I have had instruction on heels run the gamut. I have been told not to put my heels down, not to lift my heels up, as well as to work through my foot from toe to heel or from metatarsal to heel. I have been told not to turn my feet out at all, to turn them out slightly, and probably other things as well.
I have seen women who dance in flats as high up on their toes as they can, never lowering their heels at all, and women who wear heels and plonk their foot down all at once like they're wearing a block of cement or a dead fish on the end of their leg.
I have felt stable with my heels off the floor, unstable with them on the floor and vice versa for both.
And I've had an amazing teacher show me how proper use of certain core and pelvic area muscles can have far more implications for stability and grounding than anything done with the feet or even the knees. I say she showed me because SHE could use her muscles that way... I'm still learning to feel those muscles.
What I've learned from all this both by my own experience and helping other followers solve their problems is that the feet are sometimes the cause of a problem, but sometimes they are the result of a problem. If followers spent more time thinking about the less visable and sexy aspects of their dancing (ie: what their feet look like) and more time working on the subtle and invisible (except to the leader) elements, they'd usually be better followers.
Unfortunately, the leaders may not think so. They are often (especially as beginners or intermediate leaders) conditioned by the culture to think the person who LOOKS the best is the best follower. It becomes a self fulfilling prophesy.
It would be interesting to have leaders dance with partners that they can't observe dancing with other people choose partners only by the way the followers FEEL. I wonder if they would choose differently than they do? (Obviously none of the good folks HERE are swayed by superficial appearances of dance, but out there in the rest of the world, leaders aren't so wise.
)I guess my point in response to Jan's post is that it is true that often a follower creates problems for herself by dancing with her heels off the floor. But ultimately, it's what she feels like to the leader that matters, and IF she feels connected and stable to him, then what she is doing is working for her regardless of her heels.
In response to the OP... I gave up on group classes as a follower some time ago. I'm about to give up on privates as well. I've had a slew of them where I realized (by arriving early, staying after, or talking to other students) that the teacher told every one of us the exact same thing... which says to me, that he wasn't really paying that much attention to our individual quirks and errors. (I say "he" because IME, this has not been true of lessons I had with women. But that could just be a coincidence.)
