When it comes to learning to dance with a partner, lots of new students want fast dances like Salsa or Swing. Their feeling is that a dance like Foxtrot is for the old folks. They think it’s boring, after all, it’s just walking. As a result, it doesn’t feel very rhythmical, so they don’t feel like their actually dancing. That’s when they say, “I don’t want to learn Foxtrot“.
Now, ballroom dance teachers are very nice and they love to teach. “Want to learn the Quickstep? No problem.” “Polka? You got it.” However, one thing all ballroom dance teachers agree on is how important it is for you to learn Foxtrot.
Reasons that your instructor wants you to learn Foxtrot.
- Internationally regarded as the “dancer’s dance”, Foxtrot is the #1 social dance. Foxtrot technique forms the basis of ballroom dancing.
- People across all age levels and stations of life love to dance the Foxtrot. It becomes a lot of fun when you can express the music by using different actions and rhythms such as grapevines.
- This is a great dance to learn because it gives you guidelines regarding your dance frame. Not to mention it improves leading and following skills so that you can communicate with your partner better. This carries over regardless of the dance you’re doing.
- Knowing how to move forward and backward with a body moving in sync with you is an important part of ballroom dancing. Foxtrot will easily help you perfect these partnership skills.
- Foxtrot enables you to become familiar with timing in dances that use Slow and Quick to describe beat value.
- It’s easy to hear the highs and lows in Foxtrot music. Many dancers like to express the subtle differences by using the musicality and phrasing in Foxtrot. This allows the couple to hit the ‘breaks’ in the music, giving an appearance of seamlessly moving with the music.
By the way, your ballroom dancing will feel so much better when you have the right shoes. Take a look at this Dance Safari post, “Guide to Buying Ballroom Dance Shoes“.
Dance Foxtrot and you’ll find that it grows on you. In other words, the more you do it, the more you want to do it.
Want to learn a dance that will never go out of style? Can you picture yourself doing a dance that is sophisticated, yet sassy? Simple, but sexy? Then it’s time for you to learn Foxtrot.
You know, anytime you hear Frank Sinatra or Michael Buble sing, it’s probably a Foxtrot. Check out this Frank Sinatra classic, “When You’re Smiling“.
Above all, Foxtrot is a dance that you keep in your backpocket, only too happy to bust it out whenever can. If you’re at a wedding, on a cruise, or a party, grab a partner and show the world how cool you are.
Thanks!
[…] want to learn the basics first, so off we trundled and very soon realised she was right, read Barbara Tuckers post and you will know what I mean. Now we’re hooked with five dances under our belt. Of […]
Loved this, Barbara as it is so relevant to my present experience, I took the liberty of putting a link into my post today if that’s okay 🙂
Thanks, Charlie. I saw it and shared it in 1/2 doz social media sites. So glad you liked it!
Thank you 💐🙏
[…] and good partnership skills. Here’s a Dance Safari post about the benefits of learning the Foxtrot. Finding a classic or modern song to use would be a piece of cake as there’s much to […]