Every Man's Survival Guide to Ballroom Dancing: Ace Your Wedding Dance and Keep Cool on a Cruise, at a Formal, and in Dance Classes

By James Joseph

Overcome Your Fear of Dancing!

 

New to dance? Can't dance? Hate to dance? This book is an insider's guide to social dancing. It's everything you should have learned in dance classes, but didn't.

 

Are you rhythmically challenged? Do you finish dance classes more confused than when you started? Do you wish you knew how to slow dance?

 

In this book--part guerrilla manual and part cotillion handbook--you will learn how to walk onto any dance floor and perform an admirable dance, with any partner, to any music, with confidence and grace. That's the ultimate goal of a social dancer.

 

Buy this book now and learn the essential principles common to all music and dance. (Despite the title, this book will help both leaders and followers. Really!)

 

You will learn:

• A foolproof method for hearing the beat of the music.
• How to count music. They don't teach that in dance classes.
• The correct way to count step patterns (dance figures--the fancy moves). Dance classes often mess this up, which adds to your confusion.
• Three dance rhythms: single, double and triple rhythm, the building blocks of all dances.
• Three simple rhythm patterns (the pattern of weight changes) that will get you through any song.
• The basics of leading and following.
• Slow dancing, survival dancing, surviving the wedding dance, and how to fake a dance.
• 17 easy exercises (most you can do without a partner).

This book has the tools everybody needs to know to make their partners happy.

 

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This book does not teach specific dances. It's a foundation book focusing on the basics. It's a book to read before your first class, as well as during your first year of classes. What you will learn is the rhythm pattern for 18 common partner dances because that is helpful to know before the first class and it is often not communicated well in class.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BlueChip Publishers
• Release date: Feb 8, 2022
• ISBN: 9780930251475

James Joseph

Dr. James is the Chief Scientist & Head of EEC Division and holding Adjunct Professorship in Chemical Science in AcSIR, Ghaziabad. His research is focused on the fundamental aspects of chemically modified electrodes, basic & developmental aspects of chemical sensors, synthesis of new (nano)materials for electrocatalysis, sensor construction and energy related applications. As a project coordinator/team leader he has contributed several sponsored projects from Government of India as well as private R&D organizations. Dr. James is the author of numerous research paper (>70) in peer-reviewed journals; theme coordinator for skill development course on “Electroanalytical Techniques for (Bio)Sensing and (Electro)catalytic Applications” funded by Science &Technology Division of CSIR-CECRI; and chairman of CSIR-CECRI safety committee.

Book preview

PART 1

Music

Chapter 1

The Beat of the Music

As I see it, I need to maneuver my partner around the dance floor, taking care not to bump into anyone or anything, dancing to the music, spontaneously choreographing a changing and pleasing series of moves, all the while maintaining light conversation. . . . My, this is difficult, isn’t it?

 — Mr. Data (an android), Star Trek: The Next Generation

Find the beat. Cool step patterns that are off the beat look bad; simple moves on the beat look cool. Don’t be that goofball on the floor who knows billions of patterns yet dances off the beat.

Okay, in the past, more often than I want to admit, I was that goofball. Sometimes I couldn’t hear the beat, but sometimes I swear it wasn’t my fault. In my defense, and in defense of all the beat-challenged guys who have ever stumbled through a dance, I’d like to explain how circumstances beyond my control conspired to dislodge me from the beat:

There was the distraction of flirting with my partner.

There was the distraction of trying to lead the step pattern I was executing.

There was the distraction of choreographing the next step pattern or two in my head.

There was the confusion of songs with an elusive beat (including the challenge of up-tempo songs—just too darn fast to stay on the beat).

There was the anxiety of being self-conscious—the weird distraction of watching others to see if they were watching me.

My beatless years were a puzzle. For a long time I was not connected to the beat but thought I was. I now realize that I often guessed at the beat and, like a broken clock being right twice a day, was often correct. This gave me the illusion that I knew the beat, and it let my ego exceed my ability. But it took very little to dislodge my feet from the beat. Through good teachers and persistence, I eventually embraced the beat and learned to take distractions in stride. Fear not, O Humble Goofball, all beat-challenged people can get