My girlfriend/dance partner and I have been having a disagreement on how to use the free leg while dancing. My view is that in the swing dances (waltz, foxtrot, viennese waltz, and quickstep), the free leg is highly useful for balance. It nearly always remains in contact with the floor and slight downward pressure or slight braking can be achieved with it for balancing purposes. My dance partner maintains that no pressure or dragging actions should ever be done. To her it touches the floor, but it should not be used in any way. My balance is better than hers and I claim my use of the free leg as noted above is one of the reasons. But also I have spent MUCH more time practicing solo and that certainly improves the balance. Any thoughts on how to use the free leg would be much appreciated. Is there a consensus on this?
International standard: use of the free leg
- Thread starter tyner
- Start date
Joe
Forum Master
Well, IMO the "free" leg is never 100% free. You only lift your free foot off the floor on specific figures (e.g. developpe). In order to maintain contact with the floor you have to have some small amount of pressure to give you feedback that the foot is still in contact with the floor. But if you're dragging your foot, that's too much pressure.
DanceMentor
Administrator
I wouldn't go so far as to say you should pick the foot up off the floor too much in the swing dances. Some actions where you might have additional pressure would be when you're closing your feet during a natural turn, or hovering during a Hover Corte, or dragging during a drag hesitation.
Now a mistake I used to make in my own dancing would be to get too focused on one thing, and this strikes me as such a thing I might have previously focused on way too much, missing other important things that might have solved my problems faster haha
Now a mistake I used to make in my own dancing would be to get too focused on one thing, and this strikes me as such a thing I might have previously focused on way too much, missing other important things that might have solved my problems faster haha
Warren J. Dew
Forum Master
Even just touching the floor can be highly useful to balance by helping with keeping track of where the floor is. Does your dance partner think that even that use of the free foot should not be done?
That said, if your balance is much better than hers, it's almost certainly due primarily to stronger feet. Or is your balance better than hers only when you are standing on two feet, but not when you are standing on one foot?
My balance is better in many respects: when doing the waltz 18 step by myself (natural turn, closed change, reverse turn, closed change), I can nearly always totally put my feet together on 3 and remain balanced. She can't about 75% of the time. When doing simple balancing exercises like standing on one foot with toe only, I can remain longer. It takes a lot to get me dizzy. If I do about 10 spins in a row (the type females often do after a round in a competition), I will be only dizzy for about a second or two but can remain balanced. When repeatedly working on a turning figure like double reverse spin (not back to back, but with a stop between), she usually starts complaining about spinning too much in one direction and does a few in the other to regain normality. I can work on these forever without being slightly dizzy.
I'm curious what you mean by stronger feet. Do you mean simply that my muscles are stronger (could lift more weight doing calf raises on the machine at the gym)? I do work out on weights at the gym and have reasonably strong calves.
What is this? I do realize you described natural/closed/reverse/closed change, but is this A Thing called Waltz 18?
Last edited:
opendoor
Forum Master
Balance has something to do with the vestibular organ, while strong feet provide stability.
I don't know if it is a formal name but it was described by a local instructor who is well connected in the Italian dance scene and trained by the best. Waltz 18 step is natural turn, closed change, reverse turn, closed change. The total number of steps is 18 (6 + 3 + 6 + 3). There is also one for foxtrot, but I'm not sure of the actual figures.
Warren J. Dew
Forum Master
I mean the muscles involved in maintaining balance are stronger. These are mostly toe flexors, as most people can support their weight on the ball of the foot but not on the toes. Some of these muscles are in the calves and some in the sole of the foot. I have noticed they do tend to be stronger in weightlifters than in nondancers and casual dancers.
Strong feet are very helpful for balance. And strong ankles, calves, quads, hamstrings, glutes, TVA, psoas, abs, lats, traps... you get the picture. Sad but true: when I got stronger, more flexible, and more knowledgeable, my balance improved. No shortcuts that I ever found.
BOT: I've had the discussion about don't-use-free-leg with a number of people who advocate that technique. I find that most of the time, they are very strong people who don't realize that their version of not using the moving leg is a less-strong person's "use the leg." Just by virtue of being physically strong, they unconsciously Do Something, while swearing all the time they're Not Doing Anything.
BOT: I've had the discussion about don't-use-free-leg with a number of people who advocate that technique. I find that most of the time, they are very strong people who don't realize that their version of not using the moving leg is a less-strong person's "use the leg." Just by virtue of being physically strong, they unconsciously Do Something, while swearing all the time they're Not Doing Anything.