"We flight the spine but the foot will always beat the body."

The foot will beat the body to the FINISH LINE,

but the body will beat the foot OUT OF THE STARTING BLOCK.

From a standing still position. When I move my body from over my heel to the ball of the foot. Not the toe. Is my body in front of my foot.
To make the point try this. Stand with the feet together. With your feet together make sure all of your weight is on the RF. You could lift your LF. Now put all of your body weight onto the other foot. Has my body gone beyond my foot. That is of course a sideway movement. But if I did step to the side what will move first. It wont be my body.
So now we spread our legs front to back at full stride. Front leg and back leg straight. Send your weight from the cental position over the heel of the front foot onto the ball. This is where the leg will take over. It will move ahead of the body.This is a perfectly natural muscle memory thing that none of us have to think about. What we dont want is somebody thrusting there leg out too early and so far ahead they have to play catch up.
Body in front of your moving foot. Give us a break. I would feel like a cyclist running in front of his wheels.

"From a standing still position. When I move my body from over my heel to the ball of the foot. Not the toe.""

That's the problem - if you stop your body over the ball of the foot, then you've stopped the progress of the body.

To dance smoothly, your body will have to progress constantly - from heel, to ball, to toe, to BEYOND THE TOE.

If you keep your weight stationary over the ball of your standing foot until you moving foot is placed, then you aren't dancing smoothly - you are dancing STOP AND GO.

Strange you should bring this up. I was only just reading an article that said Contrary to popular belief the body is not constantly moving forward. There are pauses. I suppose they mean that not like a ball rolling across the floor at a constant speed there are variations of the speed of the dancer
Incidently stopping over the supporting foot was not on the agender and never got a mention. The words used are from a stationary position at the beginning of our movement. Which is spoken about three times in as many pages in the technique book. Which you have by now no doubt read and have choosen to ignore.

"Strange you should bring this up. I was only just reading an article that said Contrary to popular belief the body is not constantly moving forward. There are pauses. I suppose they mean that not like a ball rolling across the floor at a constant speed there are variations of the speed of the dancer"

Changes in speed is quite accurate, and is still a category of continuous movement. But outright pauses are totally out of place in a lowered position walk-like action, and even the risen part of a figure like a feather would only be a slowing, with ABSOLUTELY NO PAUSE OR HOLD - only a slowing. (Checking figures, the peak of waltz rise, and of course tango are example of different sorts of actions - but we weren't talking about those)

"Incidently stopping over the supporting foot was not on the agender and never got a mention. The words used are from a stationary position at the beginning of our movement."

The movement begins as the body moves from the ball of the foot to the toe and then on until the center of mass is projected BEYOND THE TOE. If you do not continue the movement of your center of mass past the foot and project it into imbalance, then you ARE PAUSING YOUR BODY MOVEMENT until your moving leg is in place - a SEVERE ERROR.

That's the whole reason walking includes imbalance - because without it, continuous, non-pausing movement would be impossible once we stared taking steps longer than the length of our foot!

If you are one of those who beleives that the timing in the Foxtrot is 2341. You did have something to say about it. Then the whole beat of one is used to come into a neutral position.. Thats a big pause right there. Shoulders keep moving though. I suppose some of you scientist could work out at 28 bars per minute how long a pause there is right there.

"If you are one of those who beleives that the timing in the Foxtrot is 2341."

I do not. The timing in foxtrot (I assume we are talking about the footfalls here) cannot be represented by round numbers, instead it requires fractions that are rather messy.

For example:

1.8, 3, 4.5

"Then the whole beat of one is used to come into a neutral position.."

Not exactly, though there's something a bit like that going on. It's not so much to come into the neutral as to finish the end of the quick

"Thats a big pause right there."

ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!!!

The motion of the body must continue throughout the ENTIRE FEATHER STEP.

Yes, at some points it is slower, though this is not even one of them. It is slower when it is up, and faster when it is down.

"Shoulders keep moving though."

Not only shoulders, but body too.

"I suppose some of you scientist could work out at 28 bars per minute how long a pause there is right there."

Your desire to pause explains a lot about why are you arguing for the wrong timing!



Reply to this message

I wouldn' t even bother to think about that timing. I think it is just a fad. I have three different articles on this. They are are all different. In one Q S Q. I wouldn' t even bother quoting from one of the articles except this. Even though we dance S Q Q we want to think of it as if all the counts are actually slow. you dont actually want to see Q Q. I' ll stop there. As I said . Its just a fad. I doubt if most of the judges are into this anyway.
Maybe another look at this time 2 3 4 1. I've got three steps and four beats. So I take it the 2 and the 3 are Quicks. Which leaves two beats on the last step which includes the one beat. Which leaves me with what on the first step of my Reverse, Enough said. Good for a laugh though.

"I wouldn' t even bother to think about that timing. I think it is just a fad."

It is not even remotely a fad - it is JUST WHAT IS NECESSARY TO DANCE A SMOOTH FOXTROT WITHOUT STOP & GO ROUGHNESS.

"I have three different articles on this. They are are all different."

Because it's not easy to explain exactly what happens in a way that is instructive.

"Maybe another look at this time 2 3 4 1."

That is wrong - maybe a tiny bit less wrong that 123, but still WRONG.

"I've got three steps and four beats."

And the logical thing to do is to divide the available time evenly by the number of steps - actual measurement of real dancers come much closer to this than you are willing to accept. In fact, there patters of longer and shorter is nearly OPPOSITE what most nievely belive it might be.

"Which leaves me with what on the first step of my Reverse, Enough said."

That was already explained - the reverse turn has THE SAME TIMING DISTRUBITON as the feather. To whatever degree the feather carries over into the measure of the revers turn, the reverse turn will carry over an equal amount in to the next measure... really simple idea.

So did you give up on the silly idea of trying to put a PAUSE in your feather??