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For anyone who dances…
I checked and the waltz has three steps. There wasn’t much on google for one person dancing like that…but I seem to remember movies or watching my grandpa dance or something where they would mimick having a partner like Paddington is.
So any crits on that would be good. If I’m really close…I’ll take it.
🙂
Thank you again for all of your Birthday wishes yesterday!
How amazing is it to get Happy Birthday wishes from all around the world???
Super cool. Thank you all.
Thank you for celebrating with me.
I hope you enjoyed this week back in Dreamland. Remember…Alexander is just napping. So don’t get TOO comfortable here.
Have a spectacular weekend and I will see you all here on Monday!
Scott
Scott – Yes, the waltz is a three-step. I’ve taken ballroom dancing informally in the past… and I’ve played some waltzes on the piano as well… ironically, they’re in 3/4. (Okay, maybe not so ironically)
Incidentially, it looks to me like Paddington is getting caught up in his dancing and is moving away from his students… just like a dance-loving rock monster. 😛
Typically, the first waltz step taught is the box step, which is actually two three-step parts in which the feet move as if stepping on the corners of a box. The point is, the dancers face the same direction the whole time for the basic box step, whereas Paddington is turning away from his students. Not a huge deal, as there are plenty of almost-as-simple waltz moves in which the dancers do turn, just thought I’d mention it. 🙂
Brilliant!! I love this comic. Just one point on Paddington dancing by himself – guys lead with the left hand – Paddington is leading with the right… other than that… PERFECT 🙂
Lovely comic, just one thing: you’ve got the position of Pad’s arms nearly correct, it’s just that right now he’s mimicking the position of the lady’s arms – should be the other way round for the gentlemen. Possibly he should even comment on that difference, as the lady has to walk backward when the gentleman walks forward – naturally.
Anyway – Paddington rocks!
“The King and I” has a great dance scene that I vaguely remember is the waltz.
Can anybody confirm?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049408/
A centaur waltz, I believe will involve some complicated back end counter-stepping. Here’s how I think it might work.
Part 1
A. Left moves forward – toe/hoove facing left while back left moves in front of back right, facing left.
B. Right swings forward to parallel with left while back right does the same
C. Left steps closer to right while back left does the same.
Part 2
A. Back Right moves back with toe/hoove facing left while front right moves behind front left facing left.
B. Back Left swings back to parallel with right while front left does the same
C. Back right steps closer to left while front right does the same.
Men do Part one as women do Part two in partnership.
Men do Part two as women do part one in partnership. You’ve turned one quarter by now.
Repeat three more times and you’re back where you started.
Let’s hope they can figure it out.
I remember doing the waltz in middle school man those were weird times
never done it.
When I was learning, I did indeed pretend I had a partner. It is important for the lead partner to have a strong “frame”.
Unfortunately, it looks as though Paddington is practicing to be a follow partner — not that there’s anything wrong with that. 🙂 Leads place their right hand on the follow partner’s back; follows join their right hand to their partner’s left, and rest their left arm on their lead’s arm.
Over course, the convention could be completely different in Dreamland.
The waltz is always in 3/4 time. (Three quarter notes per measure for those who don’t know what that means.)
So yeah, the beat will be a triple step. And all waltzes, no matter where you are in the world (even Sweden) are triple stepped.
It’s quite impossible for a Waltz to be different in Dreamland than in our world, as the Waltz was thought to Paddington by a child of our world. But serious now, how many children know how to Waltz?
Just to throw in another possible dance complication: There is a waltz step in ballet that requires no partner (and any little dancer who’s done ballet for more than a year or two should know). But then, you’d have the arms all wrong for that! 😛
Hottub is right about the arm placement, but I say we chalk that up to a kid teaching him how to waltz. While it’s likely that a child would know how to dance a waltz, they wouldn’t necessarily know how to TEACH the waltz.
Heya scott! I’ve never commented before, but I noticed you mentioned yesterday was your birthday. I didn’t get yesterday’s comic read until today because I was celebrating my own natal day. Happy birthday from Iowa!
still in love with the paddington dance king
Oly thing I didn’t see mentioed already. Guy leads off with his Left foot forward, then his right foot to the “corner” to the right of the left foot. then brings the feet together. Time can be counted “forward, side, together (1st half), back, side, together (second half, always switch feet)
@Steriema: It’s quite possible that the kid who taught Paddington would get it wrong. And it’s possible that Paddington altered the steps from what he was taught, whether deliberately or by accident.
