Anonymous. I meant to put this in before. If you put a DVD on of one of our Super Stars Dancing. Imagine they are wearing one of those Posture Frames. This will make you look at the action of the side and shoulders instead of being distracted by all the other things going on.You know how a magician moves one hand and we cant help following that hand with our eyes. The same happens when watching dancing. Keep your eyes on that imagined frame and tell me that you can see a twist in the spine.
Keep twisting long enough and you will finish with back trouble if you aren't already.
I would imagine that it is on a Feather Step where you think it is necessary to twist the spine. I don't think it would be on the turn in the Waltz because we all know that we complete the step before we turn. In the Tango some might believe there is a twisting of the spine because of the right side lead. But there isn't if the feet are off set as they are supposed to be before we step.
If you can think of the centre of your body is your spine. It is also the centre of your balance. It is not necessary to alter the shape of it . Why would I . It's my driving force which is driven to my front. That's my spine.

"Keep your eyes on that imagined frame and tell me that you can see a twist in the spine."

How can you see a twist, which is something that would have to happen BETWEEN two different body parts, when you concentrate your attention on one part of the body alone????

You wouldn't see twist unless you compared the rotational alignment of two different body parts separated by some significant distance up and down the spine.

And even then you probably wouldn't see it, because outside of extremely obvious situations like promenade it is fairly slight. However, if you danced with someone of sufficient skill that they incorporate this, you'd probably FEEL how they use each part of their body in a different BUT COMPATIBLE way, to create the desired whole much more effectively than the beginner's rigid body usage can.

Anonymous.On the forward part of any turning figure it is much more important to feel a forward swing than a concious TWIST OF THE BODY..
CBMP. Is the position attained when either foot is placed across the front or the back of the body WITHOUT THE BODY TURNING.
Can anything be more clearer than that.
You job is to now tell us exactly where or who told you to twist your body.I think the only time the word Twist is used is describing a Tango Twist Turn. Incidently in which the spine stays aligned over the centre of the body.
Finally I will quote Steven Hillier who said that below the hips and to the base of the pelvis imagine we have three blocks of wood each balanced and square to each other. We must try to keep those blocks of wood aligned one over the other at all times. Lecture given in Melbourne many years ago. It hasn't altered since.

Hi Serendipity
When you wrote:
"On the forward part of any turning figure it is much more important to feel a forward swing than a concious TWIST OF THE BODY..
CBMP. Is the position attained when either foot is placed across the front or the back of the body WITHOUT THE BODY TURNING. ""
I agree that the concept of swing is important. But it leads to an element of twist. The original discussion about twist is whether there is any.
On CBMP - i would say there would often be a twist here - i.e. upper shoulder line not exactly the same as the pelvis alignment. Thee alignment doesn't CHANGE while the CBMP step is taken (hence no "turning")
I believe a 'twist' is essential in the feather step and also step 4 (man's left foot back, taken OP)in a weave from promenade in foxtrot (to give another example).
I will repeat what i said earlier. If the feet must stay aligned (to say the 12 o'clock position) you can only turn your pelvis so much (obviously varies, but in my case i can do about 1.30 - more if i'm motionless but not 'in action') yet my frame alignment might be 2.00 or even 2.30. My partner can follow this (she's good!)
NOW, if i'm wrong on this, somebody PLEASE tell me.
I will get out my Gozzoli DVD again. I'm sure he does the "3 fallaways with a turn to the right" with lots of 'twist' He'd call it 'shaping' probably (what's that in Italian?)

Hi again
Just a little follow-up on my previous post.
Have a look at this:
youtube.com/watch?v=sVYskhuGT0g&feature=related

(you'll need to put the w...w...w in front)
Couple no 29 doing a back weave down the floor. Lovely shaping, which does involve a 'twist'

Phil. I had no luck finding the one you mentioned. If you Google Marcus Hilton on youtube and find Basic Foxtrot. They do the routine three times if you stay with it. In the routine they do three different Weaves. One on bar 11 and 27 plus 29. You will notice that the routine is a eight bar phrased routine finishing on the fourth phrasing which = 32.
If you look at his shoulders you will see they are aligned over the hips at all times. Keep an eye on his right side. At the very end on the Throwaway it might be misinterpreted as a twist in the spine but I am confidant that what you see is Sway and not a twist.
If you have developed a twist and you analise it your shoulders or your hips have turned in an opposite direction to each other. Even a simple thing like a Lockstep, if the whole of the side doesn't go with the left foot you would have a twist in your spine. If your hip turned and your shoulder didn't, your hip would be pointing down the LOD and your shoulder would be pointing diag to centre. Your RF should be stepping Diag to wall O/S partner in accordance with the correct technique for a Lock Step in the Quickstep. And to put the lid on it. I asked a person who is currently in the top thirty in the world
Do we twist the spine . Here answer was definitely no. You drive the spine in the direction you are travelling.
Why would anybody want to do it any other way.
Trying to make sense out of this. I think the problem lies in that in the Foxtrot and in particular the Quickstep we are travelling sideways for so much of the dance . While'st you are with Marcus you might take a look at his Waltz also.
I am endevouring to copy the Hilton Basic Foxtrot ( which is far from basic). Sometimes wearing a Posture Frame. I'm OK at the moment up to the 24th bar. Which gets practiced over and over going through every little detail.
Back to the spine. With the dancer can you see that that spine stays between the shoulder and the hips. Sway yes twisting no.If you can find any Technique book or DVD or from a lecture where a twisting of the spine is mentioned or recomended then tell me who or where.
You might also look at the Foxtrot Feather Step on this site and look for any of the above suggested. You might be able to tell me exactly where you think a twist takes place. Look also at the Reverse Turn and the Three Step. Does yours look like that. It's supposed to.

