This should occure naturally but doesn't always work out that way. Watch a toddler taking its first few steps. It knows that the body weight needs to be sent forward but at this moment does not know that the feet should move faster than the body. At this stage the feet get left behind because they don't take any weight at all, and at this time the child hasn't worked out what is to be done.. So the toddler after a couple of steps falls onto all fours. Even way back in the 30's Alex Moore wrote.
" From a stationary position always feel the body commences to move slightly before the foot. Remember that the speed of the foot is always greater than the speed of the body. If the foot is moved before the body, the weight will be too far back and a "sitting down" effect will result ". To go to the other extreme none of us would topple forward and leave there feet behind like a toddler. Does that make sense or not ?.

"To go to the other extreme none of us would topple forward and leave there feet behind like a toddler. Does that make sense or not ?."

It makes a lot of sense. One of the problems with how dances is usually taught (maybe even how it has to be taught) is that a lot of natural habits from walking that should apply to dancing get lost when the first few hours end up focused on where the feet are going. It may take years before the student gets to the point where they can abandon the foot focus and lead dance movements with their body as naturally as they lead walking movements with it. (of course, every once in a while you find a difficult student, and discover that a contributing problem is that they actually walk around in an unusual way when they aren't dancing)

In terms of forgetting to move the feet and stumbling, you may find that some of the worlds best dancers wait a lot longer before allowing their feet to start trying to catch up than most of us do. Many students will almost always have one foot or the other in motion, but on advanced dancers the leg swings actually have time between them when both feet are stationary but the body is moving. Of course they don't wait so long that they stumble, but they don't move their feet before they have to either.

Absolutely correct. Analyze a simple walk done by ANYBODY in everyday life. There are two ways to move forward and both are used in dancing: (1) Propel from supporting leg (2) Shift via slight tilt the weight off the supporting leg and catch same on next leg forward. Both are closely related.

Try this as an experiment: Stand in position straight. Pushing off supporting leg is one way to move forward...its easy. Now try to NOT propel and you'll see that you can't move forward w/o tilting ever so slightly off the supporting leg...enough so that you have to put the other leg forward and catch same weight.

Dancing is MOVEMENT OF BODY THRU SPACE. Its always MOVE THE BODY. THink of the feet as merely touching down between to permit the body to move. I can't emphasize enough that if people stop focusing on feet...aside from technique...and focus on MOVE THE BODY...only good things will happen.

Dancing Dave. It might be worth having a look at pages 13 to 15 in Alex Moore's book. At the top of page 15 is The Forward Walk - Lady. Quote She can materially assist the man's backward movement by pressing forward on forward steps. but-- any attempt to do this with a forward poise of the body would completely upset the man's balance. The man must retain control whether moving forward or backward. End Quote. There goes the bodyflight for the lady.

No quickstep, you are mistaken. Forward poise is not a prerequisite for body flight in the forward direction. Dancing Dave proposed both the mechanisms, but didn't combine them. Specifically you lean forward slightly, but also use your standing leg to push your hips to an aligned position under your torso, so that your upper body is not leaning forward. This puts your center of balance ahead of your standing foot, which means you are committed to movement. If you arrive onto a step and move continuously through it to the next, never achieving a stopping balance, then you have body flight. Of course as lady you would only do this to the degree your partner invited it.

Anonymous. As written before I think moving the body just ahead of the foot, the foot will always beat the body and arrive first. This is a natural action. My thoughts are that it should not be neccsary to teach a person to flight the body. Just get the correct posture, move body weight from foot to foot,
which as the experts say is felt but not seen. Use the whole of both feet. Correct use of the sides also. All this is in the Basics if they are taught and learnt correctly. Do any of the above wrong will result in a mistake to cover a mistake. The answer is to practice the abslute Basics over and over and then some more.

you usually do end up having to teach body flight, because that which was natural in non-dance walking gets lost in the years when the developing dancer tried to learn the degree of control on which his teachers insist.

Anonymous. Ever since I went to a lecture by a former World Finalist. I beleive that body flight will occur naturaly if as we were asked to take our shoes off and do a few steps in our stocking feet. He was more concerned with the very first step in a walk forward. We must use the whole of the foot right to the tip of the toe on the rear foot.That is were the body flight comes from. Think about it for a minute. Where does the moving of the body come from. It can only come from the standing leg. Keep that still and we will fall forward. I saw a ridiculous situation a while back. This pair were having a lesson. Every time the male went to do a heel lead the teacher pushed him hard in the back. How stupid was that. I saw only a few days later the couple in a low grade competition, and what do you think the man was trying to do. He was lunging forward as if he was pushed. It looked a mess as you can imagine.

"We must use the whole of the foot right to the tip of the toe on the rear foot.That is were the body flight comes from."

You have it backwards. You can only use the whole departing foot if you have sufficient body flight. Body flight is not created from the standing foot, instead it is something preserved from the preceding step or gained from converting energy freed up by loosing altitude.

You are mistaking drive for body flight...

Anonymous.I say again that body flight comers from the correct lowering , use of the feet. Posture and so on. Do that right and the correct use of the body will follow. If you know anything about the Rumba just as an example. The body moves before the foot, but at the point of overbalancing the foot catches the body arriving first. Nobody is going to call that flighting the body. Mainly because we start on straight knees. In the Waltz and Foxtrot we start with a 46 degree flex, or shin to floor angle .
Take note that this is in your setup before the first step is taken. Not to wait untill 1 before the knee is bent. Big mistake that one. For thoes who like to dabble in maths might like to work out how much a 6 foot person will lower before stepping off. Then in the Waltz on step 3 we are up on the toes. Theres another 3 to 4 inches, before the heel will touch the floor on an (and)count. Plus the 46 degree bending of the knee. Must not forget we start off in a lowered position on step one. Do all of this and body flight will come. Open to comments.