How important is it to have your routine geared to blocks of eight. I wondered why Markus Hilton took five slows on his Change of Direction. Three slows would have brought him out on the same beat. But then at the very end he would have been two bars short of a 32 bar routine 4 x 8 = 32.

I think it's unlikely that Marcus Hilton would have a rigid 32-bar 'routine'. Almost certainly he would have to adapt his dancing to the space availoable etc. I'm sure he's responsive to the 8-bar sequences and would try to interpret them with his dancing

You said 5 Slows instead of 3. That's a difference of 2 Slows.

2 Slows are 1 bar, because a Slow lasts for 2 beats and we have a 4/4 time signature.

But - of course - one bar missing is even worse than two.

GermanTeacher.Marcus follows the Change of Direction with a Three Step Diagnal to the centre followed by a Feather Step then into a Reverse movement. The normal Three Slows would have brought him into the Three Step on beats 1 2 which is correct. With Five Slows he is also on beats 1 2 which is also correct. If he had wanted to go straight into a Feather instead of the Three Step he could have used Four Slows. So there had to be a reason for the Five Slows which made me think he wanted to finish on the 32 bar.
I think you will find that in a competition the most you will be required to dance is about 32 bars played at 28 bars a minute which is what Marcus is dancing to. Actually in the Amatuer field about 24 bars would be average.
In the 06 Foxtrot Final at Blackpool the music finishes on exactly 64 bars which is 2 x 32. Is it just a coincidence that the dancing is eight bar phrased as is the music being played.
If we apply a bit of common sense to this this . We can have about eight bars of music on each of the long sides and four on each of the short sides which would have us on twenty four bars repeating again on side one. We might possibly get side one in again before the music stops.
Which brings me to this guy who said to me that he can go around the floor for eight sides without repeating. So I told him that a big chunk of his routine will never be seen on the competition floor. And are you helping your teacher to buy another house. It would seem like it. An idiot and his money are soon parted so it would seem..Do you think some teachers see them coming. That could be another discusion

I dont know where you are getting your time " limits " from for comps.

As an adjudicator, I ( and other judges ) do not set a specific time on how long we wish to view.

yes, it can be on the short side, but more likely towards a minute and a half( or longer if needed ) .

Terence .Our last competition here two weeks ago was small in comparision with our normal competitions. There were 89 events. If they were allowed 3 minutes which is on an average disc it would take some nine hours to complete. I don't know what they allow between events. It would take as long to get each event on and off the floor as the length of time the couples are dancing and the judges cards being collected also. If the events you judge are those one dance events with only a dozen couples time would not be a problem. Our rules are obviously different to yours. There are about five competitions a year run here among many others. Where the time allowed is 1 minute 10. seconds. No judge is allowed to put a pen to paper untill they have watched 1 minute of dancing. They then have ten seconds to mark there cards. Otherwise the rules say. Minimum of 1 minute 30 seconds . Maximum 2 minutes. That's were I got the 1 minute 30 seconds. You'd need to get your finger out wouldn't you. Got to go Soccer is on the TV.

"I think you will find that in a competition the most you will be required to dance is about 32 bars played at 28 bars a minute which is what Marcus is dancing to. Actually in the Amatuer field about 24 bars would be average."

Is inconcistent with your later summary of the normal international rules of comeptition (IDSF, etc):

"Otherwise the rules say. Minimum of 1 minute 30 seconds . Maximum 2 minutes. That's were I got the 1 minute 30 seconds."

1 minute 30 seconds at 28 bars per minute is 42 bars.

The minimum time for the faster dances is less, but it's still going to be quite a number of bars given that they go by faster.

Getting only 24 bars would require officials deviating from the normal of international procedure - either on their own, or in concert with badly thought out local rules. If you aren't going to give people time to reasonably dance, you need to revisit the schedule plan of your competition so that you can.

Anonymous. This is straight out of the program from one of the bigger competitions from Jupiters Casino on the Gold Coast. Each event has a time alongside the event. There is two dance event starting at 8. 59 am. The event following was at 9. 02 am. Another two dance event went on at 9.05 am. The last event for the Saturday morning and afternoon was at 5.18 pm. It still took 8 hours and sixteen minutes to get through 80 events. There was no genral dancing
I agree that the time allowed for a judge to mark even only a round with 12 couples in it at 1 minute 30 seconds only gives each couple 7.5 seconds to be looked at. If you were a completely unknown couple to the judges your chances of making it to the next round would be slim. But then what can be done. Limit the amount of entries and events to fit the time allowed before the hall has to be vacated. That wont work will it.

"If you were a completely unknown couple to the judges your chances of making it to the next round would be slim."

Not true at all.

Quality dancing captures the eye and draws attention to itself. That 7.5 seconds figure is not relevant, because judges do not give each couple a fixed amount of attention when making recalls under ordinary circumstances. Instead, they look for the requisite number of promising couples who stand out from the others.

This isn't about detailed evaluation, it's about holistic perception: that couple looks strong, vs that one looks weak. All of the mentioned factors feed into this perception, but not specifically - there's no ok, feet okay, topline okay, timing okay, checklist, it's just a comprehensive "promising" or not.

(There is an exception: extremely experienced judges in huge comps can have a sound enough idea of the standard for entry to the next round that they can basically accept or reject each couple as they pass by, without having to compare them to others)

Anonymous. I can see that your experience within the world of competition dancing you have a bit to learn. First , if you were a judge and knew a couple on the floor they would have more chance of being seen. I can tell you here a few years ago a dancer unheralded but with a higher world ranking than thoes that did, never even made the final.This event was also to choose the countries represenative for the following year. The guy who won it publicly anounced that he would stand down in favour of the other. He now living and teaching in the US and got himself extemely disliked for being so honest. A almost identical thing had also happend a couple of years earlier.The message here is make sure that your presence is known by having a couple of lessons with those who are going to be judging.
I am told the formular is four. To even get into the finals in major competitions you need to be having lessons with four of the panel of judges.
I was also told that this is the system that exists at this present time.
You cannot change the system. Therefore you must use the stystem to your best advantage if you are going to partake . It's a pity but there it is.
Just to finish. A judge told me that in a National competition in one of the early rounds . To his horror as the couples were leaving the floor he saw the best couple in the country, he hadn't seen them, and hadn't marked them. It can happen. The can of worms is now opened.