"One other thing that is related is that every first step of any figure you can find is straight without any turn untill the end of."

Not true.

In classic technique the direction of travel is unaltered during step one, but there are step in which official "turn" (which is to say, turn of the moving foot) occurs as step one is placed, which is quite a bit before the end of step one. We just had a go on that recently with the weave from promenade after a whisk, surely you have not forgotten already?

Your not thinking straight. If you change direction. That is the end of the step

Look, Don/Quickstep/serendipidy/Polished/pasodoble/whatever, you aren't going to fool anyone until you learn to write. Your "style" is too easily recognized.



jj

Just thinking of the reverse turn foxtrot, surely the man would start his rotation before the right foot passes the (standing) left. And surely the lady starts a body turn to 'allow' the man space?. In a way, i would have thought this would be part of the lead into this figure. There must be many other figures like this.
However, i'm prepared to be corrected if it will improve my technique.

You are correct. The man must begin his rotation into step 1 AND rise early on the left foot to put the lady into her heelturn.

My new partner has been struggling with heelturns and those two actions help her a lot.

jj

"Just thinking of the reverse turn foxtrot, surely the man would start his rotation before the right foot passes the (standing) left"

Yes, of course.

The issue is one of definition however - there are many different places we can measure, and in the formal technique each applies specifically to some things and not to others.

- Body turn or rotation, known as CBM when it's in the direction of the moving foot, simply means that the body rotates in the room.

- Change of the alignment of the moving foot is what is literally meant when the technique books use "turn" without explicitly specifying something other than the feet. Turning the moving foot does not necessarily mean that the body has rotated, and it does not necessarily mean that the direction of movement has changed.

- Direction of movement in the room. This does not necessarily change either when the body rotates or when the feet turn, though both of those often set up an eventual change in direction of movement.

There are a lot of varieties for how the different pieces intereact, but the most common one is a process drawn out over two to two and a half steps of dancing. In its simplest form this consists of:

first, rotate the body (CBM)

next turn the feet

finally, establish a new direction of
movement in the room.

But there are some variations - for example, in the weave from promenade after a whisk the man will not need to turn his body, but he does need to turn his foot already when he places the first step. The actual change in direction of travel in the room does not occur until later in the figure.