---Jane Dantz
Big . . . FootNote:
----Only, about the time Gary should have been promot-ing and marketing this book, he just had to write several other books first, four distinct classics in the Ski Industry alone because of his unique talents there, all this while the world kept getting faster and faster, with everything doubling and tripling in price while his meager wages stayed
Afterword -- 153
the same.
Gary didn't know it at the time, but this world is a much more discriminatory "Not what-you-know but who-you-know" kind of world; and, far more often than not, besides the unethical financial experts, the people who are financially successful in their endeavors are born into the Aristocracy or some powerful Religion or Secret Society---just follow their lineage, and see who their relatives are, and what religions and politics they have behind them. We hear
"right-wing conservatives" complaining about the "Entitle-ment Culture" demanding too much "Gimme, gimme" all the time; but it's not like a young man can grab a shot-gun and an axe and go out into the wilderness and build his log cabin anywhere he pleases. The people with leverage want the less fortunate to pay for the privilege of being alive, which for many means getting one of the only shitty jobs available-
--a lot of your modern-day American slavery is self-imposed, but a lot of it is not. Overpopulation is probably at the root of most of our problems---don't blame Gary, he hasn't had any kids, and he hasn't fathered any either,---but this common-sense idea is not an easy one to sell to the masses. Then, on top of that, the massive American Herd keeps making dumber and dumber decisions: The number of couples not dancing in recent decades is proportionate to the tripling of the sizes of their over-inflated houses, in great part due to discriminatory Zoning Restrictions, as they make it illegal for people to live within their means: lumber that could be used for making community dance halls has been used to build bigger and more expensive boxes than these folks need. Line Dancing has been a big phenomenon, but it has kept just as many people off the dance floors as it has lured on. Hank Williams Jr sang about this rat-race back in the '80s with his song "The American Dream." Even if the
"left-wing liberals" get their way in making the rules easier for the down-trodden, that might just lead to quicker overpopulation. I don't think we humans are in control of the planet any more than a bunch of coyotes or wolves: the Hu-
154 -- Heinsian WESTERN SWING
man Race is part of the Animal Kingdom, and the spiritually-incorrect aggressive members seem to always have to prey on the weak.
On the rare occasions that an unknown Individual does keep their priorities straight and rise to the top of their profession with a fairly balanced life, it's just a matter of time before these powerful manipulative groups pat them on the back and try to recruit them and somehow make them their own---like the strongest lone wolf that the status-quo pack can't seem to run off. Some of these strong lone wolves stay spiritually correct and don't fall for the status quo, but many succumb to the need for more safety in numbers, especially as they grow old and tired. These powerful groups don't care much what a Nobody has to say, but they are very interested in what successful people are about. When still a relative unknown, Gary had to scramble more than Orson Welles working for others, since his own business was not off the ground yet and "his parking sticker was not validated yet."
About 1996, Gary was forced by circumstances to take a real job driving Over-the-Road Motor Coaches all over the Western States---scrambling to follow his bliss had landed him near the good-sized town of Pueblo, Colorado, a town big enough to have a better paying job like this now that he
"needed" it. He couldn't even get any of his dance lessons going there, because the dance floor rental prices were out-rageous, and the local square-dance club had a fifty-year monopoly on everything else.
One particularly disturbing time for him was when fellow driver Larry Leeper showed him a book he'd just read, The Horse Whisperer, by Nicholas Evans. The Robert Redford motion picture was released about the same time, so Gary went to see it at Pueblo's new theater. You can't imagine how discouraged Gary felt when he witnessed the key point of his Heinsian WESTERN DANCE philosophy come to life on the big screen. Since the early 1980s, Gary'd been teaching dancing based on fine horse-training methods, namely
Afterword -- 155
those similar to Ray Hunt, and some of His Disciples like Buck Brannaman, the two men the movie was also linked-up with. Since then, he has talked constantly of "sacking the woman out" like a horse, "getting her used to things," and
"gaining trust," and hence having no resistance bringing out her natural dance abilities. Now, in the movie, Redford plays a character who's pretty much an in-between compilation of a younger Brannaman and an older Hunt. "When I saw Redford putting her foot in the stirrup," says Gary,
"then, when I saw his hand on the small of her back on the Saturday Night dance floor, I couldn't help but notice: that's the 'sacking-out' I've been teaching all these years. And they showed the link between fine horsemanship and fine dancing, more my thorough study that 'Dancing is like riding,'
than Hunt's fleeting comment that 'Riding is like dancing.'"
So the character was a compilation of three men, not just two---guess who the third one is. Then, the icing on the cake was when Gary noticed an extraordinary "coincidence"---
that the dance scene was filmed in a country dance pavilion fifteen miles north of Bozeman, Montana, SpringHill Community Center, where Gary had given more than a dozen-week series of lessons a few years earlier---the odds were a million-to-one that the dance scene would be set where Gary had taught, . . . or were they? "And there I was driving my life away," Gary says. "It was pretty hard to take, not getting any credit."