"If you look at his shoulders you will see they are aligned over the hips at all times."

As I said before, you may not be able to see it or understand what you are seeing, but if you were to try dancing with a dancer of this level - which you clearly never have - you would feel all sorts of things going on in their body that break your beginner-level assumptions of how dancing is supposed to work.

"If you have developed a twist and you analise it your shoulders or your hips have turned in an opposite direction to each other."

Or turned DIFFERENT AMOUNTS in the SAME direction. Even temporarily different, caused by one part turning before another, still constitutes a twist.

"I asked a person who is currently in the top thirty in the world
Do we twist the spine . Here answer was definitely no."

You cannot take such answers too literally. You have to spend time studying with a person, feel what it's like to dance with them, and over the course of time you will start to develop a bit of udnerstanding of what they actually do - WHICH OFTEN CONFLICTS WITH WHAT THEY SAY THEY ARE DOING. Not necessarily because they are unknowledgeable, but often because they simply haven't thought about all meanings of the question. For example, your teacher's answer is literally false because it is inconsistent with the obvious reality of body twist in promenade position.

Also, 30th in the world is not a very good career stage for your authority teacher to be at - they are too caught up in competing to have true mastery as teachers yet. Try taking some in person lessons and getting a feel for what it's like to dance with the people who judge Blackpool. What you will learn from this can never be expressed in words.

"Why would anybody want to do it any other way."

Because it is ultimately necessary to use the various parts of the body in harmony rather than in strict unison - you cannot treat your torso as a rigid plank and expect to dance with true ease. But yes, we do start beginners off that way, and restrict them to that until they are ready for more.

Your comments strongly hint that your teachers do not feel that you personally are ready to add more advanced elements of technique.

Anonymous. Go to the Foxtrot on this site. You know how to slow it down. Tell me on the Feather Step and the Reverse Turn also the Three Step where there is a twist in the spine.
I am also waiting for an answer as to where it is written that the spine twists. Silence would mean there is none. There is nowhere where it is even remotely suggested that the spine has a twist in it..
There is an expression being used now by the lady which is you are attacking me. Which means you are entering into the ladies space . I can see that you wouldn't even get through the Feather and Reverse with your understanding ,let alone 24 bars of a routine.
But don't lets get side tracked. Who or where are you told to twist your spine. Simply answer, or keep quiet which, is what I anticipate you will do.

"I am also waiting for an answer as to where it is written that the spine twists."

You really haven't been reading my posts.

I already explained to you that this is an advanced concept that will not be found in written manuals, which are quite obviously far from a complete description of what real dancers do.

It's not even a subject that will necessarily come up by name in lessons, because it's not a productive way of viewing the action. It's not that you think of twisting, it's that when you do it right, a degree of twist will result in some situations.

If you were taking real in person lessons with top teachers, feeling the dancing in their body directly with yours, instead of being content with written sources, DVD's and lectures, you'd eventual discover that there is a wealth of body action in real dancing of which you are currently unaware.

Anyway, you want an example of spine twist? Look at any of Jonathan and Melissa's videos where they are in promenade. Because they subscribe to the contemporary view that it's desireable to point the feet in the direction of travel (vs. the traditional 45 degrees of the book), they will have nearly 90 degrees of twist between their shoulders and feet. A non-ignorable fraction of that will exist as twist between their shoudlers and hips - ie, twist of the spine.

Actually, it does come up on our lessons.

There's the more constant variety that exists in the upper back to accommodate the offset position -- This is the twist one would not observe by looking at a video (However, one might observe its absence if one or both of the dancers' left sides appears dropped and topline crooked).

The second type of torque is less localized, being distributed throughout the various "twistable" parts of the body, and allows the freedom of movement that you see in advanced dancers. It's certainly observable (although perhaps not by someone who doesn't know what he's looking at) in promenade, outside partner positions, and to a more subtle degree even in basic closed position throughout various parts of a turn.

The latter type is perhaps not described as "torque" very often, but as you said, that's only because there are better ways of teaching the concept, not because it isn't accurate to describe it thus. The former, on the other hand, is quite frequently described as "twist", "torque" or "torsion", because there's really no better way to describe it. I use these terms all the time in my teaching, as they are used by my teachers on my lessons.

Oh, and since these things seem to impress Serendipity, I should point out that almost all of my teachers are former champions and finalists, including one who I believe placed second in the world in standard, another a person who Serendipity himself raves about, a former U.S. smooth champion. They each have their own individual ways of teaching and describing these concepts, but they're all more or less in agreement about the execution. Not one of them would dream of dancing without allowing any freedom in the body to torque.

Regards,
Jonathan