Renowned WCS Instructor of Instructors, Skippy Blair, who is known to have actually named WCS around 1958  and credited with inventing the ‘anchor step’ sometime ago, is a wealth of knowledge and information on WCS whom I admire and respect tremendously. However, none of us know everything and over the past 20 years many WCS dancers and instructors are credited with new innovations. Skippy’s anchor step in 3rd position was brilliant in that it required the ladies to remain in place on the ‘& ah ’ before being led forward on the 1. This helped combat a long abused problem of the ladies improperly executing a coaster step and moving toward the man on 6.

The problem with using the 3rd position footwork for the anchor is that after taking 2 steps forward on 1 2, there is only one step back on 4 before anchoring in 3rd position. This isn’t practical without constantly adjusting the size of the walks and/or backstep on 4 which shouldn’t be necessary.

Mark recognized this problem and corrected it by teaching a ‘back, in place’ for the anchor basic while still holding the ‘& ah’ before moving forward on 1. This is the common action that most dancers now use as basic although they may not teach it as such. He has (as Skippy herself finally explained in response to a question involving competitions in April of 2005) been explaining since ’98 that the anchor is an action, not a foot position. The anchor in fact, can, and is executed dozens of different ways properly. The idea is to teach the proper connection through anchoring to be so important to all WCS execution. Skippy’s 3rd position footwork for the anchor IS a great way to teach ‘making the proper connection’ but by no means the only way and, as stated, not really practical footwork overall.