Hi Phil, good to hear from you again. I hope you like the new forum.
I don't associate body flight with long strides. Certainly the better dancers are proficient at both, but one does not necessarily result in the other. So my question to you is: In which area do you feel you are most lacking?
Since your message title is "Improving flight...", I'll speak to that, and if stride is also an issue for you, I'll answer separately later.
I think of body flight as being a direct result of the swinging action, which I define as being the free release of energy through an arc. The arc around which you swing can be on any plane, but the two we use most often are pendular(the same plane on which you would swing a golf club) and rotational (the same plane on which you would swing a baseball bat).
The key concept behind swing, however, is not the range of motion (since it can occur on any plane, and often occurs on multiple planes simoultaneously). To really grasp the concept of what it means to swing, you have to look at the phrase "free release of energy".
Imagine, for example, a the kind of swing you'd see on a playground. The range of motion is pendular. Typically you would put a child on the swing, pull the swing all the way back, and let go. Gravity and momentum would take over, and the child would swing free along this range of motion. This is an example of the free release of energy. As a second example, take the child, pull the swing all the way back, but don't release. Instead, hold the child and in a very slow and controlled manner, physically move him along the same pendular range of motion. To see this, you would not say that the child is "swinging", and yet, the range of motion is the same. The reason: No free release of energy.
To improve your swinging action in your dancing, you first have to grasp this concept. Once you do, the next part is to understand the ranges of motion used in a typical ballroom swing. For example, in your basic Waltz Natural or Foxtrot Feather, you have to employ both rotary swing and pendular swing. The don't occur exactly at the same time. Rotary swing starts the action, and pendular swing completes it. In the middle, they overlap. A good teacher can help you work through the exact timing of your rotation and sway to strike the best and smoothest possible blend.
But even if you rotate and sway at exactly the right times, it won't swing (and therefore not have body flight) unless you release the energy. Like the child on the swing, if you muscle it or control it all the way through, it will not feel or appear "released". Once you take off, you must not apply brakes even a little bit. To do so is to waste energy and diminish the swinging action and body flight.
If you feel like you must force the action and don't have anything to "release", remember again the child on the swing: If you start him at the bottom of the swing and let him go, he won't go anywhere, and therefore requires a physical push. The key, then, is to first pull him back and up to the top of the arc, so that gravity and momentum do the work for you. The same principle applies to your dancing. For rotary swing, you must first wind up. On a Waltz Natural, that means having your left side rotated back before you start. Then you have something to actually swing through the arc. If you start square to the action, your rotary range of motion will not appear to "swing", because you are in a sense shoving the child from the bottom of the swing.
Pendular swing is a bit more complicated. Obvioulsly, you're not going to pull your low center back before swinging it forward. That's like bad Samba from 1983. :) First, because of the rotation, the hips never really swing forward. They do begin this range of motion, but the rotation affects the body dynamic such that the forward swing quickly becomes a diagonal, and ultimately lateral swing. And as I said, you don't really want to pull your hips backwards to set up the pendular swing. So there is a certain element of "push" here. However, that element is minimized by the swinging action of the legs, which is why it always feels more forced when you commence a swinging action from a dead stop with feet together. The purpose of a "prep step" is to engage some momentum, as well as having the free leg positioned behind -- in other words, "wound up", for a fuller swing.
More importantly... the purpose of the end of one swing is to begin the next one. If you over-control count 3 of any one swinging action, or finish in a position that is not wound-up for the next movement, the next movement will not have any energy to release, and will therefore be lacking in swing and body flight.
In conclusion, to improve body flight, improve your swinging actions. To improve your swinging actions, remember these points:
(1) Swing is the free release of energy.
(2) Swing should be released, not pushed**.
(3) In order to be released, swing must first be wound up, and
(4) The end of every movement is the beginning of the next.
** You can actually release AND push together. This increases the power of the swinging action. But unless the element of release exists, it will only feel like an awkward shove.
This may be a bit abstract and wordy, but hey, what do you expect from a message forum! :) Really, I guess the point is to cogitate on the concepts, and if possible, bring it to your teacher for further discussion and more concrete examples.
I hope it helps you in some way.
Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com
