The Military Two Step

How The Military Two Step is danced

1. Lady with a hand on the man's shoulder, man with an arm around her waist. Touch heel then toe of the outer foot to the ground twice, bouncing. March three steps and turn.
2. Repeat in the opposite direction.
3. Join hands and bounce on both feet, then kick the right foot across the body to the left, and the left foot across to the right.
4. The man raises his left hand and the lady turns underneath, dropping the other hand. The man can salute with his right.
5. Polka around the room.

You do not need to memorise any of this. Garry walks the room through every dance before the music starts and keeps calling all the way through it — the steps are here because some people like to read ahead, not because anybody is expected to arrive knowing them.

What it needs, and who it suits

Formation

Couples round the room, progressive — you change partner each time through, which is why it works so well at a wedding where half the room does not know the other half.

Music

March time, and cheerfully so. The heel-and-toe sits right on the beat, which makes it easy to catch even from the back of a crowded room.

The room it needs

Any shape, like the other round-the-room dances. It progresses gently and does not need a long run.

For beginners

Easy, and the salute means everybody is being slightly ridiculous together, which is a considerable help with a self-conscious room.

Where it falls in the night

Early to mid. It is the great mixer: because partners change, it breaks up the groups who arrived together and gets the two sides of a wedding talking to each other. Worth calling before people have settled into their own tables for the night.

What usually goes wrong

• Forgetting to change partner. It is progressive; staying put means the couple behind has nowhere to go.
• Over-thinking the heel and toe. It is heel down, toe down, twice, with a bounce. There is no hidden complexity.
• Skipping the salute. Optional in theory, but it is the bit that gets the laugh, and the dance is noticeably flatter without it.

Where it comes from

A round-the-room sequence dance of the sort that spread through British dance halls in the early twentieth century, and a fixture at Scottish ceilidhs ever since. Not ancient, and none the worse for it.