About grounding

[ballroomdancertoo]

Some of you mentioned about the art of grounding. What exactly does it feel like and where in the body does it come from?

[Sagitta]

the core

[ballroomdancertoo]

Are you refering to the stomach area? If so, what part?

[xxtupikxx]

grounding is the lowering of your weight center so that the body is more stable (Physics 101). It is achieved largely through relaxation. It should allow greater awareness of ones own balance.

[waltzgirl]

Make friends with gravity. Reduce the effort involved in keeping yourself upright until you feel yourself sinking into the floor (but not falling over!).

[ballroomdancertoo]

Thanks guys, but I want to be able to know what part of my body(ies) to be aware of when I try to ground myself. too many people appear to float on the dance floor. I want to look like my legs are rooted when I move.

[meow]

It is difficult to explain. You need to find your 'centre' which is your inner balance. When you move you must always be aware of your centre and not rely on a partner to keep you balanced/grounded. Practice you dancing without a partner. Be in frame etc., and practice properly as if you have an partner, although invisable. That may help you find your centre.

[waltzgirl]

Try to feel the weight of your core sitting within your pelvis and flowing down your leg bones into the floor. Use some active foot pressure into the floor.

[cornutt]

Copper rod and #4 wire... no, wait... I often hear the phrase "dancing into the floor", particularly in relation to cha-cha and the swing dances. For me, a lot of it is just making sure that (1) when I step, I do a full weight transfer, and (2) making sure that I get my foot all the way down, i.e., not dancing up on my toes. Making sure that you aren't dancing with your knees locked is a big part of it too.

[reb]

Copper rod and #4 wire...
salt

[White Chacha]

Makes me want to get my ham radio gear out and string an antenna ;-)

But back on topic... I've heard grounding used in connection with use of the feet as well. And there's a look associated with a dancer who's grounded. Somehow they look like they're "connected" to the floor and not flying above it, even when in flight. I wish I understood how to explain/understand that better.

[madmaximus]

Grounding is that proverbial elephant that several blind men ended arguing about when they tried to describe its parts--thinking the part they were touching was the whole.


So it is with the several parts of grounding:

Kinesthetic balance
Lower center of gravity
Bracing the major muscles that are closer to the floor so it's prepared to move the body effectively
Efficient use of the supporting leg
Leverage of the floor to create movement or to better propel the body
Leverage of momentum from the previous movement
Accuracy of foot placement in coordination to the partner, alignment, and direction


The net effect is a certain look and feel.
That feeling of SOLIDNESS (ie "you are SO grounded today, it doesn't feel like I could tip you over!") is actually kinesthetic stability brought about by superior balance, better leverage of the floor, and effective use of momentum.






m

[samina]

that makes sense, max. have been in pursuit of this for the last year and have found it to be a complex matter... something that has been taking me a lot of time, attention, and work to evolve...

[etp777]

It's definitely NOT something you find overnight, that's for sure.

[samina]

yah, and i've just made baby steps in progress...

[etp777]

Yeah, so far I can only claim ONE baby step. :)

[delamusica]

Yeah, so far I can only claim ONE baby step. :)

Must start somewhere. ;)

[Josh]

I know you're looking for muscle groups, but at least this is a picture you can use while practicing. You will seek the ground more and more as you dance, and it will take years to really have a firm control of the feeling.

Toni Redpath describes the body as having two parts--the "center of levitation," she calls it, is from around the waist up, and the "center of gravity" is from the waist down. As we dance, our center of levitation must always be stretching higher, while our center of gravity must have a pull towards the floor.

For smooth/standard, at least, I always ask students to think less about rise and fall, which causes them to lose their ground connection by going up and down, and think about getting their rears down the floor.. ;-) For latin, it's essential to have a relaxed leg that will bend and straighten freely, and a foot that articulates heavily and accepts weight gently onto it, instead of "floppping" down to the floor. This is of course essential in smooth as well, to achieve what I mentioned earlier.

bd2, I hate to burst your bubble, but you won't gain much of a true understanding of being grounded by being analytical about it. Sure, it can't hurt to understand it academically, but it simply must be felt, and only time and practice will achieve this--and yes, it will take years, but you will begin to feel more grounded sooner than later if you work at it...

[ballroomdancertoo]

Josh, you explaination hits the mark I heard for many years. but since it is such a complex motion (push down/pull up) I tried to find the one place that I can find to hold it all together. Yeah, you can practice and practice many years, but without finding that one magic spot it will be always a fleeting feeling/thought. Perhaps there is no answer this other that those gifted to actually manage this motion.

