"Right foot forward in CBMP". What is CBMP?

Most folks would say "Counter Body Movement Position," but "Contra" and "Contrary" are also used instead of "Counter."

It is a dance position (not a movement; that's CBM) in which one foot is placed - either forward or back - on or across the line of the other foot. You must use CBM to effect CBMP.

In the action described in your quote, you would place your right foot forward and either on or across the line of the left foot.

Although CBMP is employed to some extent in all Standard dances, it is most important in Tango.

Some other folks are likely to chime in on this thread, trying to complicate this subject more than it needs to be. They'll claim that "at the highest levels" of dancing, CBMP is more complicated - and it is. However, if you were dancing at the "highest levels" (whatever that means), you wouldn't be asking your question.

For your immediate purposes, what I've told you is sufficient. As you grow and develop as a dancer, you'll come to understand the finer points of the concept and the nuances of its use in each dance.

jj

CBMP is a foot position. Howard: "The placing of the stepping foot, forward or back, onto or across the line of the other foot, giving the appearance of CBM having been used, but without turning the body".

The last bit is quite important, but it is not uncommon to find steps where CBM & CBMP are actually used together, but that is the exception, and not the rule. CBM (Contrary Body Movement) is a body action (not a foot position) "used to initiate turn. It is the moving of the opposite side of the body towards the stepping foot, either forward or backward" (Howard).

Beware of anyone who tells you that their answer is all you need to know. That's not for them to say, and it is counter to the spirit of a discussion forum; where a range of opinions is to be expected, but where factually correct answers to a direct question are always welcome.

No one in this thread has, as yet, made such a claim.

Also, the definitions for CBM and CBMP are not opinions.

jj

Beware of anyone who tells you that their answer is all you need to know.



Opinions are often open to challenge. The definition I quoted verbatim directly challenges yours.

Nothing in this statement suggests that what I told the OP is all that he needs to know. You're ignoring the fact that the OP is relatively inexperienced.

If you want to try to cherry pick my posts to find something to whine about then relax and take a seat in the same row with anymouse.

Please give me an example of the use of CBMP which does not involve body turn.

jj

JJ, I have nothing to prove, either to you, or to anyone else here. Your recent posts have taken a very argumentative tone, and that's a matter for you, but if you want to assert something that is directly contradicted by standard technique definitions, then the ball's in your court, not mine.

The 'book' that is usually quoted by armchair experts is Alex Moore's 'Ballroom Dancing'. There, he says: "CBMP is the position attained where either foot is placed across the front or the back of the body without the body turning. It is, therefore, a foot position, but in some cases CBM is used at the same time."

Whining isn't really my style, but may I suggest, in reply to the invitation, that while CBMP IS stepping onto OR across the line of the other foot, in response to the OP is not correct to say:



because if the required foot position was 'forward and across', it would invariably say so. It didn't, so it wasn't.

On page 6 of The Ballroom Technique (9th ed.), under the heading "Positions of the Feet," Moore quite clearly describes CBMP as "A foot position where the foot is placed on or across the line of the supporting foot, either in front or behind to maintain body line."

The quote presented by the OP is equally clear: "Right foot forward in CBMP."

This ain't rocket science.

jj

True enough. Moore (again) The Revised Technique: "CBMP - this is obviously a foot position and not a body turn."

If you look at page 15 of Moore's Ballroom Dancing, under the heading "Contrary Body Movement," Moore claims that the term Body Swing can be used interchangeably with CBM.

In other words, Moore never really understood what CBM is or how to create it. This point is made abundantly clear in the following breakdown of the turns which doesn't even mention the thighs. He thought that body turn is initiated in the shoulders.

You can hang your hat on Moore if you wish. As terence points out repeatedly, his book is really only useful for exams.

jj