Does the prospect of performing the Standard Viennese Waltz reduce your partner to a trembling mass of hysteria?

Do the first strains of 6/8 time send her to hide in the restroom?

Can you hear her teeth grinding when you lead a closed change?

Do fleckerls make her scream?

I personally love this dance but have met several women - including one of my partners - who simply refuse to do it.

In many amateur competitions in the US, the SVW is only included at the Gold or Championship levels. Some have added it as an open competition for all other levels, distinct from the rest of the syllabus.

The fear-inducing aspects of the SVW are obvious: the deceptively challenging combination of speed and rotation. While it is - in my opinion - the most elegant of all dances, it is also clearly the most dangerous. I have seen even top-level couples fall heavily and always in the same step, the Reverse Turn.

I've always suspected that problems with the SVW stem from the character of the music. Getting "swept up" in the grandeur of some SVW pieces can make even an experienced dancer lose focus. At SVW's speed, just a split second of inattention can be disastrous. That same speed makes floorcraft very challenging if there are several couples on the floor, especially if they're dancing at different levels.

Unfortunately, due primariy to the erroneous perception that it is simple (only seven figures!), the SVW often receives little attention in many dancers' training.

It's also possible that the current put-ballroom-dancing-in-the-Olympics madness has prompted a decrease in emphasis on SVW because, when danced properly, it APPEARS to be very easy and not sufficiently athletic to impress the Olympic committees.

I look at it as the one ballroom dance with no easy steps.



jj

I struggle to find really good WV music tracks, and that puts me off the dance a little.

Fleckerls apart, the steps really are quite easy, and as long as the dancers have good rotation and are watching where they are going, there isn't too much to go wrong.

"Fleckerls apart, the steps really are quite easy, and as long as the dancers have good rotation and are watching where they are going, there isn't too much to go wrong."

The steps are indeed easy to understand from a conceptual perspective just as Fallaways are always "easy" because they're just backwards promenades.

The difficulty of SVW lies in giving those steps the elegance that the dance requires while maintaining consistently flowing, sweeping movements around the floor.

If SVW were as easy as you smugly claim that it is then it would be much more popular. It is, after all, the signature dance of the ballroom.

jj

Who are you calling smug?

The difficulty of Foxtrot could be said to be exactly the same, although the challenges are quite different.

No dance is intrinsically difficult. Dancing well is what we all aspire to do. Some are more successful than others, that's all. (And I'm making no particular claim for my own dancing, but making a general point).

Seems to be a fear-fueled behavioral reaction to stimulus.

Take show horses. Some love it when the gooseneck backs up and the ramp unfolds. They know they're going to go somewhere new and fun and sparkly. Others balk and hide and gnaw at themselves because it's another day where they're going to get their mouths popped, their sides dug, and someone's going to point out every fault they have.

If VW is at least mostly fun, someone will enjoy it, but if they're going to get hauled around the floor, or maybe simply because THEY don't know how to do it well- it goes both ways- they're going to hate it.

To recondition a horse, one would start at the beginning and breeze through all of it up until the point of contention, then take it specifically apart and see just where the fissure starts, drop back below it, work up slowly through and slightly beyond to correct it, and keep things consistent.

But then, this is myself, speaking as someone who's never fallen and busted her ass during VW (only tango, partner-reversal, but my partner was a hottie, so falling on him wasn't *so* bad LOL), and that perspective might change if/when I do.

Wow. Even I wouldn't compare women to horses, even to show horses.

I might be able to get my partner into a bridle and saddle. I wonder if she'll let me call out "HiHo Silver!" as we make our way around the floor.

Still, your point about working slowly through areas of difficulty has some validity in the dance world. I guess it's not too much of a stretch to say that we must "recondition" our muscles to execute figures properly.

jj

Excuse my interuption. but how long has a V. Waltz had 6/8 Tempo. It's 3/4
For what its worth untill the correct technique of steps 4 5 6 of the Natural are understood and the technique correctly applied the V. Waltz cannot be done correctly. Look at the footwork on 4 5 6 and the alignment plus when is the weight moved from the left to the right NFR.. It is not at the same time as the person in front who is passing the weight from right to left. They have foot rise.

The description of the Standard (International) Viennese Waltz in the Learning Center on this site gives the timing as "3/4 or 6/8."

jj

The 6/8 must be the American Smooth Style. We have several dances here where 6/8 is played and they classed as March Time. They can also be danced to 2/4 but never something that is typically Tango music.

Notice that the Learning Center goes on to say: "The music is usually written in 6/8 time at a tempo of 29-30 measures per minute, although it is sometimes written as a fast 3/4 at 58-60 measures per minute." There will be twice as many 3/4 measures as there are 6/8 measures.

The difference between 6/8 and 3/4 time is that in the former, one measure (Br. bar) contains 6 eighth notes (Br. quavers), whereas in the latter, one measure contains 3 quarter notes (Br. crotchets).

From the Standard Viennese Waltz point of view, the steps of the Natural Turn, say, occupy the beats as follows:

6/8-- 1 2 3 4 5 6 (counting in eighth notes)
3/4-- 1 2 3 1 2 3 (counting in quarter notes)
Step 1 2 3 4 5 6 (1st three steps are the forward turn, last three the backward turn for the man)

Hope that helped.