Paddington certainly has an unusual shape for a dance instructor. But I imagine that rock giants don’t lose girth the same way we do.
yay!
Thank you all. And Happy Birthday to Kim and all of the other readers yesterday who share my day of birth.
Thank you.
As a ballroom dancer and equestrian, I now find myself helplessly wondering how a centaur would waltz. I mean, they could do two left feet then two right feet, but that’s not how they naturally move. Hmm. Perhaps the forelegs would mimic human legs, and the diagonal back foot would follow.
Can’t see anything in regards to the dance that haven’t been mentioned. Either way, at least the idea gets across
I’ve been ballroom dancing competitively for years. Most of the dance issues have been stated (thanks everyone!0, so to put them all into one place: Paddington’s arms are currently in the woman’s, or follower’s, position. Which means he needs to start on the right foot (which he’s doing). However, he needs to be stepping back on the right foot, not forward. The spin that he’s got going on is typical in the waltz, so good job there! Keep up the amazing work and research. It pays off!
I don’t waltz, but I love this page.
I dance a lot, you got it right.
I learnt the waltz just last spring. I signed up believing there would be some nice girls my age. Turns out it was only old ladies. So after dancing with the old ladies, I can confirm there is nothing unusual about someone dancing the wrong position, turning the wrong way, or just making up their own dance.
In dance, when they talk about a “step”, it’s usually referencing a pattern, or series of foot placements. So Paddington is actually teaching ONE basic step. First-hand research is always a good idea. Ladies love a man who can dance.
A proper Viennese fast waltz has two patterns (the easier right waltz and the harder left waltz), each comprised of six steps; it takes two bars (measures? My musical English isn’t that good.) to get back to the original position, if it can be called that.
Actually, though, a good couple should make a full 360° turn on every bar, and also move counter-clockwise around the ballroom at a decent pace. If you don’t, you’ll collide with other couples. (Actually, you’ll collide anyway if either you or another couple is inexperienced. Waltzing is dangerous.)
With this rapid turning, nausea is a very real problem, which is why there are left and right waltz. You turn clockwise on right waltz and counter-clockwise on left waltz. The change is indicated by dancing a half-step without turning at all.
Finally, when waltzing properly, you’re turning so fast that the centrifugal force is an issue. Basically, you and your partner need to get very close (otherwise you need too much energy to turn) and hold onto each other, then spin around your common center of mass. This can be problematic if the man and the woman are very different in weight.
The centaur’s main problem, assuming they have the coordination to control two foot pairs, is very likely the centrifugal force, due to their long bodies. In actual dancing, I would expect their hind legs to leave the ground. However, that only works if they really put a lot of energy into their steps, which may be difficult for a horse body, where the hind legs are actually stronger.
So all in all, not a very wise choice by Paddington. 🙂
I love your comic Scott.
I joined a ballroom club in grad school and it was lots of fun, but its pretty difficult to describe a waltz with just words.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OqmZCJeVbk
Okay, centaurs trying to learn waltz. This is bound to end in some collisions. And probably some minor disaster. I hope it’ll be fun.
I think that the dancing with an imaginary partner comes across fine in this page. One thing that might make it a little clearer is if the lower of his two hands were positioned further away from his body to better approximate the position of his invisible partner.
Fun page.
If Paddington learned to dance from a child, he would’ve followed and the kid would’ve led, right? So he’s just doing the waltz the way *he* learned it!
One more comment about dancing. Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were famous for the dance numbers they did together. While I’m not going to even guess how centaurs are going to adapt to waltzing, consider what Ginger Rogers accomplished. Not only did she match every step Fred Astaire did, she did it backwards in high heels!
I’m fairly sure the waltz was designed with bipeds in mind. I am also fairly sure (given my meager knowledge on the subject) that to adapt it to a quadruped version is not something that can be spur of the moment.
Poor centaur kids. 🙁
funny.. i read your comic whenever it updates.
i read the things you post about it.
but i guess i missed the one about your birthday.
mine’s today.
finally eighteen.
ahah.
happy late birthday to you.
CornedBee – That’s just Viennese waltzing, though. Other waltzes can be much slower and more manageable, and involve considerably less falling down.
