Brief History of the Guides

I first got hold of the ISTD Theory books early in 2002 and was irritated to find that the books didn't clearly explain how to read the charts they contained. If you didn't already know how to read the charts, the books were next to useless. My dance teachers at the time seemed to give conflicting opinions on what the charts meant, and often seemed to rely less on the charts than on how their teachers demonstrated the figures.

So I resorted to reverse engineering, trying to develop a plausible interpretation of the charts which matched reality for the figures that I knew. This was confounded by the realisation that my dance teachers had sometimes taught simplified versions of figures which didn't match the charts. Around this time I also found the scripts for the New Vogue Sequence dances on the DanceSport web site and these helped considerably in the reverse engineering process.

Curiously, the internet also seemed devoid of any explanations of how the charts worked. So with the enthusiasm that so often comes with desperation, in 2002 I wrote a series of web pages on how I thought the dance scripting system worked, in the hope that readers would tell me what I got wrong. Some did, which helped enormously.

Over time I developed the feeling that the system for scripting dances was less than perfect. So my web pages started ranting about how system could be improved.

In April 2004 I bundled up lots of my miscellaneous web pages into a single pdf file and Version 1.0 of the Guide to Ballroom Dance Scripting was born. A few other miscellaneous collections of data turned into related guides.

Version 1.0 of the guide was predominantly an extended argument about defects of the scripting system and how they could be fixed, though before explaining the defects I had to explain how the official system worked. Versions 1.1 to 1.3 followed suit, incorporating feedback from readers. (Curiously, I still haven't got any feedback on any of the Guides from within Australia.) Unfortunately real life tended to intervene so none of these guides ever reached a complete state, in the sense that I never managed to cover all the elements of the charts in the ISTD theory books.

Over time it became clear that all the feedback I was getting on the guides on my web site concerned understanding how the official scripting system works and there was apparently no interest in the alternative system I was proposing. Also, by mid-2006 I was preparing for some dance theory exams, so it was becoming more important to become fluent in the official scripting jargon with all its oddities. So I finally took the decision to remove all discussion of alternative approaches to scripting from the guide.

Version 2.0 of the Guide, now named "Reading Ballroom Dance Scripts" was released in August 2006. It is solely concerned with understanding the official scripting method. There are still occasional gripes about oddities in the system, but all mention of the alternative approaches has been removed. Perhaps one day the material removed will be released in a separate guide.

Dancing, is, for the most part, attended with many amorous smiles, wanton compliments, unchaste kisses, scurrilous songs and sonnets, effeminate music, lust provoking attire, ridiculous love pranks, all which savor only of sensuality, of raging fleshly lusts. Therefore, it is wholly to be abandoned of all good Christians.

Histriomastix (1632), William Prynne. I presume this was part of a PR campaign for dancing.