When we dance a heal pull with say the left foot "lady's feather" or " man's reverse wave" are we not pulling our weight from the left foot onto the right foot and if so then why can't we say we pull our weight foward over the front foot when moving forward ???

Are we not pulling the back toe forward if only lightly ?

"When we dance a heal pull with say the left foot "lady's feather" or " man's reverse wave" are we not pulling our weight from the left foot onto the right foot and if so then why can't we say we pull our weight foward over the front foot when moving forward ???"

The mixup of terminology here hints at the answer to your question.

A "heel pull" is an action closely related to the heel turn. It does not exist in the figures you mention, unless they are followed by a heel turn.

What you are thinking of is the toe release or "heel push" action.

And there's the answer to your question - you don't pull the heel in those steps, you push the body from the heel. When the free foot actually does swing closed, most of the distance is covered with the ball of foot (rather than the heel), again on the ground.

So, you push off the departing leg going backwards, and you push off the departing leg going forwards... in both cases, the arriving leg does not only does not accelerate your arrial, but actually acts to slightly delay it, by redirecting it upwards (either from downwards to level on step 3, or from level to upwards on step 1 - these are both 'upwards' redirections)

Perhaps a Heal Pull is the wrong terminoligy for when the lady drags her heal back when dancing backwards in the foxtrot. But is she not pulling it back when she drags it back. LADY'S PLEASE HELP ME OUT HERE.

Dave, I can only explain what it feels like when I drag the heal back. It feels as though I am pulling the heal back under my body with the back foot. Joan

If it feels like you are pulling the closing leg, you are doing it wrong. The lady never intentionally moves a leg in the swing dances, it is all a result of her body movement, because her body movement is a result of her partner's leading. He can't telepathically tell her to put her foot someplace, so figures that would require this simply don't exist.

In contrast, the man does have a few cases where he intentionally pulls a moving foot closed, specifically in his heel turns. In contrast to the lady's heel turns which are a consequence of the specific swing the man is leading, when he dances his heel pull (the real one, for a heel turn, not the way Dave used the term) he will purposefully position his foot because doing so is part of leading the figure.

Here we go again. It's the feet that move the body through pressure into the floor. Without the feet the body could not swing anywhere, except swing the leg (only) from the hip.

"Here we go again. It's the feet that move the body through pressure into the floor. Without the feet the body could not swing anywhere, except swing the leg (only) from the hip."

Of course. What most people miss is that it's the body (as moved by the standing leg) that moves the moving leg. The moving leg is not conceptually speaking active on it's own. The muscles of the moving leg do work, but only in a way suggested by the movement of the body.

Returning for a minute to the idea of pulling the heel closed after a toe release, this is a common mistake - many draw it in with substantial pressure against the floor, because they think "heel drag". It's nothing like that - the heel pushes the body, stays unmoved on the floor until the body fully arrives on the new foot, and then swings nearly passively under the body, as the almost total lack of floor pressure once the foot is moving means that it requires very little force to move it.

In all of this writting nobody has mentioned that the heel is not pulled all the way back to the standing foot. At some point it will become a ball. If you watch your tapes you will find this varies from person to person.