I would appreciate some advice. I have never been a dancer before, but I have been taking American smooth lessons for about a year now. My professional teacher/partner wants me to dance less 'flat-footed,' roll my feet much more, and develop stronger heel leads for smoother dancing. I have a tendency to stick my foot forward when I lead with my heel, leaning my upper body backwards. So my body doesn't stay over my feet properly, and I lose my balance, resulting in choppy dancing. Sometimes I lift my foot off the floor entirely and place it down, which I know is wrong.

Since I put in a lot of practice time by myself (as it is cost prohibitive to practice as much as I'd like with my instructor) I would like to know if anyone could suggest an exercise I could practice on my own that would help. I'd like to develop my muscle memory to do the right technique.

Thanks.

I'm sure your instructor has given you the correct advice. To reinforce this, might I suggest you get Victor Veyrasset's Man's Technique, Leading & Styling video. On DanceVision's website, there's a video clip that addresses your very problem. All the best!

Unless you wear high heels or other impractical shoes all of the time, you probably already have just fine muscle memory for taking well proportioned heel leads.

Specifically, when you walk around without trying to dance, you move your body and foot together. Your steps will be placed on the heel, but you foot doesn't "present" the heel until fairly late in the leg swing. Dancing works pretty much the same way - your feet are only the floor the whole time or nearly so, but the mechanics of the movement are basically the same.

Often when first trying to dance we basically try to hard. We are afraid to fall on our partner, so probe out with our free leg without actually moving your body into the step until we've placed the moving foot. And then we want to make sure we take a real heel lead so we present the heel far too early in the step. I won't say it's as simple as stop worrying and just walk, but basically what you are struggling to do is put the natural movement of the walking that you already know how to do, back into your dancing.