[Josh]

Josh, you explaination hits the mark I heard for many years. but since it is such a complex motion (push down/pull up) I tried to find the one place that I can find to hold it all together. Yeah, you can practice and practice many years, but without finding that one magic spot it will be always a fleeting feeling/thought. Perhaps there is no answer this other that those gifted to actually manage this motion.

bd2, I'm not sure finding the "one place to hold it all together" is the desired result--anytime you're looking for "one thing" or "one place" then you're bound to neglect the other things that must sum up to make your result happen. Not sure if I'm on the same wavelength as you, not even sure what I just wrote made sense, but hope it did.

I think that believing that only a select type of person can manage this is a depressing way to lead your dancing life! Sure, some things come more naturally to some people, but no one understands anything complex perfectly well to start with! For everyone it takes time and practice. So don't give up!

My best advice is to get some good coaching on the subject--that way you can have one-on-one with how to do it... unfortunately reading words on a screen only goes so far, whereas a coach can put his/her hands on you and work with you! :-) Good luck and happy dancing...!!

[etp777]

Also be willing to try multiple coaches before you'll get it. This is definitely one of those conceps that can be hard to convey, s you're going to have to be willing to work with multilpe coaches until you find one who has theproper trick/teaching method/etc to convey this information in a way that makes sense to you.

[NURDRMS]

I've always been told, "go down to go up and go up to go down." I've got a pretty good hold on the 'go up to go down' part, but the second half of that concept continues to elude me.

[Adwiz]

I've struggled with this for years. I have been told by coaches and judges that I'm too high in the body, not grounded enough. I asked them to explain and even with the explanations it has taken me four years to really understand the concept. Even now, I'm only beginning to grasp it.

As a guy, I've long been aware of the need to stand tall, with a masculine frame. As a result, I was focusing too much effort on lengthening the upper part of my body, by using my lats. This was good, but didn't fix the lack of grounding. In some ways, it even made things worse. I was pushing my legs down into the floor, grabbing at it with my feet, doing all those things the coaches talked about and still looking too high. There wasn't any depth to my movement.

The problem was that I wasn't settling the center of gravity enough. To be well grounded, you settle the center of gravity downwards, into the floor, while lengthening the upper part of the body at the same time. You essentially "breathe" with the pelvis, allowing it to relax completely, while the core remains strong. This gives you better balance and more relaxed legs that can respond faster and with more control. The trick (at least for me) is to do this without also relaxing the upper body so much that you lose your posture. I figure in five more years I might actually make it all work <grin>.

[ballroomdancertoo]

Interesting analogy Adwiz. I was told don't use your feet to grab the floor because it will cause stiffing of the legs (ergo floating) but by using the large muscles on your thigh, stomach and buttocks to actually stay grounded. Soft(?) ankles help to stay grounded also. Anyway that's what I think. But having everyone in this forum try to explain it at least gives me the feeling I'm not alone in trying to understand this grounding thing.

[SirTwisT]

Hi there!

Grounding is actually the main topic of our practice at the moment. So here are my thoughts on the issue:

First of all: There is not a single place to hold everything. The "system" is too complex for this. Grounding influences the hold and vice versa, grounding influences the way of moving and vice versa. One way of thinking was already mentioned: There are actually two centers: A center of gravity which I personally would consider to be in the hip area about the height of the belt. And then there is a center of levitation or as I would put it: A center of emotion which is around the area of the solar plexus.

The center of gravity is for grounding and keeping the balance. You have to keep it close to the floor. One way to achieve this is to push your pelvis to the front using your abdominal muscles. At the same time your legs must stay soft and never may be straight. Even on a high position never get on straight legs. While dancing (I can speak about Standard only!) keep your center of gravity close to your partner. The center of gravity is for dancing the rhythm.

The center of emotion is for forming shape and by this dancing the melody. If you look on a couple from above there are four quadrants:

#2 | #3
---------
#1 | #4

#1 is for the man only as is #3 for the lady. Never ever invade this space! To rotate go to #2 and lead the lady to #4. To form shape (like in a turning lock) shift your center of emotion to #4, etc. To form a three dimensional hold lead your lady way diagonally into #3. This is a bit too complicated for me to put it into words. But this can only be done well if the center of gravity is under control anyways.

Both centers have to be shifted and controlled independently. So you have to train isolation a lot!

A simple way to train grounding is to stand straight and relaxed. Then tighten your abs, rotate the pelvis to the front. If you are doing it correctly you should lower yourself by a few inches. At the same time your lower back becomes quite straight and the knees bend. Hold this 30 seconds then relax. Repeat this a few times with a 30 seconds break. Before being able to control your center of gravity while dancing you have to train the muscles to keep this control on the scale of 2 or 3 minutes without thinking about it!

