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list of steps

Duffers Guide to Restricted Steps

If you are in Juvenile, or Beginner / Novice Grade in the other age group, you are only allowed to dance certain figures.

So what figures can you dance then?

Well to be absolutely certain it is best to check with your teacher or coach. However, if the step appears in the syllabus of either the ISTD or the IDTA, you should be OK. So for this guide I've have listed the steps from the ISTD Syllabus . Check out here if the step you want to do is listed. (I chose the ISTD syllabus over the IDTA for no other reason than I had a copy already.)

it is also important to note that you can only dance the figures in the dance they are listed for. So for example, you are allowed to dance a Fishtail in Quickstep, but as it isn't listed in Tango, you can't try to bash it into your routine with a mallet and a shoe horn.

Unless it says so in the technique book, you have to dance the complete figure not just a bit of it, and you can't mess about with the alignments, amount of turn and so on.

You also need to take into account what steps go before and after. To get a bit technical here thats known as the 'precededs and follows'. Each figure has its own list of these. Unfortunately this is beyond the scope of this guide to go into. If in doubt ask your teacher. Again, if you need to use the mallet and shoe horn to get one step to follow into the next, chances are its worth checking!

Just in case you were thinking that you were no longer subject to these restrictions... well, in Championships, the organiser can decide to make one of the dances in each round up to and including the Semi a restricted step event. Thats up to them, so you have been warned. The dance for each round is selected by the organiser and it wont be the same dance twice unless there are more than five rounds.

The only other thing to mention is if you are doing Latin the maximum you can go without hold is 5 Bars. (Your partner would probably wander off after that anyway)