i'm an intermediate grade ballroom dancer and love foxtrot. I've been watching the really good dancers at comps to study their interpretation in foxtrot, and one thing bothers me.
Let's take the straightforward sequence feather step - reverse turn - feather finish (International syllabus - i'm in Ireland).I understand all the subtle variations on rhythm for the slow-quick-quick of the feather, and reverse turn and so on.... but my question is this: Should the sequence i've given above ALWAYS occupy 3 bars of the music??
i've closely watched top amateurs and they sometimes seem to take 4 bars, hovering on the reverse turn, and taking up extra time on the feather finish, for example. It's not easy to be certain of this, but i've studied them intently.
Is this allowed in the interest of dance interpretation?.
One of my motivations for watching these good dancers is to see how they achieve that lovely smooth, languid flowing action - i sometimes feel i'm rushed (i know my technique has lots of room for improvement!!!).
Any comments would be very welcome

Phil, I think you answered your own question. The idea that you feel rushed is the key. It takes a lot of time to get past that feeling but when you get every part of your foxtrot on time you will discover that there is much more time available to do each figure. Make sure you use all of the slow part of each figure, drag your toe or whatever to make it slow. This is where you probably are going off time. There are no shortcuts to getting your foxtrot to look like the champs, keep at it. When you get this timing straightened, you will feel you have all the time in the world to execute.