Continuing on with Boston variations from Albert W. Newman's Dances of to-day (Philadelphia, 1914), here are two that are both zigzags of sorts, similar to the Picket Fence in one-step, but with the hesitation elements that distinguish most of Newman's Bostons. With those elements, they can be danced to much faster waltz music. In the Dance Mad compendium, both the Boston Spanish and the Herring Bone Boston are credited to Newman himself, though in his own book he only takes credit for the latter.
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Newman described the Boston Spanish as a "design of steps or stairs" with the gentleman moving "down the stairs or obliquely to the rear and the lady going up the stairs or to the right obliquely forward". It's actually much easier than that makes it sound: the gentleman steps back with his right foot and sideways with his left. Over and over. With closes without weight in between.
Here's Newman's second diagram, which is more useful:
This clearly shows the gentleman's foot pattern. It starts with the right foot, and Newman recommends starting it by coming out of the Long Boston turning to the right. That turn has the right foot forward, so the gentleman will rock back onto his left foot then step back onto the right foot in the same way as if about to reverse the direction of turn of the Long Boston. But instead, the dancers go into the Boston Spanish as follows. I'll give the gentleman's feet; the lady dances opposite (left for right, forward for back, etc.)
The Boston Spanish (six counts or two measures of waltz)
1 Step back right
2 Bring left foot to right (without weight) and rise on toes
3 Drop down onto heels
4 Step left to the side
56 Close right to left (without weight)
Repeat from the beginning
This is actually quite enjoyable, in the swoopy way that any one-step waltz can be, and can be led if the leader is careful to communicate the lack-of-weight on the closes. A slight body lean helps make it clear.
The only real question about the Boston Spanish is how to orient it. If performed with the gentleman stepping straight back along the line of dance on the first step, the dancers will quickly run into the wall. If the dancers are careful, it can be zigzagged along the line of dance with the steps crossing back and forth (a path like that of the Herring Bone Boston below). It can also be done with the dancers stair-stepping into the center of the room, from whence they can go back into the spin turn of the Long Boston and perhaps eventually make their way back to the line of dance. That seems to have been Newman's intention.
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Much clearer in direction is the Herring Bone Boston, which is a sort of stretched-out hesitation grapevine which moves sideways along the line of dance, as shown in the diagram at left.
The Herring Bone Boston starts on the gentleman's left foot and has a different (though still typical) hesitation pattern of 1...456. Specifically:
The Herring Bone Boston (six counts or two measures of waltz music)
1 Step left back
23 Hesitate
4 Step right back
5 Step left side
6 Close right to left with weight
1 Step left forward
23 Hesitate
4 Step right forward
5 Step left side
6 Close right to left with weight
Repeat as long as desired
The gentleman's mnemonic is "back.....back-side-close, forward....forward-side-close". The lady dances opposite: "forward...forward-side-close, back...back-side-close". As in the Picket Fence, the dancers will make individual quarter-turns and shift from facing on the first half to Yale position on the second half and back if they continue. The quarter-turns are extremely easy because the dancers have the "step-side-close" in the second and fourth measures in which to do most of the turning. Here are Newman's detailed diagrams:
Newman was conscious of, or perhaps self-conscious about, the similarity of his variation to the hesitation waltz and seems to have wanted to establish himself as originator, not copycat, stating that it was "rather peculiar to note that this Herring Bone Boston, which has been taught for several years, closely resembles the Hesitation Waltz now so popular."
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With the Herring Bone Boston for travel along the line of dance and the spin turns of the Long Boston interspersed with the stair-steps of the Boston Spanish, dancers have enough variations, barely, to get through a waltz without it becoming monotonous. And there are many more Boston variations to come, eventually...
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