You can quote the passage all you like, but it won't do you any good until you stop recommending things that contract it. Once your feet pass, your standing leg must start straigthening and you heel must be down. If somoene follows your recommendation to be still bending the knee while reaching the moving foot back, they are contradicting the passage you love to quote which describes dancing in which the heel is down by the time the moving foot passes the standing one.

Your mistake is that you see the recommendation for how late the heel of the moving foot should lower as it becomes the standing foot in one particular no-rise walking action, and forget that in all cases the standing heel must be down before the new moving foot passes it, and in many cases (actions with rise or fall) substantially before that.

In other words, don't quote things you haven't taken time to understand in practical terms.

Thank you Indy. I appreciate it. I will get serious, starting tonight. We have a Club Dance at the studio.

Anonymous. That's right . The standing leg will straighten. That's where the two straight legs come from, with the back heel off the floor the front toe off the floor and the weight dead center ( split weight )at this time We will come back to this position in a minute. The weight will move back with the moving leg, not the extending leg, untill it draws level with the standing leg, then the heel will lower to the floor. As the heel lowers we will be in a nuetral position. Then that knee bends towards the front as the moving leg starts its journey backwards. Even though the leg is moving backwards as the supporting knee moves forward we should have a feeling of going towards our partner momentarily and not away from our partner untill the toe is reaching its full extension behind us.
To get back to the above. If you watch a top class athletics meeting. You will see a perfect example of the body which is still, moved by the legs. Not the other way around. If you are one of those that has a camera that records onto a DVD. Play it slowly as normal. Then play it in reverse in slow motion. Then go to a DVD of a world class Foxtrot. Do you see the resemblance to dancing as the heel touches the floor. Yes we know the footwork is different and runners don't run backwards, and don't have CBM and all the rest of it.
With dancing there is a moment when if they stopped dead. You wouldn't know whether they are going forward or backward. In fact that question was posed in a magazine I have somewhere. The question was. Are they going forward or backward. There was no way of knowing. My guess was forward, but it could also have been a Wave. The moral of this whole story is. If the lowering is too early you will be pulling away from your partner and it will be very obviouse in which direction you are going . I'm really suprised that this very basic is even being discussed. There are enough books and tapes and DVD's out there on this very subject even at the lowest level.

It's being discussed because the many experts - former world champs and trainers of current ones - know that in many steps, the arriving heel will lower much before the feet close. That is because these steps have rise and fall, which makes them different than the walk without rise and fall described in your book.

But some people are I guess to obstinate to realize that different steps require different technique.

You might understand better if you consider that it's not the heel lowering early, but the moving leg closing later. Many beginners swing their legs far to early... advanced dancers let their body move, and then their leg swing to catch up. If you are going to use substantial knee bend to lower more and extend the travel, the timing of when the leg swings relative to when the foot lowers is going to be even more delayed.

Would you people stop hijacking every thread to have your private arguments? All this stuff about the heel and the standing foot has nothing to do with the original question about how to break the habit of backleading. It gets really tedious to have to plough through all your diversions. Please start a separate thread if you want to discuss a technical point that doesn't have much to do with the thread's topic. Thanks!

Maybe the original post was a mistake, and the argument is correctly threaded. Um, well perhaps not. :)

It's partly a mental thing. You have to get comfortable with the idea of giving up control and trusting the man to lead you and to protect you from collisions. It may be harder to let go with random guys at a party, but you certainly can trust your instructor.

Practically, the best advice is to learn to WAIT. You have more time to feel the lead and respond than you think you do.

Bad information is going to be corrected wherever it shows up.

But you are right that it's irreleveant to the topic.

Ellen. I think the question first asked was about back leading. And was suggested that she might be lowering too soon.