The Complete Idiot's Guide to Ballroom Dancing (Complete Idiot's Guide to) The Complete Idiot's Gui

by Jeff Allen

Ballroom dancing is back! And now anyone can move like a pro. DVD included! In addition to the step-by-step photos, footwork illustrations, and instruction covering all the common ballroom dances, this new edition of the bestselling Complete Idiot's Guide to Ballroom Dancing includes a 90-minute instructional DVD featuring award-winning dancer and dance instructor Jeff Allen. It corresponds with the text seamlessly, giving readers the next best thing to one-on-one instruction, at a fraction of the cost. The #1 selling ballroom dancing book Includes a fantastic, new instructional DVD and hundreds of illustrations and instructions Allen is a renowned, award-winning ballroom-dance teacher

Genres: Nonfiction, Music

276 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2002

Reviews

[Sophie Crane · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book describes very well the fundamentals of Ballroom dancing and includes a basic set of steps for many dances. The steps are also shown on the accompanying DVD.
Very fun and easy to read, can be used as a resource (for the steps described).
Note: Mainly American style ballroom, not International (although the basics are applicable to both).

[Dancer]

Jeff allen is an amateur, or at least dances like one. i cant believe people with as little skills as him put out such junk. his posture needs improvement, he is flat footed, has no latin rhythm, just moves his hips around a little. He gives professional dance instructors a bad name. He will do well dancing in sunday brunches with 80 year old ladies. just goes to show you that just about anyone can publish a book and put out dance videos. If you want to dance like an idiot, buy the complete idiot's guide to ballroom dancing.

[Willa · Rating 2 out of 5]

The sections on history of dance and dance form were interesting, but the figures for the various dances were incomplete, vague, and scarcely illustrated. For example, the section on the box step underhand turn in the waltz only included directions for the feet; nothing about direction facing, or what to do with the arms to accomplish the actual turn. To fill in the gaps, I'd recommend checking online, for example at:

http://www.umich.edu/~umbdc/members_d...

Which has PDFs featuring much more useful descriptions.