Round Dancing is basically choreographed ballroom dancing with all couples dancing the same figures around the floor at the same time, similar to a formation dance team or to sequence dancing. Over the last 50+ years  thousands of routines have been choreographed to match specific music in almost every dance style imaginable. A routine done to a specific piece of music in Colorado USA is almost always the same routine you would do to that music in Japan or any other place worldwide at the same level of difficulty.

Another distinguishing characteristic of Round Dancing is the use of a "cuer". Since there are far too many  routines to memorize, a cuer calls out the name of each figure in the routine just before it is to be executed. If you have a   memory lapse or are unfamiliar with a particular routine or figure, you can continue progressing with the dance flow until you get to a spot or a figure that you recognize.

Round Dancers learn from day 1 to associate each foot pattern with the figure name. This makes it easier to teach future routines since the dancer has a repertoire of figures at their fingertips (okay ‘foottips’). The average dancer has a repitoire of hundreds of routines and will typically dance 20-60 of these routines during the average evening. Clubs and classes in addition to putting on known routines will also typically teach part or all of a new routine or work on figures each evening.