Gatlin. 100 and 200 winner in the sprints at Helsinki says . The secret to my success is, Technique. Control and Confidance. Doesn't this also apply to Dancesport. What is technique. One part is the foot positions. Stand on a floor board, feet together, with the weight on one foot. In this case the RF. Everything is now coming from the RF, that's our marker. Step forward then step back. After coming back to position one. Step to the side, you must be on the same floorboard. Now step to the side and slightly forward. Then to the side and slightly back. From there point the toe on a diagnal. It doesn't matter where you are in the ballroom your standing foot is the one we work off. So for the first three of a Natural Turn, lets follow the book.
RF forward. Step to the side LF across the LOD and so on. That doesn't mean slightly back or slightly forward It means what it says, to the side.Both feet pointing in the same direction. Now figure out how much turn there is on the RF to be able to step to the side, and when does it take place, that is the turning on the RF. Untill this was explained to me my feet used to more often than not , pass, This was caused mainly by stepping to the side and slightly forward as I am sure many of us out there do. So if you want to go to the British just check your technique. If you can't get those foot together don't bother going.

Hi Don
"The secret of my success is Technique....". Jesse Owen's technique was very different from Michael Johnson's. Remember all those high jumpers working on their "western roll" technique until the 1968 olympics (was it 1968?) when a certain Dick Fosbury stepped up to the bar? And Rod Laver, one of the greatest tennis players ever, wouldn't recognise the racket grips used by modern players.
My point is that while some fundamentals are unchanged (and thank goodness for that - i only embrace change if i can see that it's for the better), many things - even technique - change over the years. It's just that in dancing, the technique book hasn't been updated for years. In most other disciplines, new technique or reference books are written every year and a small fraction of them help move things forward.
It is my belief that modern ballroom dancing at the higher levels departs from the technique book.
For the natural turn you mention, even at my level i can see that turning my body early so that my left foot plant is "to the side" simply restricts my flight. And flight is important in dancing. To be honest, i feel that my second step with my left foot is forward. By the time my weight is on it, it IS indeed to the side of my new body alignment.
It's a pity that top dancers don't have the time (i'm sure they have the confidence!)to write their own technique "books" (written and visual) to pass on their versions of how to dance.

The point is Phil, that technique should be taught by a teacher and not from a book. Only a teacher knows when the student is ready to learn a new technique. The worst students are those who try to learn from a book instead of having confidence in their teacher to teach them to dance ,which is what we pay them for. If we lack confidence in our teacher we should find someone else. Doug