St Bernard's Waltz

How St Bernard's Waltz is danced

1. In ballroom hold, three steps sideways towards the lady's right and man's left, then stamp both feet.
2. Two steps sideways in the opposite direction.
3. Two steps towards the centre of the room — the lady forwards with right then left, the man backwards with left then right.
4. Two steps back out on the same feet.
5. The lady turns under the man's left arm.
6. Back into ballroom hold and waltz onwards for four bars. Repeat.

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 in ballroom hold, round the room. The only genuinely slow dance in the set, and the only one danced in three time.

Music

Waltz time — three beats to the bar, unmistakably. After an evening of reels and marches the change of feel is the whole point.

The room it needs

Very little. It is close-hold and barely travels, so it fits a room that has filled up over the course of the evening.

For beginners

Easy, with one caveat: people expect a waltz and get a sequence dance. The steps are sideways and stamped rather than a rotating waltz, which is simpler than what they were bracing for.

Where it falls in the night

Late, and deliberately. It is the breather: the dance that comes after something fast, lets a hot room cool down, and gives couples a moment together before the night winds up. It also works beautifully as a first dance for couples who want something everybody can join.

What usually goes wrong

• Trying to waltz it. It is in waltz time but it is not a waltz for most of its length — three steps sideways and a stamp, not a turning box step. The actual waltzing is only the last four bars.
• Forgetting the stamp. It marks the end of the first phrase and keeps the room together.
• Rushing the turn under the arm. There is plenty of music for it; taken calmly it looks far better.

Where it comes from

Generally reckoned to be a twentieth-century sequence dance rather than an old traditional one, and the saint has nothing to do with it as far as anybody can establish. It has been a fixture of Scottish dance halls long enough that the distinction stopped mattering.