You remove the natural sway if you rise on the 'one'.

I have just re-read my post and realised my mistake, the rise does indeed start at the end of 1, not on 1! My apologies!

I can't help but smile reading your comments. I am a latin dancer which means that I am not familiar with waltz techniques although I dance it socially just for the fun of it. However, using common sense (modesty aside, I am a professional Engineer and have lots of common sense) I agree with LADYDANCE that you should not rise with on 1. How could you? You are stepping with your heel? Common sense, YES? You don't have to be a professional dancer to realize that? Please try to rise on 1 stepping forward with your heel. It's impossible! Perhaps at the end of one, like quickstep commented, you probably can rise. For me, I tried few times before I wrote this comment but I can't rise on 1 when I step forward with my heel first on the floor.

My two cents worth!

Have to be careful with these pronouncements about what is allegedly not possible, to be sure you don't claim something which actually happens in other situations... to be impossible.

Consider the idea the the rise in an ordinary waltz figure must not be before the end of the first step. Okay, sounds sensible, but when is the end of the step? The end of a foward step is when the other leg draws even with the newly placed foot.

But consider the man's action on step 5 of the spin turn. This is a heel lead, with a rise at the end of step 5. Only his left leg is at no point going to draw even with his right leg. Technically, the condition of the end of this step is not defined but it would have to occur by the time that the left leg gets as close to the right leg as it is ever going to. Since the feet are never going to close there, the rise on this step must occur while the feet are still apart.

Transpose the reality that it is possible to rise from a heel lead while the feet are still apart which we have just demonstrated in the spin turn, back to the first step of the natural turn, and that would be a rise well before the end of the step which in that case is not until the left foot draws even. That doesn't make it advisable to have a full rise that early, but it does make it entirely possible.

But to return to what is advisable, once the dancer's feet are strong enough, a significant percentage of top coaches will insist that the heel begin to rise from the floor ever so slightly before the other leg passes, such that the rise and resulting swing are fully underway by the conclusion of the first step, instead of delayed until what is really the early part of step 2.

I think what is getting lost here is at the end of step one on a Natural Turn in the Waltz is that the LF comes under the body as the Right Knee is bending at the end of the step. This is sometimes called a Neutral Position. Others call it a Balance Point. Whatever it is called the LF will be under the hip line with the heel off the floor, toe in contact, and the Right knee will be flexed ready to produce Swing and Sway.

The standard pattern of rise in most waltz figures is to start to rise at the end of step one, continue to rise on 2 & 3 and lower at the end of 3. When moving backwards, there is no foot rise on step 1, but foot rise is only one element of rise & fall, and the correct use of the leg muscles, knees and a feeling of stretching upwards in the body are all just as important than foot rise.

Out of all the swing dances, Waltz is characterised by gradual rise over three steps (but there are exceptions).

Hi to All,
I queried the Howard technique to Guy regarding the Rise & Fall, about not stating that the the written technique did not include, 'Down on One', then start to Rise E/O 1. He replied that it's like this Old Boy, all professionals know that, so it saves characters, which saves paper. The swing down is carried through one, and not commenced at the E/O of one.

THe really confusing thing is that the technique books define the end of step 1 in waltz Natural turn as the moment when the feet are closed (man's moving left foot alongside right) and yet most dancers (i've never actually seen anything else) make their foot placements for natural turn on the beats of the music. So the left foot is alonside the right foot on approximately beat 1&.So the rise starts at this point as it is defined as "end of 1" not at the end of beat 1 which is just before the left foot lands on beat 2.
Please tell me i've got it wrong if i have.

The advice to dance change steps 1-2-3 and then stay on toes for a whole bar before lowering is really good. this'll "force" a dancer not to lower too quickly. Good for balance too.

"THe really confusing thing is that the technique books define the end of step 1 in waltz Natural turn as the moment when the feet are closed (man's moving left foot alongside right) and yet most dancers (i've never actually seen anything else) make their foot placements for natural turn on the beats of the music. So the left foot is alonside the right foot on approximately beat 1&.So the rise starts at this point as it is defined as "end of 1" not at the end of beat 1 which is just before the left foot lands on beat 2."

Yes Phil, the numbers in the book are step numbers, not beats. Many people forget this when reading the simpler waltz steps since there are three of each, but as you've observed, they do not line up but are instead offset from each other, with the beat falling somewhere around the middle of the step.

I would caution though against the idea that the end of step one is just before the foot lands on beat two. Once a dancer is able to fully use their standing leg, there's a lot of important body movement away from the standing foot which happens between the time when the feet pass and the later time when the moving leg find its position and accepts weight. For a newer dancer, the body may stop over the position of the first step while the free leg shoots through to the second on its own, but for a stronger dancer the body keeps moving and the progress of the body regulates the movement of the free leg with the result that the overall action evolves in a smooth and lyrical way.

"I queried the Howard technique to Guy regarding the Rise & Fall, about not stating that the the written technique did not include, 'Down on One', then start to Rise E/O 1. He replied that it's like this Old Boy, all professionals know that, so it saves characters, which saves paper. The swing down is carried through one, and not commenced at the E/O of one."

The swing down really comes from the last step of whatever precedes - either a full figure, a prep step, or (most challengingly but informatively) a start from a simple standing position. Simple geometry tells us that the body will be lowest when the legs are divided on the way to the first step.

Unless counteracted by extreme absorbtion in the knees (as one modern school now does) there will be a slight, unwritten body rise back up from this lowest position as the body approaches the receiving foot. As (or in the view of many leading experts, just before) the feet pass the actual official rise commences - specifically foot rise for the forward partner. The overall effect is a very smooth path - a descent from the previous figure that gradually levels out and then becomes a rise that begins as a gentle floating up on the way into the foot and continues more steeply out of it.

It's important to realize that in the era when the books were written, the amount of travel achieved was, by modern standard, downright tiny. A lot of things such the as the implicit body rise and fall that happens if we divide or reclose the legs without compensating becomes obvious when you scale up to modern standards, but were just not very visible or apparent at the smaller scale, and so aren't included in the written technique - see for example how the apparent plateau of rise in the written description of a feather contrasts with what naturally and appropriately happens when the figure is danced in a flowing way.

But perhaps because of the small movements envisioned, the technique does reflect the mechanics of sending the body forward with the moving foot - something dancing ideally shares with normal walking. When we scale up to modern competitive proportion we have two choices - we can project the body weight with the moving foot, in which case the old descriptions of technique are accurate in what they address but substantially short of the full story, or we can let the body hang back and place the moving foot on its own, in which case we need an entirely new technique book.