Phil. Another excercise worth doing is to stand with the feet together.Put the weight onto whichever side you like. Bend the supporting knee as much as you wish. Point to the side and draw the feet together on the two toes and lower. Repeat on the other leg. Not only is this a strengthener excercise, it teaches how important the bending of the knee is on the supporting foot. Which takes us a stage further than the cicumference comments. After this it should be easy to step forward from a fully lowered position (bent knee) and complete a Closed Change. And further if you wish, turn 90 degrees over your now standing foot and complete the first three of a Natural Turn using the same action.

Wouldn't the circle move with your body between the time you start the step and the time you place it?

Anonymous. No. This is our distance. To visibly move the center will result in a collapsed second step and usually does
just that through over stepping. When writting I was on a step to the side. Try the same on a forward or backward step. With the bending of the knee push to the circumference. Now you are on a new center position. I was at a lecture last year when it came up that on a step to the side as in step two of a Natural. Some are arriving almost flat on that step. Not the best dancers though. They arrive incredibly high on there toes, which can't happen if a person overstrides. Don't take anybodys word for it. Check with a video in slow motion especialy IDSF competitions. If I can't get as high on my toes as they, then I have to find out why. A mirror is a great help.

"To visibly move the center will result in a collapsed second step and usually does
just that through over stepping."

So you don't believe the body moves during the course of preparing a step"

Anonymous. Finding the area around our centre revisited. Two straight legs at the extent of our stride. Front toe off the floor. Rear heel of the floor. Front foot is at our maximum to the edge of our circle. Back leg starts to bend and pushes forward. The weight is arriving onto the front leg which is bending allowing the rear toe to go to its very end . You can please yourself if you want a Feather Step or after coming into a nuetral position a step to the side as in Waltz from a very bent knee. If you study, some also have a bent knee on step two which gives an apearance of having more rise. Does the body move. Common sense would tell you that unless you wish to dance all night within a circle you will be taking your body over whichever is your standing leg The point of this discusion is.Do we have outside of our centre, an area which is the circumference, and how can we find it. Try yourself. Point the toe to the front from a bent knee on the standing leg the more you bend the bigger the step will be.. Mark that spot. Then step from a neutral position, with a heel lead. Where do you finish up. It should be on the edge of your circle. Any further will create difficulty in your movement. The same applies going to the side.

It seems to me that in calling the path of possibility circular, you are neglecting the momentum of the body, which as you should know is never zero when lowered.

Anonymous. I dont know about you but I lower verticaly in the Waltz at the end of three and. I then start to move into CBM on the and count.
In the Foxtrot at the end of the Feather lower and then I come to a neutral balance point with the weight over my RF before the Reverse Turn. Having completed the first three steps of the Reverse I will have feeling and a look of about to dive forward off a diving board. Any arguments there I suggest you go and have a look at your tapes. This allows a lowering and bending of the knee on step three. Very important but often missed. The reason for using a circle as a guide is we don't draw a square which is not natural for this type of work. Moving the foot in an arc from front to back also gives us our side distance. Just a reminder. The more the knee is bent the greater the distance becoming available.

You have to pick a direction before you lower, quickstep. So you possibilities are not even remotely circular.

Anonymous. The whole point of this excercise is to make a person aware that there are limits to the length or width of a step. Overstride and your footwork will suffer. Overstride and your rise and fall will disappear along with your posture. To go through it once again. Point the toe to the front and bend the knee. Then to the side, and the rear. Unless a person is built a bit odd this will form a half circle. Bend the knee some more. The half circle will become larger. These are the distances we can travell. I don't think that you are one of those who think the first one around the floor is the winner. You said. "So the possibilities are not even remotely cicular ". Not quite sure what you meant by that. A Spin Turn is very cicular, and how about a Double Reverse Spin. I think that Ballroom Dancing is a mixture of straight and cicular steps. First three Natural Turn. Wouldn't you say that the first step is straight. The second goes through an ark and the third step is straight. I doubt that anyone would not say that the second step, because my weight is on my RF. doesn't have a roundness about it. If it doesn't your left hip wont make it.

"The whole point of this excercise is to make a person aware that there are limits to the length or width of a step"

Yes, there are limits, but the primary factor determining the limit is the speed of your body at the time when you take the step. A step in the direction your body is moving can be fairly large (in fact it has a substantial minimum size) wheras a step in the direction your body is not moving would have to be very small indeed.

Drawing a circle on the floor doesn't really say much about where you can step, because you can't go any of those places unless your body is moving, and if you body is moving you can only go in that direction.