Heres one for the enthusiast. How do I on the very first step of a Natural Turn keep the spine straight and still get CBM.

Depends on what you're defining as "straight spine".

If you mean that the spine moves straight ahead through space without rotating, you can't... It contradicts the very premise of CBM, which is a type of rotation of the body, and thus of the spine within.

Certain circumstances call for faster rotation of upper body than lower (or vice-versa), but that involves more of a subtle "twisting" of the spine to one direction or the other. To keep your spine perfectly straight and untwisted in these circumstances would cause you to either (1) rotate in one piece, or (2) isolate more specific body parts (such as arms & shoulders) in an attempt to force the offset rotation, resulting in a broken frame, distorted shoulder line, etc. So a very slight "twisting", although probably a poor choice of words in a teaching context, is very much an appropriate action in circumstances where rotational speeds of upper and lower body are not supposed to be identical. The first step of a Natural could definitely be considered one of these instances, particularly for advanced dancers.

If you're not talking about the avoidance of rotation of the spine through space, and you're not talking about avoiding the aforementioned "twisting" of the spine, by "straight spine" are you referring to simply maintaining your posture? If so, I'm not sure how to answer that, because I don't really know how it interferes or conflicts with CBM.

Prehaps you could clarify.

Regards,
Jonathan

PS -- I'm going out of town early tomorrow morning. Don't know if I'll have internet access where I'm going, so it may be a week or more before I can come back to reply.

When dancing a sway we keep the spine straight but not virtical as the body tilts from toe to head in a straight line without breaking at the hips.

Yes, that's pretty much it. The pelvis stays aligned with the trunk. Of course a leg can break from the pelvis, at least in the sense of trailing behind the body (and in tango, in front as well). But we should not break the body line above the pelvis.

And of course we are free to rotate around that straight spine.

Anonymous. I believe a twist in the spine is caused by shaping the foot even slightly into the turn. Take the first step of the Natural in the Waltz.Go right to the end of step one before turning. Do your turn between one and two, not between zero and two.

Different parts of the body turn at different times - rotation around the spine is what permits this. Typically the body turns first (CBM) and the feet and head turn a step or two later.

Technically, you're not rotating around your spine, you're rotating your spine. At least, one would hope. If you rotate your whole torso above the hips (keeping your arms and topline in a fixed position), the spine is twisting. To take the phrase "rotating around the spine" literally, you'd have to be isolating shoulders (like a shimmy) or wiggling your arms out of position.

Jonathan

Waltz 123. For what it's worth we were given this excercise. Stand both feet together. Swing the arms like a sprinter Don't move the spine keep it straight . Now move your shoulders with the arm action.We are now losing our technique as the sprinter does when they tire.

Try this exercise:

Stand with your feet together and place your fingertips on your sternum (both hands), elbows extended out to sides as in dance position.

Now rotate your sternum to the left, and then to the right, as far as it will go in each direction. Twist back and forth in both directions, utilizing every part of your body from the ground up, including the ankles, knees, hips, and chest. The only things that remain fixed in place are the feet. Using all of your assets, you may find that you can turn your sternum almost 180 degrees altogether (up to 90 in each direction).

This exercise emulates the ranges of motion used by the body in dance position. Keeping the fingertips on the sternum tends to limit the range of motion of the arms and shoulders independently of the rest of the torso, similar to what we strive for in our closed position dancing. It doesn't make it impossible to disengage a shoulder, but it makes it far less likely and far more noticeable when you do. And it takes the arms out of the equation pretty much altogether. So it's a great position for such exercises.

Notice also that disengaging one or the other shoulder is not so much a rotary motion as it is a simple isolation. If you disengage both shoulders in opposite directions at the same time (kind of like you do when you "shimmy"), you get sort of a twisting action, but that's in a different plane, and not necessarily connected to the twisting action of the spine.

The twisting of the spine is what happens when you rotate the sternum above the waist. If you wanted to prevent this, you would simply limit the rotation to the hips and below (in other words, hips, knees and ankles only). You can do that, but you don't have to... after all, a good swinging action involves the whole body.

Don't confuse the disengaging of the shoulders or arms (or any other similar isolation) with the twisting of the spine. You can rotate the chest/sternum above the waist without it resulting in an isolated arm or shoulder, just as you can isolate a shoulder without rotating the chest/sternum above the waist. Therefore, the twsiting of the spine is not directly related to mis-positioned arms or shoulders.

In fact, more often than not, the opposte is true: Novices will often pull their arms out of position because it gives them a false sense of having rotated. The arms are, in a sense, compensating for what the body didn't do.

The exercise above is a great way to take the arms out of the equation and learn how to use the body to rotate. It also gives you a sense of how much mobility you have in your torso above the waistline, without having to sacrifice your topline. Do we use this mobility to its fullest in all situations? Of course not. Different situations call for different amounts of -- well, this or any other dance technique. But it's not something I would do without altogether. Limiting your upper body rotation is limiting your freedom and volume of swing.

Regards,
Jonathan

Do that, and you'll turn independedntly of your partner.

CBM (ie rotation into and though step 1) is a necessary element to place your partner onto the inside of the turn. If you dance straight through step 1, so will she, and you will rotate as two individual bodies thereafter, causing a shift in your relative positioning.

It's fair to say that the direction of your movement should be straight forward as the person on the outside/forward half of the turn. But that's not to say that you shouldn't be turning all the while. There's a difference between your direction of travel and the direction you face. On step 1 of a Natural, the direction of travel is straight -- In other words, the step doesn't have a curve in it. But the body is indeed turning.

As for the person moving backwards, she (in the case of the natural) is both rotating and curving her direction. This is how she maintains her relative position to you.

Old school exam-style teachers will have you rotate the whole body in one piece on the forward half of the natural, such that the entire source of rotation is the supporting ankle and knee. The spine rotates in space, but never actually "twists".

Advanced competitive dancers, on the other hand, will have you rotate the upper body slightly faster than the lower half, creating a greater swinging action as well as a noticeable exansion of the dance position towards the end of step 1. This is not a contradiction in technique, it is merely an additional layer of technique. But it does require some mobility of the spine.

Regards,
Jonathan