. . . Remember, in the end of The Horse Whisperer, how she decides to go back to her husband? but it's up in the air how that will work out---well, Gary got the Sequel To the
Horse Whisperer worked out real quick: she goes back to her husband . . . with the stipulation that they take dance lessons together . . . from a guy like Gary she's heard of Out West, . . . so they take the fine dance lessons, . . . and she falls for the dance teacher. ---That's Gary's punch line.
. . . "No, I'm not crying plagiarism; I'm just demanding respect," he says; it would be nice to get some attribution."
We've seen some sort of signature dance moves Gary teaches
156 -- Heinsian WESTERN SWING
. . . in TV commercials over the years also, for Aleve Pain Reliever and we forget what else---"I believe these commercials are made by people I taught in that pavilion with the fold-out windows north of Bozeman, and people who saw the first copies of my manual available a few years before The Horse Whisperer. And these same people were involved or at least associated with Redford's lucrative movie project--
-how else would all three parties be associated with the same one-in-a-million dance pavilion?"
. . . So Gary had started selling some crude copies of this manual to his dance students by 1992, mostly in the Bozeman area, . . . but it would be many years before this book would really get out to the public. It's one thing to get the books printed and in the stores; it's yet another to get them selling well, no matter how well written or how good the information---especially when powerful people don't give credit where credit is due. And, with big greedy corpora-tions publishing books like Chicken Soup For the Soul and leveraging the publishing industry and cranking out redundant titles in the triple digits---a half-dozen Chicken Soup flavors would have been plenty,---they flooded the shelves with more titles than the buyer can keep track of, shelf space that ought to be reserved for only the best books----they kept adding water to the soup and reheating it till we couldn't stand it anymore. There are millions more book titles out now . . . than there should be: anyone who can type, and cut-n-paste on a computer, can get a book out; then, if they have the time and money to promote and market, with the support of people in power, theirs are the books that get noticed first, no matter how mediocre they are, burying the books that have true Heart and Sole. . . . Call it the Publishing Bubble, just like the Housing Bubble that burst in 2008-09, or the Dot-Com Bubble that burst around the turn of the mil-lennium. If Gary Heins were to ever get a job ghost-writing for that Chicken Soup corporation, he would have written
Chicken Soup For the Compost Pile---man cannot live on Chicken Soup alone; but that is not his style, as he's had
Afterword -- 157
more important books to get out, like this one, about men and women getting along with each other, and finding each other in person rather than on artificial Internet Social Networking Sites.
It's been getting harder and harder for Individuals to survive in this world, True Individuals, if they are not born into The Aristocracy or the right Political Religion. The masses seem to enjoy following each other's lead like Lem-mings Off a Cliff. But Gary and I have a feeling all that is about to change, in the Individuals' favor, as more and more bubbles burst. Singer Susan Boyle's success, in 2009, and the bursting of Tiger Woods' bubble . . . were illustrations of a turning point. As times get harder and more problems surface, caused by overpopulation and a greedy egotistical few pulling all the strings, more and more people will be slapped into striving for quality instead of just quantity---
more and more people will have to admit "The Emperor is not wearing any clothes."
. . . If you're still here, reading this, Thank You---you are one of the few, one of the very many few. And, Congratulations on studying this whole book, this sole book, this soul book. . . . I knew you didn't have the Heart . . . to break mine in two.
---Again,
Jane Does Dantz
158 -- Heinsian WESTERN SWING
Appendix A: Heinsian Western Swing Moves & Gaits -- 159
POSTED!
NO
LINE-
DANCING
ALLOWED
In This Establishment
POSTED!
By Order of GARY HEINS---U.S. DANCE TEACHER
160 -- Heinsian WESTERN SWING
Appendix A:
Heinsian Western Swing Moves & Gaits
Western Swing---four-count first---with Five Families of Moves sample: ASW "Bob Wills Is Still the King""
"together, apart, together, apart" swing rhythm-step
---bent fingers-n-elbows, right-leads, clockwise in place I
Simple Turns---four-of-eight easy frm scrtch l-girl-in
l-guy-out
r-girl-out, r-girl-in
r-guy-in
and: r-couple-out
Cradles---four, always in, two easy
l-girl-crdl
r-girl-crdl
r-guy-crdl
l-guy-crdl
and: missing element
II
Pretzels---four, always out, two easy r-girl-prtzl
l-guy-prtzl
r-guy-prtzl
l-girl-prtzl
and: lariats---four possible, two easy
Horseshoe Handling via Hand-Switches
easy hand-switches
over-head throws, houlihans
ribbons
windows
arm-slides
buddies position, high n low
and: ten-step
III
Eggbeater Ideas---ongoing, reversed, checked in simple turns: r-girl-guy-egbtr
rvrsd egbtr
egbtr chkd
in cradles: girl-guy cnctd crdls
rvrsd crdls
crdl pivots, crdl dip
in pretzels: perpetual prtzls
rvrsd prtzls, lariats
hfwy howdies, arm-twists, figure-eights
in horseshoe handling: orbiter, couple
postponed arm-slide
howdies, buddies pivots
#
Appendix A: Heinsian Western Swing Moves & Gaits -- 161
---so that's turny four-count swing, . . . and here are the other gaits: Montana Two-step
sample: BH- "I Don't Dance With Strangers"
"left, quick, slow, . . . right, quick, slow, . . ."
