Something that's come up in the foxtrot discussion is the way in which many moderately high level dance teachers know how to dance with two different, conflicting techinques. There's what they do when they are dancing to win competitions, and there's the somewhat uncomfotable way they dot their i's and cross their t's when taking their ISTD membership exam.

The thing is that if you look at the really, really top dancers, it turns out they are using something even closer to classic technique than what most adopt for their exams - yet they are winning with it.

The obvious answer is that most who study the formal technique pick up the details, but not the implication of what you are supposed to do between them. If you take the exam technique details and graft them onto common competition practice, you get something that looks and feels uncomfortable, so no one dances that way outside a teaching or certification setting. In contrast, the classically trained couples that win with that style dance in a way that naturally connects the exam technique details - they don't use their foot that way because it's in the book, they use their foot that way because they dance in a way that makes their foot want to do that.

no allusions to "goo" the title was "... vs good technique" but got truncated.

Suomynona, Are you evolving. I always thought that you were a book person through and through. You pretty well hit the nail right on the head when you wrote They don't use their foot the way it is in the book. I'm with the late Harry Smith-Hampshire who wrote that adjudicators needed to keep up with the latest trends and technique, and should be made to pass an examination . I think it was every four years. Also the technique book needs to be reviewed annualy. If rise and fall is to be allowed in the Tango then the book needs to say so. A direct quote from Harry. "The Tango has now become the worse dance in terms of the destruction of its historical character by unsuitable choreography. The change from the Tango Walk basic movement to body flight dancing and the introduction of rise in many figures".
There are two solutions. The marking down of those who offend. Or a rewritting of the Tano technique to accomodate these new developments. I will add one more example. I saw an IDSF Quickstep final . You know when a Ballet Dancer leaps straight up and crosses their feet whilst they are still in the air. One couple did that. I thought that was a bit much and a bit silly.

I figured Smith-Hampshire was being sarcastic when he suggested re-writing the book to copy the performance of dancers who never understood the current version.

Technique evolves yes, but by expansion rather than contradictions. New knowledge is added, but there is very little room to violate the classic rules of movement, without getting into the sorts of trouble that those rules were intended to prevent.

Good dancers don't dance the details, they dance a line that connects the details, because they understand that the given details, while nearly mandatory, are really intended more as hints which imply the overal form of movement, and only secondarily as individual goals.

I watched the US. Ice Skating which was to pick a team for the Olympics. In particular I watched the free program for the Ice Dancing. The shapes that are now being performed. If I didn't know they were on skates I would have thought they were shaping as in the Rumba. Which goes back to Torvill and Dean who broke a few rules in their day. If they had not had enough courage to bend a few rules Ice Dancing would have stood still. Who knows that in the Rumba in 86 that leg extension straight up by the lady would not have been allowed. A Welsh couple, I think the name was Powell did it and were crucified by the judges. Now everybody is doing it. So what we have is Exam Techniques type dancing on one hand. Competition dancing on the other. The rift is getting wider One thing though I doubt if footwork will ever change. There will always be a TH before a H.

Latin being a younger discipline that modern it may have evolved in ways that contradict what was written down; the modern's hasn't. What has happened in the modern is that there is a widespread knowledge of the written details as trivia, but which is not coupled by an accurated understanding of how they fit together into dancing that achieves the kind of performance goals now required. The ones who don't understand how to do this drop the written technique in favor of whatever they can forsee accomplishing their performance goals; but the ones who understand the written technique use it, and beat them a slight majority of the time.

I think Quickstep you overlook one fact in your example, of current Rhumba technique versus 1986. You assume it has evolved for the better. maybe if technique were followed more diligently Latin dancing would have evolved in a different and BETTER direction. What exactly does a vertical leg extension have to do with interpreting the characteristics of the Rhumba ? Maybe there is a stronger& more effective way to send that message, Yes?
And so it is in Ballroom,
as suomynona pointed out, that the technique adheres to basic principals of movement, once you sacrifice those basic principals the quality of the dancing suffers. Those principals are not restrictive they are the foundations utilized by the best dancers.Before a show The best ballet & Jazz dancers in the world will run through the same basic movements they learned as children because they are the foundations of their performance.

Quickstep, you reminded me of something else, back in the 60's & 70's the Samba music was in the neighborhood of 56 bars per minute. The style at that time was a progressive dance with a beautiful ebb & flow,but quite dynamic & challenging. The music for some reason was slowed and couples took the opportunity to oversyncopate and destroy the relationship between the dancer & the music. The Samba lilt is gone, the differnt levels have been lost, it has become much more static and with the sound off resembles a Paso Doble more than something you would see in RIO...IMHO

3exuschamp. Have you seen any recent IDSF World Championship competitions and seen what they are doing today. The basic action is still there. but the movement of the hips are being used more than ever before. The story I got about the Samba is that there was a complaint by the competitors that they were unable to do the things they were being told to do in their lessons on the competition floor because the music was too fast. In the above mentioned competition the Samba was played at 56 bars per minute. The Rumba 24 bars a minute. If you are interested some vey recent Latin disks that have come out. The Rumbas are 24 bars per minute straight off the disc. Not that many years ago they were played at 30 bars per minute.The lilt in the Samba is actually a body tick which today happens continuously on every movement.