Becauase at least the intial goal in learning viennese waltz is to make it absolutely flat, I think of the knee bending just enough as you come over a foot to prevent any altitude rise from occuring. Then as you leave the foot, the leg straightens again.

Yes it's true that many 'advanced' couples put in huge amounts of sway and almost rise on their naturals, but that's not a basic concept. Further, if you look at the amount of sway and rise these couples are using and compare it to what the true world class dancers are doing, you realize it's excessive almost to the point of being out of control.

I have Harry Smith-Hampshire's little book on Viennese Waltz and as soon as i can find it i will study it again. I never knew that there was no rise. Every high-level competition dancer i've ever seen here in Ireland uses a moderate amount of rise and fall - unless my eyes are deceiving me (which is possible, it's happened before).
I remember "no foot rise on reverses".

It's not that there's no rise and fall in VW, it's that what is there is much flatter than say regular waltz. I think this is due to the speed of the music and because you mainly travel down LOD, not having time or need for big pendulum swings. The ISTD booklet for VW does give rise/fall descriptions so it is there. But it should be rather flat, a low amplitude wave. Kind of like how foxtrot is also generally flatter with rise/fall than regular waltz. I think Sarcastic Smoothie is basically right, at least in the beginning you're going for a relatively flat dance so just try to do that. If you're doing the right footwork, you'll probably get whatever level of rise/fall you need. I don't think it's something to worry too much about. Good luck. :)

Thanks everyone for your responses on this. As far as rise/fall is concerned, I can basically stick with the whole "eliminate" rise and fall strategy. I have a really bad tendency of overdoing it because I took slow waltz for about a year before starting with Viennese.

So, assuming that I am attempting to keep the knee bend relatively constant, due to the fact that I am trying to "eliminate" rise and fall, how low should I go into my knees?

To phrase it as a little bit of a Friday joke, on a scale of 1 to Tango, how low should I go?

Or should I be more concerned with my footwork and not concentrate as hard on keeping my knees at a constand bend?

Thanks again for all of your help!

I think if you keep your knee bend constant, you will actually end up with quite a bit of rise and fall.

Instead, I'd use the knees to absorb the difference between being over the feet, and being between widely divided legs.

There is a similarity to tango though, in that the knees are bent when you are directly over the feet, but straigher while the legs are divided.

The fast tempo of the VW makes it impracticable to fully bend the knee on the first step. This forces the dancer to take the rise earlier (compared to slow waltz) which in turn produces a shallower rise-and-fall action quite naturally ("low amplitude wave" as Dronak aptly describes above).

One key measure for how much to bend your knees depends on how much body-flight you are able to reasonably sustain without "jarring" your top. This is also a function of the length of the stride between your steps 1 and 2 (e.g. Nat. Turn), and the quality of how you--and for that matter, your partner's--2nd step lands. Usually the farther you want to go, the lower your knee has to bend.

In the VW your knee goes through a range of flex--although in a smaller range than the other dances. So, yes, keep your knees flexed but (as smoothie notes above) use it to absorb or soften your movement.

To a certain extent, footwork affects how much the knees bend--specifically the length of the stride. Personally, I subscribe to the philosophy that if I (and my partner) hit the swing, momentum, and foot plant just right then the rise and fall, the quietness, and other dynamics reflecting good movement happen naturally and without much effort.

I hope this helps,

TheFryingDragon

Simple. If you see a couple or feel yourself popping up and down like a cork in a mill pond you are incorrect. Don't muddle this up with swing on your Natural which there is but without rise and fall. I thought I would just mention that at Blackpool you won't need a V. Waltz.

Don't forget the sixth step is Foot Flat. Very important.

Indeed you can take that idea one 'step' further and shuffle your feet rather than making precise weight changes as in the other dances. Done right this can add a lot of control and smoothness - though I was given this idea after a long history of doing the dance with weight changes, so I'm very aware of which foot my weight isn't completely on. I'm not sure what it would be like to try it that way from the start.

In the V.Waltz, as in all other swing dances, one never bends the knee as a direct action. A bent knee is a reaction to the "compression" used to power the movement, which in turn is reaction to how you want to move your body thru the music.

One can use a good deal of compression , resulting in a fair amount of "lowering" but it will never look obvious if produced with the right dancing intent.

One can never measure the quality of the movement based on how much the knee has bent. If you compressed strongly, you will produce a longer length of stride and it follows that you will collect on a softer knee. One then has the power to produce a smooth and unaffected rise.

One often see couples trying deliberately to either bend or not bend their knees as a primary intent. The ones who try not to bend their knees end up with a stiffer movement without much flight. One can never get the combination of power, balance, continuity, length of stride, etc. from this idea. The ones who deliberately bend their knees get low and sitting back. They cannot produce the effortless power to produce the flight and rise so they pop-up creating a very obivous rise-n-fall which becomes the dominant characteristic of whatever swing dance they are doing.

Leave the bending of your knees to that which best, your body and the unthinking mind. It either knows or will figure out what it has to do if you leave it alone.