Product Description

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #86811 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

From the Publisher
Long one of the most popular activities in the world, dancing brings pleasure to millions as well as the benefits of physical and mental relaxation, exercise, and social poise. If you haven't had the opportunity to learn, Victor Silvester's best-selling book provides all you need to know. Featuring dazzling photos of some of the world's greatest dancers, this is a definitive handbook, complete with notes, diagrams, and steps for every dance. The four classics—Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, and Tango—are all covered, as are the standard Latin-American dances—Rumba, Samba, Cha-Cha- Cha, Paso Doble—as well as Jive, Rock ' n' Roll, and Disco dancing. Invaluable for beginners, advanced students, and teachers alike, this classic work shows the way to a world of enjoyment that will last a lifetime.

Customer Reviews

Great For International Style
First, this book on international style will never replace a teacher. If you want to learn international style, give yourself about a year with a private teacher. If you're a couple, figure 2 years. It is impossible to learn to dance from a book. Footsteps show alignment only. Books do not teach technique, and international style is all about technique. If you want to learn to dance socially, take private ballroom dance lessons with a good studio. This book is not for you.
A piece of advice, Forget about group lessons. No one learns to dance in a group.

This book is very clear and written for someone who knows how to dance.

Last, you need to learn amalgamations, i.e., continuity. Learning one step at a time doesn't work. This book will tell you which figure precedes or follows a given figure.

A ballroom teacher's manual with pictures
The Victor Silvester book is really a ballroom teacher's manual with pictures, and the reader's undersanding is really proportional to his prior experience. The pictures, and the steps figures don't really do much to explain the steps themselves, and though the book covers ballroom steps for all levels (from beginner to gold), it doesn't really tell you which one is which.

Another thing, even though this book covers both ballroom and latin, it is really a ballroom book. The latin steps are incomplete (it only covers the latin bronze syllabus), and does not explain important concepts such as cuban motion and samba bounce.

Unlike the other manuals, the Victor Silvester book does cover the basic steps for Viennese Waltz and disco. However, if the reader is already at the level that the material in this book becomes useful, he probably does not need them.

My experience with ballroom dancing manuals has been, that one really does need a qualified instructor to demonstrate the steps, techniques, and all the basics of movement, posture and connections. Only then, would one benefit from the manual. It is not meant for the novice (or the inexperienced) as a substitute for lessons. I have seen some of my friends trying to learn straight from the book, and the results were much less than desirable.

PS: I have both the Victor Silvester book and Alex Moore's ISTD ballroom manual. I personally find the ISTD manual more compact, and a lot better organized. It is a little more expensive than Silvester, and it also has no pictures, but for me it is worth it.

The Rich Get Richer
MODERN BALLROOM DANCING has been valuable to me in improving my skills in those dances with which I was already familiar. The usefulness seemed to have been in direct proportion to what I knew before reading the book. It has not been very helpful in learning new dances.

The text includes several dazzling photos of competitive dancers in action.