word means to him.



Instead of promoting yourself, just wait until an ordinary question crops up by itself, and then join in the answers if you have something to contribute.

This forum is awash with dancers who love nothing better than to share their 'erudition'. Mostly, they write complete rubbish, and very badly at that, but it is all good clean fun. Presumably having failed to make any significant mark in the rather vulgar world of Dancesport, they hope to 'shine' here instead. Big fish in a small pond, perhaps?

It sounds as though we will never know whether YOU know your stuff. We don't even know whether you have any teaching qualification - that would have been an easy one to answer. Presumably you have your own reason for ducking out.

I may be wrong, but I rather suspect this was an attempt to drum up business. Although I've got nothing against people trying to make a living, I rather like the perhaps old-fashioned idea that not everything in life has a price-tag on it.

My question about the lockstep was at least in part genuine, in the sense that I am not sure of the answer. But I am pleased to read that someone (Terrence I think) deemed all questions posed in this thread (presumably including mine) to be easily answerable in writing !

"How does the man lead a lock to get the lady to cross rather than step back."

The trajectory of movement must be one that takes her body (and thus free leg) across in front of her standing foot rather than behind it.

But with many less experienced dancers they will tend to do whatever they think they are supposed to, in ignorance of what they are feeling from you. That may be a pragmatic reaction to dancing with equally inexperienced partners who aren't clearly leading the desired nuances. You most likely won't be able to lead both options (or really all three, as a chasse closure is possible too with a little more rise) until they have experienced all as possibilities in that dance.

Does all this mean I am not going to get an answer from InstructorTG to my question? I'm shattered. So, "ask any question" didn't realy mean that. You could delete the whole thread and save further embarrassment,or answer the questions.

Anymouse. Is the purpose of the slightly leftwards component of the man'second step of the forward lock to generate that trajectory ?

"Anymouse. Is the purpose of the slightly rightwards component of the man'second step of the forward lock to generate that trajectory ?"

Not literally.

To the man's right would be the wrong direction for the trajectory, it would need to be to his left to cause a lock.

However, if the foot on the second step swung to the right of his body trajectory, then continuing the body trajectory on the third step would result in a lock relative to that standing foot position.

But where is this slightly rightwards component described? I must admit I'm not seeing it.

sorry - i meant leftwards not rightwards - i'll go back & modify that earlier post.

i take it, had i not made that typo, that your answer would have been a more emphatic "no".

but my thinking was that this might function as a way of pulling the lady's body rightwards and with it the trailing LF going into step 3, which would then be quite naturally brought to a crossed position. this would also explain why the lady's step 2 would be RF back (as opposed to back and sl rightwards): the key physical cue from the man comes from his body moving in the direction of his placed foot on step 2, not from the placement per se, ie there is no cue until after foot placement and the lady would therefore have no reason to make step 2 anything other than a normal backward step. and it might also explain some of the variations on foot positions in other figures with locks, such as the V6, in the sense there might be scope for leading the lock in other ways in those figures. any mileage here d'ya think ?