American Smooth & American Rhythm

American Smooth is a form of Ballroom dancing and American Rhythm is the equivalent of Latin dancing. Each group of dances has a different syllabus to the syllabuses used by the main British dance organisations but the most notable differences occur in the Ballroom dances.

First, all the steps for the leader start on the left foot, and all the steps for the follower start on the right foot. This removes the necessity of trying to remember which steps follow others. Any step can be used from any other step. Secondly, partners are not required to maintain contact. Under-arm turns, spins, shadow positions and parallel positions are all possible. This gives a greater variety of exciting and interesting variations.

Initially the American Smooth did not include the Quickstep, instead the Society Tempo was used. Society Tempo had two versions. One was used for music speeds which fell between the normal speed of a foxtrot and the Quickstep. The other version was for faster music that was similar to the speed of quickstep.