Before teaching you the steps I should like you to listen to the music. You will find absolutely no difficulty in dancing to it, but the natural inclination is either to dance very fast steps double time to the music or very slow steps with it. The latter is what most people do, and what is more they seem to enjoy it. but it seems to me that, as to keep up the dance one way is too fast and the other too slow, the only real solution is to combine the two. By doing this you not only make the dance more comfortable, but you also make it possible to do a great variety of easy and amusing steps.
The position for this dance is the ordinary one, and I start on my left foot going forward, and you on your right foot going back. We take two slow steps with the music then four fast steps double time to the music. This completes the step and one bar. We repeat the thing - two slow and four fast steps, and so on around the room. This is very easy, and as it is the main step it should be done in between other more difficult steps. In this way it makes the changing from one step to another more simple. In taking the slow steps in this dance the stride should be as long as possible, as it adds a great deal of grace.
New Dances for this Winter
by Vernon Castle
in The Ladies' Home Journal, Nov. 1914, pp. 24-25
