Along with the standard traveling step for early nineteenth-century Scotch reels, the Kemshóole, Scottish dancing master Francis Peacock, in Sketches relative to the history and theory, but more especially to the practice of dancing (Aberdeen, 1805), also describes a possible variation:
...if you wish to vary the step, in repeating the measure, you may introduce a very lively one, by making a smart rise, or gentle spring, forward, upon the right foot, placing the left foot behind it: this you do four times, With this difference, that instead of going a fourth time behind with the left foot, you disengage it from the ground, adding a hop to the last spring. You finish the promenade, by doing the same step, beginning it with the left foot.
This is very much like an extra-lively version of the "four-slide galop" of the later nineteenth century: spring-close-spring-close-spring-close-spring-hop. Dancers should be careful not to turn it into a simple shuffling along.
As in the basic Kemshóole, lead with the shoulder matching the lead foot.
While Peacock recommends this step for the "promenade", the reeling (hey) part of a reel, this extended Kemshóole actually does not always work as well as the regular version.
For a non-progressive reel of three with all three dancers returning to their original places, four extended Kemshóole steps work splendidly and feel graceful to the dancers. The four changes of place match up nicely with the longer step. It works equally well in a "corner reel", such as those found in London dancing master Thomas Wilson's first new reel of six.
For a progressive reel of three, however, there are five changes of place, and the dancers must move further on each step, and the extended Kemshóole becomes rather awkward; the dancers will end up taking tight curves on the ends in mid-step.
For a reel of four, it doesn't work at all. There are six changes of place, resulting in faster and sharper turns, and there just isn't enough forward motion without the extra momentum provided by the hops in the standard Kemshóole.
Despite its limited utility, it adds some pleasant variation to a figure which doesn't allow for much. Lately I have been encouraging its use whenever practical.
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