Jonathan,

If the intent is to arrive /finish 1 on the ball of foot on a fairly soft knee then the heel will be leaving the floor as one 'arrives'. In other words during the "end of 1". The heel leaving the floor and the arrival of the moving leg to the standing leg happen simultaneously. The knee is also softening during this process. This is not a lifting of the heel that comes from an intent to rise.

One can choose to finish 1 on a flatter foot and perhaps a less soft knee then obviously the heel will not leave the floor at all. I don't believe that this is as dynamic as the former. I make these comments ISTD technique, aside.

However I'm in agreement that rise and fall like so many other aspects of technique is not clearly described in the ISTD technique. To say 'commence to rise end of 1' (Waltz Nat Turn) is misleading, even in terms of their stylistic preferences and it deserves sharp criticism. The 'heel leaving the floor' does not necessarily come from an intention to 'rise'.

Rha

"So to rise at the "end of" is more than just commencing rise as the moving foot is passing (the end point of the step), it is commencing rise before the moving foot has passed, and therefore presumably before the body weight has fully arrived over the foot. Would you really condone lifting the heel before you even fully arrive on the foot?"

If you do not let the body arrive over the standing leg before the free leg has closed you are in danger of letting your legs get ahead of your body - a commonly seen problem.

Especially at the start of an upswing, the body needs to be well ahead of the legs. Timely completion of the foot actions listed for step one (heel, then toe) before the end of step one helps insure this.

Jonathan and the rest. Can we make some sense out of this by going to the ladies steps, backwards. Surely both our steps must blend with each other. Forget the rise and fall, just think of when the ladies heel touches the floor. It is as the moving foot arrives under the body. To lower too early traps the moving foot. The hip will have to lift slightly to allow the moving foot to pass underneath smoothly. I take no credit for the last sentance. It is on Steven Hannah'Former winner at Blackpool
1986 his tape. I take it that the lady and the man should be doing the same thing at the same time.

No, HT goes to T faster than TH goes to H, so the timing of the partners footwork does not match

Nod,

I think you believe that the softening on the man's knee on 1 that causes him to release the heel as the moving leg arrives will cause the lady to 'lower' too early onto her heel before her moving foot arrives. This is not the case.

I'm sure you've heard and know the expression that 'the lady lowers forward' many times. This means that as the lady going backwards softens her knee to match the man, the knee bends forwards and her weight is 'kept to the man'. This keeps the heel from lowering prematurely delaying the lowering of the heel to the floor. She does not allow the softening of her knee to automatically take her weight back onto her heel. This will cause her to pull-backwards. She goes to heel as the man's moving leg arrives, which is about the same time as her moving leg arrives under her body.

Rha

Rha. Ballroom dancing is an art and not a science. But some things must be plain common sense. For instance we know the lady has to extend back right to the tip of the toe ( that's why Latin shoes aren't advisable ). Then what must the man be doing at this same point. or vica versa. When a commentator says they are nicely together. He most likely isn't talking body contact, but the timing and the togetherness of the feet. Here is one for the book, posed by the late Harry Smith Hampshire. As the man lowers the heel to the floor on the second quick in a Feather step. Where should the moving foot be. It was a question he was putting foreward that those who are studying to be an examiner or adjudicator should be asked. He never gave the answere. I think I know where the foot should be. I do know what i am seeing at the present time though. He added, that if the technique is allowed to be altered and accepted, then the book must be regulary be updated, especially in the Tango where the biggest changes are happening.

Two things:

One, the lady does not extend backwards "to the tip of her toe", but rather she extends backwards with the tip of her toe tracking the floor. This implies the critical detail that the early extension is taken mostly with the lower leg, the upper leg remaining nearly vertical. The difference may seem subtle but it's actually quite important - the note is not to describe reaching of the free leg via division of the upper legs, but to describe the position the foot takes as both body and foot are moving backwards. Actually reaching "to the tip of the toe" is likely to result in an excessively large stride and the bodies falling in between the feet. But even before that, it feels like an obstructed movement to the partner since reaching the foot tends to go hand in hand with insufficient movement of the body over the standing foot during the pre-extension phase of the step - the lady starts out not moving her body enough to match her partner, then tries to catch up by extending her entire free leg back... she manages to move "not enough" and "too much" both in the same step!

#2... The official word on when TH becomes heel vs. when the free foot passes is given as a one-sided inequality - the latest time that the heel can lower is the instant that the foot is passing, but there is no given limit to the earliest time. Many teach substantially earlier - almost as the free foot is only starting to close. If one delays the shift of weight to the heel until the body is already over the standing foot (something likely to happen before the free foot closes), then it will be very hard to actually let the weight arrive in the heel without having to send it backwards against the travel. For this reason, it's my guess that during the T phase of a forward TH step only part of the body weight is actually supported by the foot - the rest is literally in flight, with the full weight arriving only as the heel lowers. After that, the standing leg flexes and the free leg draws in.

Anonymous. So which part of the ladies shoe is in contact with the floor after her full extension. Is it the under part of the shoe. Or is it the part where the sole of the shoe is joined to the upper. Again we are sailing away from the original thread and got onto togetherness which is the synchronisation of the man and ladies steps and in the main the point where the ladies supporting heel lowers to the floor. If the lady lowers premetuarly her knee will straighten on the none standing foot, and the toe will pop up into the air and she will fall away from her partner. I take it that your last sentence concerns the man's second quick and when to lower, which you say is as the foot arrives under the body. That may be so. But that is not how todays dancer dances that step. You just have to look and see if you have any IDSF finals on tape. Which brings us to the final comment. Can the technique books keep up with the latest trends which the adjudicators are allowing.

No, I said the standing foot probably should lower before the free foot arrives under the body.

The book simply requires that it do so by the time the free foot is arriving - it places no limit on how much earlier you may choose to do it.

If you want to speak of deviations from the technique book, consider this: it's not exactly clear that in step one of a natural turn the lady's weight needs to ever reach her heel, though the book does request this. Because her body needs to track her partner's, her weight cannot start backwards through her foot until his moves forward in his foot, but since she exits the step from the toe, the backwards progression of weight will quickly be replaced by a forarwards one back to the toe. How far back it momentarily gets is an interesting question...

Anonymous. Looking at the tape much closer I can say without any contradiction that the best dancers in the world today in the Foxtrot, not only does the lady go to the extreme part of the toe with her rear foot the man also at the same time does the same with his rear foot. They do produce a line with the feet which compliment each other. It looks something like this at the extent of the stride. \ / the rear foot of the man, with the man going forward, and the rear foot of the lady going backwards. Now imagine what the silhouette would look like if the ladies heel was nearly down like this \ ___ .
As someone once said. "Dancing is creating shapes in space to beautiful music. Yes. That makes a lot of sense that the ladies heel does not have to touch the floor on the step you described and will be tried.