Continuing my little foxtrot miniseries, here are two more very easy hesitation variations from Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916).
The "Rock-a-Bye" is a single hesitation, as described for the one-step by Albert Newman in Dances of To-day (Philadelphia, 1914), but done twice at double speed with four walking steps as a preface. What that actually means in practice:
1234 Four walking steps (starting left)
1& Step forward left, rock back onto right foot
2& Rock forward onto left, rock back onto right
These are the gentleman's steps; the lady starts on the right foot and moves backward along line of dance.
The rocking steps do not travel; they should be done "as though the feet were held rigidly apart by a rocker and the body tipped gently forward and backward by mechanical means", though Lee also noted that they should be "very light, smooth, and graceful" and that the dancers should "be careful not to rock the shoulders, but sway gently with the entire body." The free foot is raised slightly off the floor on each weight shift.
The slow, slow, slow, slow, quick-quick-quick-quick pattern of this sequence feels more natural if it follows a walk-trot sequence in that same rhythm pattern, such as the "Fox Trot No. 2" described in the second edition of the compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914) and danced for the camera by Clay Bassett and Catherine Elliott in a short 1916 film, "The Much Talked About 'Fox Trot'." These are the third option listed in my previous post on walk-trot patterns in the early foxtrot.
The poetically named "Trot des Artistes" hesitates in a different way. After the usual four walking steps which Lee put at the front of almost all of her sequences, the dancers perform a two-step followed by an unusual (for the foxtrot) step forward and close without weight for what Lee termed "an attractive pause in the dancing". Here's the step breakdown for the gentleman:
1234 Four walking steps (starting left)
1&2 Two-step (step-close-step, starting left, not turning)
3 Step forward right
4 Draw left foot to the heel of the right, closing without weight
As usual, the lady dances opposite.
On the draw, the toe should actually lightly skim (but not noisily scrape) the floor.
I prefer to do the two-step on a slight forward diagonal rather than straight out to the side. On the final step-and-draw, shading the right side of the body diagonally forward with a little bit of sway will make the leading the lack of weight change easier.
Both of these hesitations are completely leadable and followable by good dancers even without learning the sequences in advance.
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