Your basic box step is as follows, for the lead partner:
a b
c d
Starting at c:
left foot to a
right foot to b
left foot to b
right foot to d
left foot to c
right foot to c
Repeat until mastered (which I hope should be about fifteen seconds). To move around while waltzing, take the same movement and change all backward steps to forward steps. Swing your steps to turn, and you can even step in place if you like, but the most important thing is to ALWAYS alternate the feet. If you ever step twice in a row with the same foot, you’re doing it wrong.
This seems off to me. Paddington’s about Alexander’s age, and Alexander is 20. Paddington learned dancing from all the kids he met who came to Dreamland.
But seriously, how many kids do you know, growing up in the mid to late ’90s, know how to waltz? I sure don’t. The dances I know, that I danced at school dances, were things like the Electric Slide, the Macarena and the Tootsie Roll. MAYBE the Twist or YMCA if the DJ was feeling retro, and our parents drilled oldies into our heads, like mine.
I also agree that adapting the waltz for quadrupeds would be a challenge. I think there should be an explanation for both of these things, like, oh, Paddington searched out the child’s ballroom dancing champion of XXX year because he wanted to learn older dances; and that Paddington has taught centaurs dancing before so he’s already knows how to modify the steps and how to teach those modifications.
My only critique is that he looks like he is holding himself rather than further out as though with a partner in proper ballroom form.
Just one question that I’ve kind of been thinking about: How does one do the waltz with 4 legs?
I guess the motion would be the same for both sets of legs, though I suppose the back legs would have to make wider strides in the centaur kids cases. The front legs would make shorter strides. That and the movement would be slower.
Just speaking logistically, though I guess it may turn into a big joke later on.
To those complaining about his knowledge of the waltz: can’t he have learnt it from other denizens of Dreamland, who in turn learnt it from earlier kids who WOULD have known it?
Padington looks like his hand id on his chest. it needs to be out more like he’s holding someone.
Well, actually all you have to do Scott is go back and watch that old Tom & Jerry cartoon called ‘Johann Mouse’ Jerry waltzes a lot in that. 🙂
Classical musician and dancer of ballet here. From a musical standpoint, the main criterion of the waltz is the beat pattern, which puts the emphasis on the first beat, resulting in a ONE-two-three ONE-two-three feeling. The ballet step of the same name also uses a very prominent DOWN-up-up DOWN-up-up pattern. So, this is a nitpicky little thing, but you could try adding some emphasis to the “ONE” in the speech bubble– making it bold or putting it into italics, for example.
HA! I love that ^_^ I did ballroom dance for 5 years.
@Prof: Most younger kids would not know how to dance, but Alex is in college and most colleges have some sort of ballroom dancing class/club. Many high schoolers also take community classes.
Also, remember that Paddington dances and teaches probably out of love for dancing, not as a professional. The kids, likewise, just like to dance. So he may not always teach the best way, or the best dances. Like here…
That’s going to be interesting…waltzing quadrapeds.
I was just wondering about that, yeah. Maybe you could double the beat or something.
Left arm would probably be a bit further away from the torso.
Do we have hard evidence regarding paddington’s gender?
You’d need to make some adjust to the three beat tempo for quadrupeds. The question is, is it more effective to double it to six beats or square it to nine?
*start music/dance geekout here*
You wouldn’t want to double it or square it. I mean, you could, but it wouldn’t really help so much. Waltze beats are usually one triplet group like 3/2 or 3/4 (one,two,three,etc.) or a pair of triplets like 6/4 or 6/8 (ONE,two,three,FOUR,five,six). If you doubled or tripled the beat the underlying unit (triplet) would be unchanged. It would change how you would phrase your dance steps, but not the fundamental nature of the dance.
Tl/dr: You could,do that, but it wouldn’t really change anything. 🙂 However, you could probably solve most of the problems by having the centaur’s move at a canter (three beat-gait).
On a different note, it would be very, very hard to waltz with qaudripeds.You would probably be limited to the progressive (straight0line movement) steps.
Latin would probably work a lot better 😀
Hehehehe Centaurs Latin dancing xD That would be sweeeeet. Or Irish step dancing!! That would be AMAZING. Please, please, please have Paddington do some Irish 😀
Paddington: Lord of the Rock-Giant-Dance!
…I just learned so much about dancing. Thank you!