"Our coaches told me I was "rushing the music" and explained the the idea of "breaking your foot in two pieces" for this. Place your heel, then roll to the ball. This confused the heck out of me at first, but after some practice I find it's easier than I first thought, and can be used effectively to soak up the music so I'm not rushing it as much as I was when I was placing my whole foot."

This advice clearly comes from someone who fundamentally does not understand movement in the standard dances.

When the movement is done properly, the ball of the foot directly follows the heel - you very nearly are placing the whole foot, because the "just heel" time is very short.

If you delay your arrival in the proposed way in order to match the music, then what you are doing is getting your foot out ahead of you while failing to move your body.

Instead, the true secret to staying on time is to make sure to take enough time in the later part of the preceding step. If you rush the conclusion of a step, there is no proper fix that can now be applied to the next - anything you do will be an artifical slowing down.

Instead, take the full amount of time in finishing the previous step, and you will now have the luxury of driving just a touch in order to catch the music on the next one.

Dancing is two people dancing as one. If you roll from the heel to the ball and your partner rolls from the toe to the heel what could be more together than that.

"Dancing is two people dancing as one. If you roll from the heel to the ball and your partner rolls from the toe to the heel what could be more together than that."

Yes, there's two phases in the position of the weight - heel, then ball.

But the placement of the foot is almost whole foot - it's heel, directly followed by the ball of foot contacting the floor, some would even opinion immediately so.

Needless to say this is not symmetric with the backwards action - probably because our knees only bend in one direction.

And the fundamental principle remains: delaying your arrival will not give you the right timing, instead it will just give you an artifical stuck-between-feet interlude. To get the right timing you have to learn to draw out the end of the preceding step, especially when we have a lowering step preceding a heel lead, we have to not finish the lowering step too fast.

Jwlinson. If you roll onto your foot it will be impossible not to flex the knee and have the weight arrive at any other time than the correct time.

"Jwlinson. If you roll onto your foot it will be impossible not to flex the knee and have the weight arrive at any other time than the correct time."

If that were true, leading a heel turn would be extremely difficult.

Come to think of it, many people have a lot of difficulty leading heel turns effectively enough that they can reliably get either a heel turn or a waltz type turn as fits their momentary whim.

Maybe they never learned that a heel turn lead basically consists of greatly reducing the flex of the arriving knee? Wheras you create a waltz-type turn by letting the knee flex normally as you arrive.

As for timing, if you've departed the previous step too early as most do during their beginner and intermediate years, no natural action during the arrival is going to fix that.

With the music count 1 and 2 and 3 and. This is according to Richard Gleave on his tape. Analyse this. Doing it that way we have more time on the first step than we do on the second. In actual fact we have the same amount of time on one as we do on the other two steps. The closing of the foot being on an and count. Leaving all of the third beat to be at the highest and the lowest with the count of three and. John Wood also teaches this way. Who can argue with these two gentlemen.

Serendipady. If we close our feet on twoand we will have to much time left to rise and fall as we are already rising as we close the foot.

"Serendipady. If we close our feet on twoand we will have to much time left to rise and fall as we are already rising as we close the foot."

Closing the foot takes time. It might be proper to say that the closing would start on two and, but it won't finish until just a bit before three, assuming that you want to put weight on the now closed foot right on beat 3.

There's not much point to have a big gap between when the foot arrives closed and when it takes the weight.

And yes, the rise will be contuing througout all of this - the rise ends only after the weight has changed feet, as the foot change is itself part of the rise.

Of course we continue rising . We never actually stop. Each part blends with the other. Which is as the technique book says in the Waltz. Commence to rise at the end of one. Continue to rise on two and three. lower at the end of three. You would be suprised how couples are doing the most intricate steps, but ask them to quote and explain those three sentences above and they can't. Then ask the same question on the Foxtrot Feather Step . And what is the difference between the two rise and falls in the Waltz and the Foxtrot.. I blame the teachers for not explaining this right at the beginning. That's providing they know themselves. In the studio i go to there would not be one person from the youngest to the eldest who could not answer and demonstrate all of the above. P.S. I lower on the and count, 3 and.

The timing of the NT in waltz is not as simple as you make it seem. In the passing natural you have a foot position on three followed by a body position on the (and)' an equal spacing on all the beats and half beats,this is not the case with the NT which does not have a foot position on three as the foot is already in place so this gives you an extra half beat that has to be used up somewhere?