Every day of your life you do a hundred things more complicated than the Western Swing.  And once or twice you've done something more physically demanding than the Pony Step ... think back to boot camp, for instance.   So don't be afraid of this dance.   You've already been there and done more.

Dancers facing each other. Gentlemen cup their hands, palms up; ladies too, palms down.  Join hands and close thumbs over partner's finger tips comfortably.   Hands remain cupped and stiffly so.

You and your partner push yourselves away from each other and pull yourselves towards each other.  And you do this only through your cupped hands.  You rely on how you and your partner hold your hands ... relax those curled fingers during a pull and someone may go flying.

It's not the grip on each other that counts ... that grip should be fairly loose ... it's the tension with which you keep your hands cupped as you begin a push or a pull.  The push and the pull are strong but sociable, sincere but considerate ... especially considerate of the respective weights of the partners.   When all is said and done, all country dances are lovers' dances, even the Western Swing.  So be solicitous and patient, and push lovingly, but resolutely.

The Push-Pull establishes the perfect distance between the dancers and is a mechanism for initiating and terminating turns.  It is the compulsory routine that underlies and enables the artistic part of the program, so we belabor it like this.  Now here is a life rule.  Chisel it above the fireplace, emblazen it upon a t-shirt:

All turns begin on the pull.  No turn begins on the push.

Before you examine my translation of a few turns from dance-ese into word-ese, let me remark that one of the simplest of the country dances is the Western Swing.   There are just a whole lot of details to perfect.

Finally, it needs mentioning that the Push-Pull and the Pony Step are concurrent, yet completely independent.  There is no timing correlation between them, no X number of counts or steps per push or pull.   Lest a fellow reductionist spend months agonizing over this question.  As we used to say in dance class, the Push-Pull and the Pony Step are orthogonal.  (Well, we had a bunch of engineers in the class, ok?)