Re: ballroom question; lady's arch pose

On Apr 8, 10:40 pm, avid_dan...@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:

The human body is quite strong, when it is used
correctly and effectively. Ballerinas regularly
dance on their toes. The key is how to direct and
time the forces/weight of the body properly.

Most ballroom dancers do not have ballerina's toes... or builds. Many
don't have stable ankles either, but that's easier to develop.

A simple rule of thumb in determining whether a
dancer is balanced and in control is how easily
he/she can alter movement. Dancers who have
curved backs moving backwards, where torso weight
is not vectored over the feet, will not be able
to adjust direction and distance easily.

Actually, maintaining connection, control and reserving "alterability"
in ballroom pretty much depends on being willing to project the body
weight into the movement. If you hold your body weight stationary
while placing your foot, you not only block your partner, you become
commited to going wherever you put your foot - I mean you aren't very
well going to retract it if you initially guess wrong. In contrast,
if you move your body as your partner moves theres, and let this guide
the motion of your feet, then any increase or decrease in the movement
of the body will be matched, and the feet will end up wherever they
need to be to receive the actual amount of movement that the bodies
made.

Arch in the back is never a good idea. But an overall body posture
that puts the center a little forwards of the rest also acts to
increase the clearance between one's legs and the partner's body.

Your argument is not making that much sense; in a backwards movement
absent rotation, there won't be any sway to "contradict"

Many manuevers use sway (lean) to attain linear
travel. The use of "slalom" action is very natural
to the human body, where the top moves less distance
than the bottom. AS Spirals and IS Waves are
examples of this motion

Actually, no, they aren't when done by a dancer of any real skill.

Such head-in slalom action, while perhaps applicable to other sports,
really has no place in ballroom. Instead, to the limited degree that
we use a sideways weight displacement as a restoring force to change
track, we do it by putting our center in, keeping our head out.
If you look at the "width" of the osciallation in a series of waves,
stereotypically, and English trained couple would have a wide top with
their feet following a narrower track, and Italian trained couple
would have a wide track in both feet and top, and nobody of any real
skill would do what you had described, a wide track in the feet while
leaning in to keep the top's track narrow as a skiier might.

As I've mentioned before, the way to propel one's
body is to compress and then "explode." The
compression phase requires parts of the body to be
held back, and this is regardless of close/open
hold, or even dance style.

There's limited degree of such compression, but it is limited by the
extreme partner-incompatability of hodling part of one's body back.
Look at how the human body is put together, look at what is involved
in "compressing" and you will immediately see that the hips and center
go back - away from the partner. In contrast, the whole premise of a
ballroom hold is that the center is projected towards the partner.

You do see a bit more compression in outside partner actions though,
because with the legs outside eachother it is entirely possible for
both partners to have their hips back, while keeping their centers
close together.

Seasoned dancers (in travelling/spot/slot/etc.
dances) have that ability to dance hold-move-move
(SQQ timing)

I'm sorry, but with the possible exception of tango, there is no hold-
move-move aspect to SQQ timing. Only on beginners who lack the
strength and skill to sustain movement from teh preceding quick,
through the new slow, into the next quick, would such a timing involve
any "hold".

I'm not particularly impressed by
dancers who follow their instructors blindly
and who only dance routines because they tend to
develop oddball habits and never really understand
the foundations of movement or how to adjust to
situations. There is a healthy balance between
listening to others and figuring things out for
oneself.

I assure you that leading ballroom teachers are providing precisely
the kind of guidance that you would need to further your
understanding, particularly to correct some of your mistaken ideas
about what you've been seeing, and replace some of the poor quality
examples you've been exposed to with good ones. Routine dependence
can be an issue, but it's generally an issue in couples, not in
coaches. All of them - male and female - have no problem following
whatever a student leads in lessons, because they understand the
mechanisms that make something that might only work as part of a
routine on a lesser dancer, actually be followable on a more skilled
one.

.

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