The second step then is to straighten the center of emotion and put your arms to a good posture. This I cannot explain in words at the moment. I have to think about it myself and fully understand it first ;) But if done correctly you should feel your elbows connected to your center of gravity in a triangular way. If you then move your center of gravity your elbows should follow without thinking or doing anything actively.

Just my $0.02 on grounding, hope it'll help a bit :)

[tangotime]

Bill Irvine gave the best answer to the Q-- when asked, he said ( paraphrase )

" I feel like there is something tied to the top of my head, pulling me in an upwards direction, and at the same time, the opposite reaction in my feet ."

[Corne]

I've always been told, "go down to go up and go up to go down." I've got a pretty good hold on the 'go up to go down' part, but the second half of that concept continues to elude me.

The video clip on dancevision's website of the video/DVD 'ballroom - past,present,future' shows this concept in a few seconds. They use exercise bands to show the concept in foxtrot. I don't quite get it either (and i am not surprised) but i am sure that the video explains it nicely if anyone happens to have the video. My guess it is to do with rise-and-fall right ?

[biggestbox]

go up to go down, go down to go up.

go left to move right, go right to move left.

Every action in dance is based on opposition. if you don't push hard against the floor, how would you raise you body?

The problem of a lot of beginners is that the concept "looks" so easy and natural, but in fact every muscle in the dancer's body is working HARD to stretch their muscles.

[ballroomdancertoo]

In search of the Holy Grail!

[Angel HI]

I've been reading this thread, and hesitating to add what I am convinced is the answer to the OP's question. MM's post #12, and Josh's post #18 are, IMO, the most profound. Nurdrm's post #22 is the answer, but it is the following that explains it.....

go up to go down, go down to go up.

go left to move right, go right to move left.

Every action in dance is based on opposition.

In all genres of dance, we have always taught that the successful dancer must learn to think in opposites. When someone says to step forward left foot, the dancer must hear push backward right, etc.

I have always followed the same theory as Toni R. re dancing the upper half up and the lower half seperatley. The difference between our analogies is that I have always said that the body is danced (lifted) from the waist up (shoulders/topline relaxed), and the lower half is lifted seperately at the pelvis by first pressing downward through the balls of the feet, and upwards through the legs.

I hope that this helps, BDToo, to begin to understand not only what to do, but how to do it.

[Josh]

Wow guys, awesome posts here... angel, biggestbox, sirtwist -- great explanations!

To add to what sirtwist said (great visual by the way!), as far as the "overhead view" goes, I also explain this as a circle (again, as seen from overhead, it would look like a circle), in which the dancers heads are on the outside of the circle. Neither head must EVER enter the circle. Thus, for example, when going to promenade, the lady's head must not just turn, but as her frame rotates to PP, her head must go AROUND the circle to the outside, and turn to face her new direction. Likewise, to counterbalance this, the man's head must go around the circle, otherwise the lady would become heavily imbalanced. Just another perspective on it (just without the nice picture, sorry ;-) )

As for SirTwist's explanation of grounding, I like it very much. As for the lower half of the body, it's important to note that he mentioned a tightening of the abs, not of the butt. So many people try to squeeze their butt to bring their pelvis forward, and it's just not correct. If you'll do a little experiment (in the privacy of your own home hehe) and feel your butt when it tightens, you'll realize it has nothing to do with the position of the pelvis. Rather, it's the LOWER abs that cause this action.

For the upper half, ST is, in one way or another, alluding to the basic concept of frame when he talks about stretching the torso and relaxing the shoulders. Connecting your elbows to your center of gravity is basically saying that when we rotate in any way, we must do so through the torso and never just the arms. It's funny, for the first two years I danced ballroom I thought I understood this and one day it was pointed out to me that in fact, I had been just using my arms. Amazing realization. Here's a test: if you don't feel your abs working when you rotate your frame, say, to PP, then your arms alone are doing most of the work. Another test: put your thumbs in your belly button, and allow your elbows to form a natural dance frame (though it will be lower obviously)... keep them there, and rotate your torso--THAT'S what it feels like to truly have frame. :-) Again, Toni tells us to imagine that our shoulders are a coat hanger, and we have a heavy winter coat hanging on them, so that they stay down, at the same time that we stretch up. Very good analogy IMO.

Sorry for the extremely long post, hope you made it through!

[Angel HI]

Good post, Josh.

[Nik]

imagine you are pressing down with the shoulders, also putting the hips a little bit foward helps. If you do that at the same time you should feel grounded.