Your statement that " everyone learns diff. " has little or no bearing on a TECHNICAL answer ,which is required by pretty much all the Q posed.

And , why you evade simple Q about your background, gives rise to suspicion.. Your responses, to date, lack the authority of a seasoned prof.

I wonder if Taylor (InstructorTG) is the same person as one with a similar name (Taylor 1990) who recently (last few days) joined the opposition - US Dance Forums - reading through his posts there, and blog (to which there is a link), there seems to be a distinct Arthur Murray connection.

InsructorTG. Foxtrot or Quickstep. Am i right in saying that todays dancers when they pick up the music, count 5 6 7 8. stepping of on 8 as an introduction step of one beat, which is a quick, leaving the 1 2 slow for the first of the Feather. Which brings me to is the first bar of music heavier than the second and in that order from then on. Otherwise how would i know which is 1234 and which is 5678.
Maybe Jonathan might like to come in on this one.

Each individual bar of music has the same basic stress pattern, so can't be 'heavier' than any other: but a series of bars (typically eight) very often forms a musical phrase, and IT has a structure, which depending on the music may, or may not, lend itself to sub-division into two 4-bar units, and again, into four 2-bar units.

Phrasing can get difficult in many dances, and Foxtrot is one of the hardest. If I commence a FT amalgamation with a LF Walk taken on a weak (or upbeat), so as to make the RF Fwd Heel lead into a Feather fall on the accented first beat, and then continue with a Reverse Turn, Three Step and Natural Turn, I find myself taking the final LF fwd of the Natural (after the Heel Pull) on beats 1/2 of bar seven, leaving me to repeat the pattern (if I do repeat it) with all the Heel leads falling in the middle of bars, and with no chance of fitting the figures to the musical phrasing.

Beginner dancers may know no other figures for some time, and will never be able to fit what they know into strict 8-bar units, but then, why would they want to? They aren't robots.

InstructorTG should hang in there with us. It's a discussion board, and a new instructor, regardless of credentials, has every right to join in. I liked your answer regarding how to tell the man to envision the rise in the Feather Step. I've used some variation of that in the past, but I always like different ideas or ways to show/tell someone about a step or the body language of the step. I don't teach professionally and probably never will, but I moonlight with it on the side and I enjoy dancing and have done it for many years and have learned many dances. This site has been a great help and allows me to stay in touch with experts who really know their stuff. I've had a few call me out on some of my viewpoints, but in general you get to know the cast of characters and they are all generally harmless and understand that this is supposed to be informative and fun. So, I wouldn't mind hearing what InstructorTG has to say about dancing in general and various teaching methods. Terence, anymouse, Jonathan, Telemark and many others have been tremendous help to me in the past. InstructorTG should not feel like he wouldn't add something valuable to the mix.

"Each individual bar of music has the same basic stress pattern, so can't be 'heavier' than any other: but a series of bars (typically eight) very often forms a musical phrase, and IT has a structure, which depending on the music may, or may not, lend itself to sub-division into two 4-bar units, and again, into four 2-bar units."

There is a similar pattern of stress within each measure, but the weight of successive measures is usually NOT the same. That's a key part of the implementation of phrasing in music. Weight is not just a measure of loudness (though that could be a factor), more usually it is a measure of the impact of the chords underlying the melody - some are more weighty than others. Typically over the course of a phrase you have a gradual, perhaps hesitating buildup of tension, which then releases to conclude the phrase. And within this, you often have a pattern over each two measures or comparable unit (in some notation systems it would not be two measures).

Try and see if you can find a track of a rhythm section playing just the chord changes of a tune, without the melody, and you can hear a lot of this structure. They shouldn't be too hard to find as student musicians use them to practice improvising solos over... which is really pretty close to the same skill we strive for when dancing to the music.

Yes, we're talking about the same thing: the structure of musical phrases, but they are of little direct help in fitting amalgamations to the patterns (if we want to) because so many of the obvious patterns do not work with typical musical phrases.

Some dancers seem to think that conformity in this regard is the most important thing, and to dance 'out of phrase' is THE cardinal sin. Others can't see what the fuss is meant to be about. There's no right answer.

"Yes, we're talking about the same thing: the structure of musical phrases, but they are of little direct help in fitting amalgamations to the patterns (if we want to) because so many of the obvious patterns do not work with typical musical phrases."

Many of the "obvious patterns" are only obvious in the dance mechanics sense.

I think there's very little obligation to use any particular figure besides a (1-3 of) natural or two in your waltz and a feather or two in your foxtrot. So just because something is (or at some time was) presented early in the physical education of a dance doesn't mean you are required to use it, or to use it in its original timing, if you can't figure out how to fit it into what you want to accomplish musically.

Generally there is a musical way to apply everything, but it might involve a non-elementary precede or follow.

Let's suppose that the dance is foxtrot, and that the music falls naturally into 8-bar phrases. You're not showing off your fanciest amalgamations, just enjoying dancing with a partner who matches your own considerable experience. What do you dance?

"Let's suppose that the dance is foxtrot, and that the music falls naturally into 8-bar phrases. You're not showing off your fanciest amalgamations, just enjoying dancing with a partner who matches your own considerable experience. What do you dance?"

Whatever fits the moment. That includes things like overall mood, characteristics of the music, locations and habits of others on the floor. It's highly experimental... and that means making some obvious mistakes at times, but such are part of learning and developing new aspects of dancing. In particular, I try to include both classic drifting elements, and more dramatically inflected ones highlighting aspects of the music.

With an experienced partner its interesting to try to both show the essential definition of foxtrot and explore its boundaries in the same dance, with a less experienced partner I generally try to stick to the traditional essence to build up their confidence in foxtrot.