Foxtrot timing and heel turns

[cornutt]

My coach has me doing a lot of work on foxtrot timing, and I spent some time this week at the studio "woodshedding" on it. And I really feel like I'm starting to get in the groove with it. However, now that I'm doing that, I'm finding some places where I think the dance looks and feels better if I vary the timing in certain places. Here's one that I'm thinking on: Take a step that ends with a heel turn, such as your basic open right. It's SQQ, with the S taking up 1 and 2, and the Q's on 3 and 4. You initiate the turn with the S step, the pivot happens on 3, and you step out on 4.

The problem is, I think the dance would look and feel better if the pivot step, the 3, had more time. The way that I've been doing foxtrot until recently is that my weight transfer on the Q has been closer to the 1 beat. This has allowed me to cheat and initiate the 3 step early, stealing time from the Q so that I can hover the heel turn a bit. But now that I'm delaying the S weight transfer until near the very end of those two beats, I can't get away with that any more. Now the heel turn feels rushed.

So what I've been playing with is dancing it as more or less SSQ, borrowing a beat from the next bar so that I can stretch the pivot 3 and make it hover a bit. As you can see, that's 5 beats. To make this work, the continuity ending has to be danced QQQ to give back the beat I borrowed, which seems a bit weird and I haven't yet gotten to where I can consistently initiate the next pattern with the proper timing, but I'm working on it.

So the question is: am I way off base here? Is this the way to hover the heel turn in foxtrot, or is there a better way? Or should I just forget the whole idea?

 

[fascination]

hmmm ...no expert here...but we never hover a heel trun...we do hover a feather finish...we do also sometimes shorten the step before the actual heel turn to hold a line after the actual heel turn in something like a hover cross or a twist turn

 

[vit]

I liked the description, but I'm not sure that I'm getting the part about "anchoring" left side - is it for a man during the 3rd step (2nd quick) of the reverse turn in foxtrot or it is something else ? Because - the book doesn't specify CBM during that step

 

[vit]

No, turn wasn't mentioned, it was mentioned that left side is a kind of anchored, while the right side moves back - it's not clear to me what does it actually mean

 

[nikkitta]

I think she's trying to emphasize the separation between body movement/rotation/shape and actually moving the foot and progressing as measured by distance covered on the dance floor. So to the outsider it looks like you're moving, but what's happening is a change in shape before the step, defined as placement of foot and weight transfer, occurs.

One of my coaches helped me a lot with this concept by focusing not only the step count but what is happening in between the steps -- the "and" between the number counts, if you will. Another coach taught me to think not of the foot/leg I'm stepping on TO, but the foot/leg I'm already ON (standing leg vs. moving leg). In other words, don't think so much of where you want to go as how best to accomplish getting there. Hence Larinda's use of the positive/negative concept. If you wanna turn right, it's not good to already be positively right before the fact or there's nowhere else to go. You've killed your swing and momentum, and the dancing becomes square and flat.

 

[randomaeiou]

So the question is: am I way off base here? Is this the way to hover the heel turn in foxtrot, or is there a better way? Or should I just forget the whole idea?

I quickly typed this up as a revision exercise on my part. This is what I try to do from feather into reverse into feather finish, YMMV.

-------------------------------------

4 (end of feather) - body in CBMP, right foot across body, weight on BALL of right foot, right heel OFF the ground, left shoulder leading, torso torsioned maximally clockwise

4& - neutral position, weight moves forward into middle of standing right foot (foot is flat on floor now), right ankle and hip flexed, shoulders square to hips at this moment in time - in between rotating from clockwise to anticlockwise torsion (note - body does NOT stop moving/rotating NOR is there linear/rotational acceleration/deceleration, it is just timed precisely such that it happens to pass through square on 4&)

