First off, you are once again dismissing out of hand Jonathan's examples, which he described as including a body twist in the basic hold.

"CBMP is a Foot Position"

This is a classic case of the difference between the quite limited presentation in the book, and the much more involved reality of what a student is eventually trained to do by a live teacher.

Yes, CBMP is a foot position. But putting your foot in that position has an impact on the configuration of the torso! And when we step into the across in CBMP position of a promenade while keeping our upper body aligned to our partner, the necessity of some twist in our spine is impossible to ignore.

"That leaves CBM. In CBM according to Moore " Care must be taken not to turn the shoulders independently."

That does no mean that shoulders and hips will always turn in exact unison. I n fact, in the paragraph right before your quote Moore suggests that one might feel the movement of forwards turns initiated in the shoulder and that of backwards turns initiated in the hips. Or in more modern usage, reverse turns are commonly taught with the rotation of the lower body commencing a little sooner than that of the upper.

You must also give due consideration to Moore's stated concern: "or an ugly dipping movement will result". If a dancer under their teacher's skillful guidance incorporates an appropriate degree of spinal twist in assorted places and does not suffer an "ugly dipping movement" then they must not be committing the particular fault that Moore was warning about.

"For me I am taught to drive the spine in the direction I am going."

Me too - but drive and rotation are two different variables. There's a far simpler-to-apply rule for keeping them in proportion: if you are moving forward, your forward movement must be great enough in comparison to your rotation that no part of your body is allowed to move backwards in space. If that occurs, and perhaps your left hand goes backwards then your rotation has overwhelmed your movement,

"The main part of my argument has always been that the spine , which is our centre does not get twisted but remains as our driving force in the direction we are going."

And the main reality of dancing has always been that the spine does twist in many situations, even as it drives forward.

You can refuse to learn about this aspect of dancing for the rest of your life if that's what you choose, but the rest of us are happy to keep learning such details from the best teachers.

Lets bring some perspective to the discussion.

Always remember , much of the advanced theories, are just that-- THEORIES .

As Scrivener put it, there can be no absolute technique .

To be dogmatic about an idea, suggests that " this way ", is the only way .

I suspect I have been teaching longer than before most of you were born.

I was trained by the ones who trained the ones, who trained the ones, who trained the ones, you give as references .

What you state, in some cases, may again evolve into a new paradigm ( as I have learned ).

Dance is OPINION in many cases .

Choose what suits your situation , and amend it as necessary .


One last quote from Len-- " Too much rise is as bad as too little " .

A good metaphor to consider .

Some of the writters out there seem to me to be using words and changing the meaning. Body torque does not mean twist. Torque means a force that tends to cause rotation. Rotation you can have and need. But to turn your top half to a different angle to your bottom half by twisting your spine is not neccessary. Go and ask your Physio how sensible that is.

Alright lets get this clear-- torque is an action that is created by rotation against a STATIONARY point --

as in-- place the feet ( foot )in a fixed position, and rotate the body from the ANKLE(S )upwards to the desired degree , in an opposite direction (L or R ) .

Terence. You never used the word twist

And I NEVER will ( except in Nat. twist turn ).

The main problem for many students when being taught advanced concepts, is (a ) bad explanation by the teacher.

or ( b) a mis-understanding of same by the student .

This is a great discussion:
Let's not get hung up by what 'torque' actually means. The discussion is about whether the upper and lower torso are rotated by differing amounts - i.e is the shouder line always the same as the hip line. Isn't this what we're discussing?
there was reference a little while back to there not being any evidence of this in the foxtrot videos on this site. But there is. And clearly so. In the feather step, Jonathan has his shoulder line beautifully rotated as he dances outside his partner. His hips are not rotated to the same extent. Hence the 'twist' that we're talking about. Torque, being strictly a force, is the force exerted by his muscles to make this happen. But the effect could be called twist.
Try this experiment. Keep your feet pointing to the 12 o'clock position. Rotate to the 1 o'clock position (30 degrees). Hips and shoulders rotated by same amount - Yes. (of course there's a twist somewhere but it's 'lost in the ankles and legs).
Now rotate your shoulders to 2 o'clock, which is the sort of rotation jonathan is using (actually, i think he's 2.30, but never mind). Are your hips at 2 o'clock?. I doubt it. But if they are, could you dance forward with your feet still aligned at 12 o'clock. Not a chance.

I do not believe one can dismiss so lightly understanding cause and effect .

Therein lies the problem with most theoretical exercises .

If the foundation is not delineated, then an incorrect result may occur .

Terence. I will repeat your contribution 4/7/08. Which in my opinion is absolutly correct.
" Torque is an action that is created by rotation against a stationary point-
as in -place the feet ( foot ) in a fixed position, and rotate the body from the ANKLE(S) upwards to the desired degree, in the opposite direction (L or R ) ".
It might be worth pointing out that direction is now measured from the position of the feet, which is a little disconcerning at first. It would appear to be easier to take the amount of turn for instance from where the body is facing but in practice this becomes even more complicated.
So to put it another way by making a model . If I had a broom stick which half way down has a male to female thread. At the ankle level we have another. If I read Terence correctly he will rotate from the bottom connection and not the middle conection. Phil Do you disagree with that . Or anybody else for that matter.

Hi Serendipity.
I don't agree with Terence's definition of "torque". The normal meaning of the word is as follows (this is from Wikipedia)
"""In physics, a torque (ô) is a vector that measures the tendency of a force to rotate an object about some axis [1] (center). The magnitude of a torque is defined as force times the length of the lever arm [2] (radius). Just as a force is a push or a pull, a torque can be thought of as a twist."""
I've not added nor subtracted anything from the Wikipedia definition. Torque is a rotational force about a centre, but that centre need not be stationary.
I also don't understand the idea that part of the body rotates "in the opposite direction (L or R)" to the feet. Why is the word "opposite" in there?.
On your last broom stick model, i would say there is rotation at both connections. But also say that the rotation is distributed (i.e. not at a small number of points)
If you have your feet facing forward but rotate your pelvis, your muscles have to work hard to keep your feet forward (i.e. they apply a torque). When i do this, there is a rotation which feels distributed along my leg (from the stretch i feel) but clearly only happens at the ankle, knee and hip joints.
With the torso, the spine has lots of 'joints'.....
By the way, rotating the spine with good posture is not, or should not be, damaging to the spine.