In the 85 chapters of this guidebook, you will find many ideas about waltzing, dancing, and living. Dance descriptions and tips to improve your dancing are accompanied by down-to-earth ways to find greater fulfillment in your dancing and in your life. 25 different kinds of waltz are completely described, including: cross-step waltz, Viennese waltz, box step waltz, rotary waltz, polka, schottische, redowa, mazurka, hambo, zwiefacher, and more. In addition, you will find 85 waltz variations completely described, and a concise compendium of an additional hundred variations, accompanied by 50 illustrations of waltzing through the ages. Then beyond waltzing, much of this book applies to all forms of social ballroom dancing. You'll learn how you can be a better dance partner, how to develop your style and musicality, how to improvise more confidently, how to learn new dances by observation, and how to create your own social dance variations. You'll also learn about the many ways that the practice of social dancing can enrich our lives. Drawing on the latest research in social psychology, Waltzing includes chapters on the essential benefits of: music, physical activity, connection, play, mindfulness, acceptance, conditional learning, and many other topics.

"Self-assured and self-revealing, Waltzing the Cat will gratify Pam Houston’s many admirers, and it will lure plenty of new readers into her wild rivers" —Portland Oregonian In this remarkable follow-up to the best-selling Cowboys Are My Weakness, Pam Houston traces the story of peripatetic photographer Lucy O’Rourke through eleven linked fictions “full of memorable paragraphs and…sentences worth underlining” (Rocky Mountain News). Lucy is prone to the wrong decisions at critical times—not to mention natural disasters—but a surprise encounter with Carlos Castenada sends her back to her beloved Rocky Mountains, where she takes comfort in animals, the jagged landscape of Colorado, and the sage advice of women friends. Houston serves up her characteristic blend of relationships and adventure in this story of one woman’s struggle for balance in a world that keeps pitching and rolling under her feet.

This is the digital version of the printed book (Copyright © 2003). If There’s No Risk On Your Next Project, Don’t Do It. Greater risk brings greater reward, especially in software development. A company that runs away from risk will soon find itself lagging behind its more adventurous competition. By ignoring the threat of negative outcomes–in the name of positive thinking or a can-do attitude–software managers drive their organizations into the ground. In Waltzing with Bears, Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister–the best-selling authors of Peopleware–show readers how to identify and embrace worthwhile risks. Developers are then set free to push the limits. The authors present the benefits of risk management, including that it makes aggressive risk-taking possible, protects management from getting blindsided, provides minimum-cost downside protection, reveals invisible transfers of responsibility, isolates the failure of a subproject. Readers are armed with strategies for confronting the most common risks that software projects face: schedule flaws, requirements inflation, turnover, specification breakdown, and under-performance. Waltzing with Bears will help you mitigate the risks–before they turn into project-killing problems. Risks are out there–and they should be there–but there is a way to manage them.

Bad form… When Corinne Blakely, a grande dame of international ballroom dancing, is poisoned, the dance community—including champion dancer Stacy Graysin—is left in an uproar. Corinne was penning a tell-all memoir, but now her secrets might well remain hidden, just as the killer perhaps intended. The victim’s dance card was full of people who might have wanted her silenced, if not dead. But when Maurice, a ballroom instructor at Stacy’s dance studio Graysin Motion, becomes the prime suspect, she has no choice but to waltz in and take the lead in another murder investigation. Clearing Maurice’s name by finding the real killer is going to be harder than a running spin turn. But there’s one thing Stacy knows for sure—she’s not about to let the murderer dance away scot-free.

First crush, first passion, first love. Trying to fill the empty places left by children going to college, Jean Davis decides to get out of the house and volunteer in the local mayoral campaign. It soon becomes obvious—though not to Jean—that she has a major crush on the candidate, Rosie Monroe. Thrilled by the excitement of politics and strangely flustered every time Rosie calls on her for help, Jean has never felt more alive. Rising to every challenge with newfound passion, she surprises everyone, including her husband, by flourishing under the stress of the hard-fought campaign. When dirty tricks by the other side damage Rosie's reputation at the worst possible moment, Jean finally realizes that her feelings are not entirely about the thrill of the job. Two decades of doing what was expected of her are abruptly turned upside down, and she realizes she may just be in love—for the first time in her life. Newcomer Robbi McCoy tells a passionate coming-of-age story about a mature woman whose life is only beginning. Full of surprises and difficult choices, Waltzing at Midnight is a heartfelt, endearing story about a woman we all know and the love that transforms her life. Winner, Golden Crown Literary Award.

