Yes, it is important to not depend on the action of the arriving heel to get onto the foot - your foot should be placed as a consequence of the movenet of your entire body, and if you do this arriving will require no pulling action at all.

However a rolling action of the heel will support the arrival more smoothly. Think of your foot as a wheel. You can have rear wheel drive with an undriven front wheel, and be in a lot better situation than a car with rear wheel drive and the front wheel replaced by a jack stand.

Do you not need a good heal lead in order to maximize the Step Swing principle, without a strong heal lead and snappping of the foot you may not get a good swing. I think we have to lower just enough to give us that heal lead any further bending of the knee is forward used for compression to thrust us forward. We also have to make sure that the first step is forward and not down so we can't just arrive over that foot without some means of control.

"I think we have to lower just enough to give us that heal lead any further bending of the knee is forward used for compression to thrust us forward."

It depends on the kind of rise desired. For waltz (pendulum swing) rise, you should bend the knee some more as you arrive over the foot and then gradually straighten it as you depart. But for leading a heel turn rise, you keep the leg straight as you arrive.

And in both cases it's critical that the heel roll promptly through to toe, with the heel starting to rise before the feet close.

Several points:
first, Dave, i don't think i said that walking backwards uphill is dancing. I just noticed that when doing it (it was a form of exercise originally) it was absolutely clear that the standing leg was pushing me. I think it's good practice for dancing.
Now about the foot flattening and 'pulling' the body forward. I tried dance swing-type movement staying on my heel (1-2-3 of natural turn)and there wasn't any real problem until my weight passed over the standing foot, where it would normally be flat and ready to push forward again (if necessary). It felt a little strange of course. Remember that evolution has resulted in a foot structure which expects it to become flat when walking forward, so anything else will inevitably seem strange.
But, as a scientist, i must invoke the laws of physics here, and the real test for whether the landing foot 'pulls' the body forward is to do it on ice. If the landing foot drags backward, for loss of grip, then it is trying to pull the body forward. It can't pull forward without the force of friction with the ground acting backwards.
Having danced many times on very slippery floors, but not having danced on ice (there's a thought for the skiing holiday!!) i must say i doubt it would happen.
i think this 'pulling' may be one of these thought or conceptual concepts (sorry for the long words - i have to get rid of them somewhere) rather than an actual physical reality

Phil you are on to something with the ice idea, though it's probably not slick enough to prove the lack of a pulling action. There's a definite action from heel to toe to heel lift, but that doesnt' mean that the foot is pulling the body, it's just rolling to accomodate the arrival.

Some people do dance with a definite pulling action though... hopefully it's a temporary stage.

Phil. Please understand it is not my idea that we pull onto that leading foot. It is from a book by leading experts. It is all to complicated for me. I do know that when crosscountry skiing the the action is diagonaly sideways and that the top part of the body leans well forward and not virtical as in dancing, I seem to remeber seeing skaters skating with their body's also being well forward of the feet so I don't think you can use that as a true comparision. Dave

"It is all to complicated for me. I do know that when crosscountry skiing the the action is diagonaly sideways and that the top part of the body leans well forward and not virtical as in dancing,"

The switch from classic technique to skating technique is in effect a switch from cross country sking with parallel "standard" action to doing so with a turned out "latin" action.

What is step push in the NT and where do we not push?

Dave. I don't know. I always thought the body flight was to get me through the slit weight position that I must have at some time during my stepping. No big deal. I'm talking in the main Foxtrot.

I think that step push is when we rush forward and up from the RF on the first step instead of taking the time to let the swing happen from the heal of the leading step.