It would seem that some people do not know the difference between beats in a bar of music and eight bar phrasing. Eight bar phrasing is the way the music is arranged. Every eight bars of music completes one phrase . If you were to count 1234 2234 3234 through to 8234. That is one phrase. With a four bar introduction music usually finishes after eight bars of phrasing have been played. In the US you have this crazy way of BMP meaning Beats Per Minute instead of like the rest of the world BMP meaning Bars Per Minute Just as it written on your dance discs there are 64 bars of music ( which if you must equalls 256 beats ) on a disk which if it is 4/4 played at 28 BPM will last for -------- minutes. You can do the maths. In a competition we will be on the floor for a maximum of one minute thirty seconds. So we will dance 42 Bars of music. Our choreography should be adjusted accordingly. We don't want the music to stop and miss our best part.
One last thing. find Marcus Hilton on youtube dancing his Foxtrot. You will find that on a Reverese or a Telemark or going into a Wave or Check and a Weave. At no time is he dancing on 3 4 1 2. He dances on 1 2 3 4. all the time from beginning to end. Which is not an accident.
Heres one for the brain. In 4/4 you have just finished a Change of Direction with the timing as it is in the technique book which is Slow Slow Slow. You can't do a Feather Step, you will be dancing 3 4 1 2. Without adding another Slow , what would you do to keep dancing on the correct beat keeping in rhythm with the music.Those of you who don't or can't count will be in trouble.
I will add this. It might be easier to understand if I repeat John Wood. Think of phrasing as a book. Each page is a bar of music. In one chapter we have eight pages. The whole book consists of eight chapters.Which you will find is 64 pages.
Transfer this to dance music gives us 64 bars of music eight bar phrased.