4&a - weight transferred from middle of standing right foot to ball of foot, right shoulder/side moves forward faster than left creating ~50% of full anticlockwise torsion (note still standing on right foot, but on *ball* now, also note BOTH SIDES ARE GOING FORWARD, right faster than left), left leg swinging forward (already past right foot by now), left foot (flat, not toe pointing up) gliding in lightest possible contact with the floor

(p.s. body/weight going forward should not be so much that left toe, or worse, ball of foot, is "stuck" to the ground... yet)

1 - toe flicks up, enough body weight arrives over heel of left foot that left foot stops moving, continuing anticlockwise rotation (in combination with forward movement) of torso

1& - body completes anticlockwise rotation, right shoulder leading (typically line across shoulders is parallel, or very close to parallel to line of movement - line of movement is NOT the same as line of dance, line of movement in this case is diagonal centre), hips square to line of movement. Knee arrives vertically over left heel. Only when knee is vertically over heel, the ball of foot touches the floor.

2 - left ankle dorsiflexion causes compression, also allows body weight to continue moving forward onto mid- and eventually ball- of foot.

2& - shoulder orientation does not change - the shoulders stay square backing LOD from 2. Underneath the non-rotating shoulders, the hips unwind to become square with the shoulders, so that the entire torso is square backing LOD (the shoulders actually rotate a further 45 degrees anticlockwise to reach backing LOD as hips are released, but this is passive recoil/conservation of angular momentum from hip release, and not an active action). Right trailing foot pushes off ball of foot to facilitate hip swinging anticlockwise - adding to power from body's anticlockwise torsion unwinding. The right leg should swing FORWARD not SIDEWAYS (i.e. hip flexion, not abduction) - in order to turn the hips to back LOD, this is achieved by a combination of internal rotation at the right hip after the right leg stops swinging, as well as internal rotation at the left hip before the weight fully transfers off the left hip. Left leg also activates - gluts, quads, calves, in that order, to drive forward and slightly up ("slightly" because any more results in "popping" rather than "early rise" - "without any up" = flat, typical non-heel-turn foxtrot)

3 - right leg stops swinging, weight fully arrives over right ball of foot, entire torso square, no torsion, backing LOD

3& - left leg closes/tracks to right leg before swinging back, toe in lightest contact with floor, still no torsion

4 - left leg receives weight - at this point, weight should be over ball of left foot, NOT middle of left foot. Still square torso backing LOD.

4& - weight over MIDDLE (NOT heel) of left foot, torso still square backing LOD. Right foot should be right next to left foot on 4&, in neutral position.

4&a - weight over heel of left foot as left knee moving back is VERTICALLY over LEFT heel (body has gone backwards PAST left heel), right TOE (not ball of foot) has already reached final position WITHOUT weight on it.

(start of feather finish)

1 - weight onto toe then ball of right foot (quick change), body STILL square backing LOD

(body only starts rotating clockwise on 2a, shoulders parallel to diagonal wall by 2& (i.e. 1/4 of a beat to make 45 degrees of turn clockwise)

 

[randomaeiou]

p.s. it took me HOURS upon HOURS of repetition to get this to full speed. I took ~2-3mins to dance 4 beats when I started this.

 

[vit]

I think she's trying to emphasize the separation between body movement/rotation/shape and actually moving the foot and progressing as measured by distance covered on the dance floor. So to the outsider it looks like you're moving, but what's happening is a change in shape before the step, defined as placement of foot and weight transfer, occurs.

Yes, I understood that it is something about body action, just I was interested what exactly. Larinda's description reminded me that one of my teachers was also talking about the right and left side of the body in foxtrot reverse turn and other figures. But when reading Larinda's description for the first time, I misread the description and thought it was about the right side being "anchored", which was in contradiction with what I remembered from the classes. So I checked several instructional videos from - Hilton, Bizokas, Gozzoli and Fung. But, to my big surprise, checking the videos frame-by-frame revealed nothing special at all. Although every of those dancers has slightly different style, they all do the 3rd step pretty much the same way - body just translates backwards during that step with no rotation or twist in the body. I suppose it's because turning of the body, remained from the first two steps, is temporarily stopped by some CBM action of the body during that step, so body goes straight back (both hips and shoulders) down the LOD. It's especially visible in video by Fung, because of the position of the camera which is almost precisely in the plane of his back, so it's visible that no body action happens in that plane

