Most Helpful Customer Reviews
26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You Decide A Double Review, November 6, 2000
This review is from: QuickStart to Social Dancing: An Easy-To-Follow Guide for Beginners (QuickStart Dance) (Paperback)
My name is Diane Howard. I have been a dance instructor for over 10 years in the Northeast corridor. I take great exception to the negative reviews of Mr. Allen's book Quickstart to Social Dancing, especially in comparison to another book that I own by Mr. Stephenson called The Complete Book of Ballroom Dancing. Here is why: 1. Quickstart guides the beginner and helps develop the most important basic dance skills in systematic and incremental fashion. Foundational skills like correct postural movement with a partner, rhythmic movement, and leg action both for the smooth, swing, and Latin dances are wonderfully described in Quickstart. They are either completely omitted or where included, erroneously described the so-called Complete Book! 2. Quickstart guides you through a primary development with easy to use physical instructions and analogies with a direct goal in mind. That goal is to be able to dance, WITHOUT ERROR, the most fundamental patterns in six major social dances. The Complete Book starts at stages beyond the beginner with a syllabus that assumes that a dance couple already KNOWS HOW to move together. They do not and will not simply by reading a syllabus, all competent dance instructors know this! 3. Quickstart does a terrific job in addressing these primary and necessary functions. The Complete Book leaves you to your own devices. 4. The Complete Book designed for the next stage of dancing, diversity in patterns, unfortunately is laden with serious error that the beginner would certainly not be aware of in their attempt to follow its syllabus. Quickstart does not pretend to be more than it is, simply the best guide for the beginning stages of your social dance experience. Perhaps these are the reasons why Quickstart to Social Dancing seems to be applauded by dance professionals and others who are willing to provide their names and email addresses for correspondence. I know I recommend it to students and teachers alike. By contrast, you cannot contact even one negative reviewer of Mr. Allen's books nor can you find any reviews by competent dance professionals on the back cover or web page of Mr. Stephenson's book. In his book, Mr. Allen provides you with his contact information for questions and further help. Mr. Stephenson's book leaves none and suggests that you go elsewhere. You decide!
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26 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Finally ! A book on dancing I can recommend to non-dancers, October 17, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: QuickStart to Social Dancing: An Easy-To-Follow Guide for Beginners (QuickStart Dance) (Paperback)
Finally ! An instructional book on dancing that I can recommend to my non-dancing friends who are interested in getting started, but not sure if they want to commit to dance lessons. Quickstart To Social Dancing is easy to read, and full of information for the beginner dancer or those that have an `occasion' coming up that includes a dance floor. Unlike many of the `how to dance' book that are out there, Quickstart To Social Dancing does not deluge the reader with patterns and footprints that are intimidating to any beginner. As a competitive dancer, I found the physical analogies used to describe proper technique enjoyable and extremely accurate, and my instructor agreed whole heartily! Quickstart To Social Dancing provides an excellent foundation for 6 dances - Foxtrot, Waltz, Rumba, Merengue, Cha Cha and Swing - with an easy to understand presentation of the basics and fundamental choreography for each dance. The book includes a special section for wedding couples that contains some excellent suggestions and tips. This book has something to offer dancers of all levels and makes my holiday shopping a breeze this year! My congratulations and thank you to Mr. Allen - I am looking forward to reading the next book in the Quickstart series.
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13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Line of Dance, September 12, 2003
This review is from: QuickStart to Social Dancing: An Easy-To-Follow Guide for Beginners (QuickStart Dance) (Paperback)
As one insightful reviewer mentioned all of the reviews for this book are uncannily love or hate. Though I have my own opinion of this book, I recognize that another Love-Hate review is not going to help you decide whether or not to spend your money, so I'm going to try to break the division and write an objective review with a neutral star rating. I believe the strict separation of ratings is due to differing expectations. As a beginner you are looking for a book with easy to follow instructions and patterns on how to make everyone off the dance floor jealous. A CD of appropriate music with someone counting in the background would be nice, perhaps some full scale foot print charts, maybe a pop-up partner if you're single. The beginner, however, has greatly underestimated the complexity of dancing and devotion it takes to become a good dancer. As an instructor you hope people will read a book that doesn't promise beginning steps in chapter 1, lifts and splits in chapter 2, and have an addendum with costume patterns. You hope the beginner will appreciate that every step in a dance is far more than moving a foot from A to B, and that some people devote their lives to dancing well (Ballroom dancing is now an Olympic Sport to those unaware). If you had your way students would spend their fist month simply standing with a good dance frame and maybe by month two they could take their first step. Instructors sometimes forget, however, the passion and anxiousness of the beginner. That being said this book offers the beginner basic steps for three dances. Realize, however, that the basic Merengue step is extremely simple, And that the Waltz and Foxtrot steps are nearly identical (because the foxtrot can also be danced in the Waltz box pattern). When I say steps I mean the steps that constitue the most basic single pattern for each dance. This book does not include turns, dips, cuddles, or that thing Patrick Swayze does in "Dirty Dancing". With the steps it does offer, however, this book attempts to explain them in their most correct execution. It offers many metaphors and illusions for the most simple movements and attempts to write at a level that everyone can comprehend. Some of the content you may find painfully obvious, some of it you may not understand for quite a while. Some of us don't cook and will never have any idea what his point was with the turkey platter. In terms of physical existence this book is thin with large font. There are no pictures save some clip art quality graphics and the wedding section is probably 1/3 to 1/4 of the book. This is not special wedding dance moves reserved for gowns and tuxedoes, by the way, but rather that wedding planning type thing that seems to occupy future mothers-in-law. There is a handy list of good songs for these steps at the back of the book. Music which most people probably already have in their collection. I hope this review has helped to bridge the divide for this title. Whether you buy the book or not, however, don't focus to much of your energy on words describing dancing...
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