Suomy - you said
"The first full support of the body weight is by the heel, where the weight remains until after the other foot has passed to begin the next step."

This is often the case, but not always. It clearly isn't the case for theT-H step on the left foot (for a man) in a chassis. I don't think it's true either for opening in promenade after an open telemark, or at the end of a chassis.
The disagreement all stems from your insistence that in a T-H step, the weight must pass through, or onto the heel - by which you mean ALL the weight must be taken on the heel at some point. Your posts keep reinforcing this point. If this isn't what you mean, please say so.

"This is often the case, but not always. It clearly isn't the case for theT-H step on the left foot (for a man) in a chassis. I don't think it's true either for opening in promenade after an open telemark, or at the end of a chassis."

These are all excellent examples of places the weight must pass through the heel.

The whisk might be something different, I'll have to think about that.

The major issue with the whisk though is that's it's a rare couple who uses enough rotational strech in each body to generate a closed enough promenade hold for the full action to be possible. If your promenade is opening out, you are not going to be able to settle nearly as far back into the foot as a couple that can really fit the bodies together, keeping their topline parallel in promenade.

This point about rotational stretch is irrelevant to the heel lowering discussion. Even with the best rotation control, it would still be essential to keep the weight forward.

"This point about rotational stretch is irrelevant to the heel lowering discussion. Even with the best rotation control, it would still be essential to keep the weight forward."

It's relevant in that you probably can't get your weight as far back as it needs to go if you have the wrong body position.

Similarly, part of your problem with passing the weight through the heel when doing forward may be that your promenade is too open. Try keeping it really closed and parallel and you may find there's more "length" to the couple than before. Remember to delay closing the free leg on step 3 so that it can go right through to step 1, and not pause under you.

suomynona,
I think your analysis of the TH weight change is simply either flawed or misstated in your explanation.

Your contention ("...I think it's rather obvious that the weight and the pressure counteracting it must pass through or at some point be located at the heel during a TH step - but Phil, Rha, and perhaps Onlooker disagree...") doesn't make sense

BioMechanically speaking there are two general ways where the weight of the torso can be borne by the heel of the foot.
(Remembering that the leg is connected to the ankle and the ankle onto the heel)
1. The leg is straight or vertical--in which the knee is unflexed.
2. The leg is angled forward (towards the toes) and the knees bent in differing degrees depending upon how low one is "squatting" (truly, you're not standing at this point).
In this case the torso is over the heel--but the distribution of the weight among the toes, ball, and heel of the foot, will vary depending upon the placement.

In a TH situation, your weight is borne by the toes before the heel touches the floor.
The angle of the leg (because the knee has softened or bent--situation number 2) will force your weight to be distributed among the different parts of the foot.
(Also because of the entry point of the step being the toe...).
Some parts of the foot will carry more than others (and changing in amount carried as the torso travels forward).

In a TH action it is not natural for the heel carry ALL the weight--even for a fraction of a moment.
If you do this your toe will have to lift up (or curl up) since your knee would be bent at this point, a natural consequence of the TH action done correctly.
Try it if you don't believe me.


You show a lot of conceit in your previous posts.
Some have cause to be well deserved.
But on this...
I do think you should reevaluate your logic in this argument.

It simply doesn't wash.



m

"Some parts of the foot will carry more than others "

This is the key statement. As dancers we rarely allow our weight to distribute within our foot, even in situations similar to ones where we would if we were not dancing. Instead, we keep our weight focues to a very small part of the foot.

During a TH step there's a period of time when the appropriate location of this focus is in the heel.

However, if the step is forward and you allow your weight to reach the point of full support in the toe before you lower the heel, you have in fact over run your heel and it would indeed by awkward to lower the weight backwards to the heel. The key is not to skip the weight in heel stage, but to lower the foot without having let your weight fully arrive over the toe.

Incidentally, the focus of weight means putting orthotics (designed to evenly distribute weight) into dance shoes kind of useless for purposes of any serious dancing. Though for recreational dancing they may allow people to participate who wouldn't be able to without them.

"This is the key statement. As dancers we rarely allow our weight to distribute within our foot, even in situations similar to ones where we would if we were not dancing. Instead, we keep our weight focues to a very small part of the foot."
This is not true. We often roll the weight forward and back through the foot as we do forward and backward steps in slow waltz and foxtrot.

"Incidentally, the focus of weight means putting orthotics (designed to evenly distribute weight) into dance shoes kind of useless for purposes of any serious dancing."
What exactly do you mean by "focus of weight"?. I would imagine you would be talking about the centre of gravity of the weight distribution in the foot. This is an engineering concept. It has nothing to do with orthotics, which might be designed to move the "focus of weight" or redistribute the weight over the foot (for various reasons, usually unrelated to dancing).

"What exactly do you mean by "focus of weight"?. I would imagine you would be talking about the centre of gravity of the weight distribution in the foot. This is an engineering concept. It has nothing to do with orthotics, which might be designed to move the "focus of weight" or redistribute the weight over the foot (for various reasons, usually unrelated to dancing)."

Phil, while the weight progresses through the foot, during most dance figures it is only located in a small area of the foot at any point in time. As a result, dancers can't benefit from shoes designed to spread their weight out over a larger area - we have to be able to focus our weight to a very small area, very precisely (this is probably why good dance shoes have very soft soles). Small movements of the focus point of the weight will be felt by the partner, and hopefully responded to.

suomynona says:

"Symmetry also makes the passages of the weight through the heel obvious: In a continued movement in closed position when one partner rolls their weight forward through the foot, the other partner rolls their weight backwards through their foot as a coordinated, complementary action.

If the man lowered TH out of the chasse, as soon as his weight is in his toe, the lady's weight must be in her heel. If he is going to have the lady's weight initially in her toe, and then lead its progress back to her heel after the free foot passes to begin the next step, then his weight must lower to his heel and move forward as part of how he leads her weight to move back."

The above assumption is incorrect so the rest of the argument based on this assumption is also flawed.

The neutral starting position for both man and lady is knees soft and weight on balls of foot for both (heels to the floor obviously). The 'feeling' is that one dances from ball of foot, to ball of foot.

Let's look at the normal step (HT man forward & TH lady backwards). When the man's heel touches the floor the lady's toe touches the floor. The end of the step is when the man's toe lowers to floor. The weight moves to the ball of the man's foot while the lady's weight remains on ball of foot. The heels lower to floor for both of them. So the step ends with both man and lady's weight on ball of foot, heel to the floor. As the man commences to move from the ball of foot into the next step, only then, does the lady's weight move to heel. This is all because the man's and lady's knees don't both bent in the direction of progression, the man's knee softens in the direction of progression while the lady's knee softens against the direction of progression. The accompanying softening of his knee as he lowers his toe accelerates his weight to the ball of foot while the direction of her softening knee delays her weight going to heel.

In the case of a TH step, both man and lady take a toe at the same time, both lower the heel as the weight arrives, though the weight remains in the ball of foot for both for the same reason, the direction of the accompanying softening of knees. Again the ending is the neutral position, to commence the next step, with knees soft, weight in the ball of foot. What sends her weight to heel strongly to her heel is the man commencing his next step from the position I just describe.

Rha