Fort Worth hoes

Shuffle, or Shuffle Hoe-down, is a very fast dance. Anyone for a description?

Houston Shuffle is another name for Triple Two-step or Progressive Double Two-step. See elsewhere on this page.

FWS is a regional C&W dance that origionated about ten years ago in Fort Worth, Texas. It started, according to one account I have heard, when a lady showed a drunk man the ladies footwork from Dallas Progressive Double Two Step (a variation of Triple Two Step). When the man sobered up, he did the ladies footwork from PD2 - not realising what had happened, and a new dance was born.

The count of the dance is 123, 4&5, 6&. The dance is progressive and generally orbits in a continious left hand turn. Many of the spins and wraps were taken from WCS. The basic position is closed, and the man begins with his right foot on a 'down' beat. From the count, the first 'triple step' begins on an 'up' beat. This makes the dance different from ECS, ploka, and T2S which begin the 'triple steps' on the 'down' beat. The dance is growing slowly in popularity, and is currently offered for UCWDC competiton as a regional dance. The 1995 UCWDC rules contain a dance description for Southwest Shuffle (aka. Ft. Worth Shuffle).

I posted a very detailed description of the footwork several months ago. But here is the gist of it again: The footwork is three sliding steps forward (123). A step directly to the side (4), slide the other foot to close (&). Step forward on foot that took 4 (5). A step to the other side (6), and slide the feet closed (&). You should now be ready to step forward on 1 again. The man begins with his left foot, and alternates on every step (left, right, left, right, etc). On the side steps there is ideally no forward progression. The ladies footwork mirrors the mans. You don't pick your feet up. This gives the dance a very smooth appearance on the floor, dancers who are good at it look like they are ice skating.

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