At the turn of the 20th century, in San Francisco, Olana Whittaker is struggling to make it on her own as a journalist for the "Gold Coast Chronicle". While covering the grand opening of Sequoia National Park, she meets forest ranger Matthew Hart, a man too busy protecting nature to have time for people. But when the pair are trapped in an early blizzard, Olana learns to appreciate both Hart and the land he is fighting to protect from men like her father, a lumber baron.

From ‘folk devils’ to ballroom dancers, Waltzing Through Europe explores the changing reception of fashionable couple dances in Europe from the eighteenth century onwards. A refreshing intervention in dance studies, this book brings together elements of historiography, cultural memory, folklore, and dance across comparatively narrow but markedly heterogeneous localities. Rooted in investigations of often newly discovered primary sources, the essays afford many opportunities to compare sociocultural and political reactions to the arrival and practice of popular rotating couple dances, such as the Waltz and the Polka. Leading contributors provide a transnational and affective lens onto strikingly diverse topics, ranging from the evolution of romantic couple dances in Croatia, and Strauss’s visits to Hamburg and Altona in the 1830s, to dance as a tool of cultural preservation and expression in twentieth-century Finland. Waltzing Through Europe creates openings for fresh collaborations in dance historiography and cultural history across fields and genres. It is essential reading for researchers of dance in central and northern Europe, while also appealing to the general reader who wants to learn more about the vibrant histories of these familiar dance forms.

The Velociraptor was among creation's most ferocious predators, and its killer instinct lives on in the form of well-intentioned but deadly activist groups ready to shred and devour your company's reputation. Waltzing with the Raptors presents the cutting-edge concept of Reputation Assurance, an indispensable system for measuring a company's reputation and social accountability. Adhering to the belief that business has the power to build prosperous global communities, Glen Peters identifies the practical steps that any company can take to achieve, monitor, and maintain a solid reputation. Based on a global study of multinationals in North America, Europe, and Asia, Reputation Assurance is used by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the global thought leaders. The first step in learning how to waltz is listening to the music, or rather, listening to the wishes of the wide constituency of institutions and people who inhabit the world market. As recently as the last decade, products were still being launched based almost entirely on the opinion of the R&D department. Today, a product launch without detailed market research would be considered reckless if not suicidal. Likewise, it is no longer safe for senior executives to take management actions and make decisions in the belief that they can interpret the wishes of their shareholders, employees, customers, and the society in which they operate. When Shell went ahead with plans to sink a defunct North Sea oil platform, it sought the approval of the U.K. government, but failed to acknowledge Greenpeace and the millions of Shell customers who forced a company U-turn. Civil rights groups, religious organizations, single-issue parties, and many others make up the stirring medley of people companies have to listen to, to keep waltzing. Reputation Assurance applies a framework of principles for business excellence across the company. The new paradigm ensures fair and competitive returns for shareholders, understands and meets customer expectations and guarantees, offers employees fair compensation, honesty, and openness in communication, and takes suggestions and complaints seriously. Finally, the framework promotes corporate accountability to society as a whole by contributing to the economic power of its citizens, promoting human rights, disclosing relevant information, and respecting at all times local culture and laws. Waltzing, after all, isn't just fancy footwork but an art. Once companies learn and practice the steps, they will find their reputations admired by all. "I have long believed that companies can only hope to operate successfully if they have an invisible 'License to Operate' from their employees, customers, partners, and shareholders, together with society as a whole. This excellent book points out that these relationships are under increasing threat from predators and require cohesive, coherent, and well thought out management if companies are to succeed. The company's reputation is no longer in the category of 'nice to have', it is now absolutely crucial for continued survival."-Sir John Harvey-Jones, former Chairman, ICI (U.K.). "Glen Peters's fine book focuses on the importance of the employees and the environment to a company's bottom line, in addition to stockholders. His recommendations fit with findings that large companies that pay attention to these factors historically outperform those that don't."-Jeff Seglin, Visiting Fellow, Center for the Study of Values in Public Life, Harvard University. "Waltzing with the Raptors cogently and engagingly shows how managers who actively listen and are responsive to their company's stakeholders, who monitor, verify, and report on performance, can transform powerful and feisty critics into partners, thereby protecting and enhancing their company's reputation."-Alice Tepper Martin, President, Council on Economic Priorities.