---trdtnl position, counter-clock travel, moves after man's slow right Slow Dance
sample: RP- "For the Good Times"
"slow, . . . slow, . . . slow, . . . slow, . . . ."
---close-n-personal, not much travel, few moves, possible one-step Fabulous One-step
sample: RM- "Till Love Comes Again"
"quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick, quick"
---tight position, ramdom travel, some slow-dance Waltz
sample: MT- "Send Me Down To Tucson
"one, two, three, one, two, three, big, little, little, big, little, little"
---trdtnl position, counter-clock travel, turns on man's big left Polka
sample: MMM- "Carolina In the Pines"
one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three, one-two-three"
---trdtnl position, counter-clock roll, plenty of swing Texas Two-step
sample: VG- "Don't Come Cryin' To Me"
"left, quick, slow, . . . slow, . . . left, quick, slow, . . . slow, . . . ."
---Texas position, counter-clock travel, moves after man's slow right Six-count Swing
sample: MC- "Texas Is Bigger Than It Used To Be"
"to-ge-e-ther, apart, to-ge-e-ther, apart"{
---like four-count swing, only timed different Chaparral Cha-cha
sample: CM- "You Don't Have the Heart To Break Mine In Two"
"quick, quick, cha-cha-cha, quick, quick, cha-cha-cha"
---trdtnl position, ramdom travel, some one-step and slow-dance Alternative Two-step
sample: EB- "My First Tastes of Texas"
" quick, quick, slow, . . . slow, . . . slow, . . . quick, quick, slow, . . . slow, . . . slow, . . . ."
---trdtnl position, counter-clock travel, turns after man's slow right Alternative Cha-cha
sample: EH- "Tennessee Rose"
" quick, quick, slow, . . . slow, . . . cha-cha-cha, quick, quick, slow, . . . slow, . . . cha-cha-cha"
---trdtnl position, random travel, turns after right triple Possible Misc-steps
whatever else music, whatever steps you might come up with Latent Triple-step
---"left-two-three, right-two-three, left-two-three, right-two-three"
Alternative Polka-step
---"left-two-three, slow, . . . slow, . . . right-two-three, slow, . . . slow, . . . ."
Texas Polka-step
---"left-triple, slow, . . . slow, . . . right, . . . left-triple, slow, . . .slow, . . . right, . . . ."
#
162 -- Heinsian WESTERN SWING
Appendix B: GH Country-Western Song List -- 163
Appendix B:
GH Country-Western
Sample-Song List
Here, from the author's limited record collection, we suggest some of the more favorite songs Heins likes to dance to and promote, listed by performer and not necessarily song-writer. These songs provide the scenery, if you will, you may ride through in a particular gait, or step---the number of songs listed for each gait has everything to do with the song-type's prevalence and availability, with slow-dancing obvious and barely mentioned. A lot of these songs are about the step they suggest, and a lot of the four-count swing songs are about Bob Wills. some songs have been done in more than one beat, for instance: Bob Wills played "San Antonio Rose" both as a slo swing and as a fast polka; he played "Faded Love" both as a Montana two-step and as a Texas two-step; he and George Strait both did "Deep Water" as a Montana two-step, but Willie Nelson and Ray Price did it as a Texas two-step. Some of the Misc-step beats are fairly rare and may seem toned down a bit; and some beats, like rockin' swing and slow triple-steps, didn't make the list because they aren't country, and they interfere with most people's chance to master the basics---and that's not our style. At any rate, these are subjective samples, just to
help you find music and get going---when you go to the music
store, tell 'em Gary sentcha.
Western Swing---Four-count-----------
---"together, apart, together, apart"
Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys:
"San Antonio Rose"
"Deep In the Heart of Texas"
"Time Changes Everything"
"Bubbles In My Beer"
"All Night Long"
"Back Home In Indiana"
"Somewhere South of San Antone"
"One Fiddle, Two Fiddle"
"I Can't Go On This Way"
"You Don't Care What Happens"
"Right Or Wrong"
"GI Wish"
"Shame On You"
"What Is This Thing Called Love?"
"Blue Bonnett Lane"
164 -- Heinsian WESTERN SWING
George Strait & His Ace-In-the-Hole Band---
"Home In San Antone"
"It's Dance Time In Texas"