Other thing visible from those videos is that they don't kill the shape of the body during the heel turn and introduce it later, but they kill the shape at the end of the 3rd step

And of course, head of mentioned dancers is highest from the ground when the left foot passes the right during the heel turn and before starting moving back for the 3rd step, slightly different than expected from reading the description in the book (like with feather and especially with three step)

It's interesting that even 30 years after I started dancing standard, there are still things that are different than I thought or was taught ...

 

[nikkitta]

Yikes, Cornutt. I just now noticed you said "Open right turn." You are referring to basic Silver Smooth Foxtrot, yes?

If so, oops. But for those of us thinking International Foxtrot, very interesting discussion. And yes, it's one of those steps that is continuously dissected and tweaked as our dancing develops.

 

[vit]

If he is moving backwards into the third step with his left foot his right shoulder will progress back at the same time. His left shoulder will not travel backwards at the same speed.

That's exactly what I thought I was doing so far (although never checked by filming myself). The problem is - in mentioned videos, all parts of the core of those dancers (including both shoulders) seem to be traveling with the same speed during the 3rd step - whole torso backing LOD (as in randomaeius' description of that part), and I don't see any flaws in their execution of basic figures

I extracted some frames during 3rd step from other video - by Veyyrasset/Smith, where it's also visible that the speed of the right shoulder isn't higher than of the left shoulder. Generally looks the same in other videos

 

[Warren J. Dew]

So the question is: am I way off base here? Is this the way to hover the heel turn in foxtrot, or is there a better way? Or should I just forget the whole idea?

I take you to be talking about the back half of the continuity open right turn here. If not, ignore this.

When doing the man's heel turn, I think it should be noted that your right foot should be closing with the right heel dragging while you are transferring your weight onto your left foot. By the time the slow step is completed, with the left heel down, the right foot drag should be completed and the right foot should be closed. The only thing that needs to happen on the first quick is a pivot on the left heel with the feet blocked together, and a weight transfer from the left heel to toe of the adjacent right foot. Your weight only needs to move about one foot length, which should be easy to accomplish in one beat.

You can give the appearance of a slower pivot by starting the body shaping earlier, and ending it later, if you want to. The body turn does not have to match the foot turn.

Where I would take extra time is on the second quick, drifting it into the next bar as I exit the heel turn. And yes, some of that time is stolen from the opening slow of the following continuity ending. That is okay because, with your new timing, you don't need to complete the weight transfer of that following step until the second beat of the slow.

 

[Mengu]

I'm also guessing you are talking about the open impetus... If not ignore this too.

I like Warren's explanation. To add to it, I think the lady's momentum coming forward into the first step can also have a bearing on how you will split the rest of your time between the two quicks. You may indeed have more time with both your quicks, if your slow didn't happen quite so slow. On the first quick, the more time the lady wants to take dancing into your arm, the more you will be able to milk that time, which will also likely mean your second quick will bleed into the next measure, but you're on the down swing, so it should all blend smoothly. The man is kind of the anchor on this step, and after providing the initial impetus, you're riding the train, then your next decision is when to shape (which isn't so much based on timing, as it is based on the amount of rotation you're trying to achieve), and when to open into promenade and step out.

Also, I think this is one of those steps where the shapes are much more important than the actual precise timing; there is room for musical interpretation, and dealing with whatever happens in the moment.

 

[vit]

Larinda, no need to hurry and thanks for paying attention to my post.

I think OP question was actually about his heel turn, just that I was interested in your description of the reverse turn, which as I said I misread first time, so I checked some videos to verify my execution of the reverse turn and wrote my findings