"There isn't a set of ways to dance a natural turn in waltz, but one way. Alex Moore says commence to rise at end of 1 (N.F.R). Is he wrong?"

There are a set of ways to take a backwards step.

One of those ways, which ends up as a natural turn, causes NFR.

Another of those ways which ends up as a feather step causes NFR.

One of those ways which ends up as a reverse turn causes NFR.

And many other ways ending up as many other common figures, mostly causing NFR.

However there is also a way of taking a backwards step that ends up as something else very common, which does not cause NFR.

To Whome It May Concern. After the lady has taken the first step and her foot is flat on the floor and has pointed step two to the side, i am taught that she will be facing diag to the centre. Any premeture turning of the body will result in she arriving before the man. You have then lost your initial position with each other, the position you started with started. This is why there is a No Foot Rise for the lady on step one, or the person on the inside of the turn. Where this rule does not apply is for the man on step four of a Reverse Turn in the International Foxtrot as is explained in the books..
Should a Pro know the book. Doesn't that speak for itself.

Cyd... you need to realise that the " book " is a guide, and that there are occasions where some techn. is modified .

How the book describes 1.2.3 of a Nat. in Waltz and how it is danced at Prof. levels is entirely different .

She can't place the foot in its pointing alignment unless she has made the required body turn. If she makes her movement early, she is just dancing out of time.



The pattern of rise has nothing to do with the turn.



You need to pay closer attention to the text. Of course there is NFR for man on 4 of a foxtrot reverse turn. There isn't any body rise either: the R&F is "down". So your theory doesn't work: even though the foxtrot turn is open, rather than closed, the "inside turn" action is present in 4-6, and there is the usual division of turn (just as for the waltz equivalent), but the R&F pattern is that proper to foxtrot.

Rather obviously, the NFR action is not "caused" by the turn which is to follow.

Really ? there is both foot rise and body rise on step 4 (or at least at the e/o 4). the reason NFR isnt used here is because there is body rise too - the footwork is THT and the next step is up.

Quite right. But there's nothing like a red herring to bring out all the sock puppets...

Of course, the style difference is that there is no gradual rise, as typical in waltz. So no "start to rise e/o" one step and then continue to rise: instead, we have rise e/o 4, and hence the footwork THT. That rolling through the foot action mostly comes from the movement from one open position to another open position, and moving to an "Up" position, rather than continuing to rise. It still has nothing, directly, do do with the turn.

The NFR in the waltz turns must, at least partialy, reflect the the differential of travel of the two partners imposed by the need to turn in a closed regime (in that sense, it is partly caused by the turn) The difference in the foxtrot is that this differential is reduced because of the open finish.

"She can't place the foot in its pointing alignment unless she has made the required body turn."

Not quite correct. A pointing alignment is one in which the body alignment and the foot alignment do not match - the foot has made the turn, but the body has not yet made as much of it.

Something to keep in mind however is that the lady will not actually end up with her feet spanning the old and new alignments - if she is doing a static demonstration and stops midway through she might create that position, but it doesn't actually occur when dancing through as there is instead a smooth evolution from the position of the left foot to the position of the right - they don't really occur at the same time.

"The pattern of rise has nothing to do with the turn."

Severely mistaken. The presence of turn drastically changes the character and technique of rise.

"Quite right. But there's nothing like a red herring to bring out all the sock puppets..."

The lack of NFR in the foxtrot reverse turn is not a red herring, but rather an important example key to understanding why NFR does or does not occur.

"Of course, the style difference is that there is no gradual rise, as typical in waltz."

Correct in words but wrong in interpretation. There is actually a gradual gain of altitude in foxtrot - gentler in fact than that of waltz, however the system of description used by the book cannot accurately represent this as the continuation of rise is in the closing separation of the legs, not in the feet which are largely what the book means when it speaks of rise - to accurately represent foxtrot altitude trends, it would have to say something like "continue rising not in the feet but as the legs swing to pass, then start falling not in the feet but as the legs swing apart"

"So no "start to rise e/o" one step and then continue to rise: instead, we have rise e/o 4, and hence the footwork THT."

Again, correct in words but wrong in interpretation. To better understand why, compare to the situation of the quick open reverse where it is the lady on the inside of the turn. The given rise and fall will be the same except that lady does have NFR and her footwork is TH, unlike the man's foot rise and THT of the feather finish. The man has foot rise because as the man he is not under the swing in the way the lady would be if she were on the inside - he starts out almost as if he will be under, but as the feather finish blends towards something commencing more of a forward feather, he needs to be somewhat on top, and that requires the slight spring or rise in his foot.

To clarify, can I ask in relation to the lady's steps of the natural turn, where is her LF aligned (a) at the point where her RF reaches its final position (rotation aside) and weight is transferred into step 2, and (b) at the end of step 2, using, as you do, the convention that e/o refers to the point midway to closure on 3.

it seems obvious that by point b the LF will have moved some from its orientation at the end of 1, but its orientation at point a - which seems to be the more crucial point - is less obvious - it is this that dictates the degree of "waddle" that people often debate.