Dennis Beach. I can see you have given on what you write a lot of thought.I will just add this.
If any of you have any insruction tapes you will hear the phrase. " Dance from Foot to Foot". I've three tapes on which this is instructed. John Wood being one. These words mean what they say, otherwise with these teachers they would not have used those very words. If they wanted us to dance from body to body they would say so. So it's worth giving it some thought . Wè Dance from Foot to Foot. If in our minds eye we can imagine ouselves dancing from foot to foot . What do we see.
Also on the same tapes you will hear . "Stand on the standing leg longer. This gives a person time to use the whole foot from either heel to toe or toe to heel. That plus the above mentioned makes or breaks . It should be that simple, but as we all know it is not that simple, but at least it is a start down the right track.

"What do we see. Also on the same tapes you will hear . "Stand on the standing leg longer. This gives a person time to use the whole foot from either heel to toe or toe to heel. That plus the above mentioned makes or breaks . It should be that simple, but as we all know it is not that simple, but at least it is a start down the right track."

Perhaps you are misunderstanding the intent of the 'foot to foot advice'

It's patently obvious that you cannot use the whole length of the foot from heel to toe or toe to heel unless you are willing to move your body weight. That means that while your weight will be resting on the standing foot for a long period of time, it will not be located over the standing foot during that entire time - instead, it will move past it to a position of imbalance. Remember that reaching the point of imbalance does not mean that you are not still supporting most of your weight from the standing foot - it just means that you can no longer keep your position constant and must instead procede to finish the movement which you have started.

No reputable teacher is going to tell post-beginners to keep their body weight stationary over their standing foot while moving their moving foot - however quite a few will have their beginners do this for a few months at the beginning.

Anonymous. Now does your feet , by that I mean legs knees , Do the feet move the body or does the body move the feet.If we move our feet into position and use them from the front heel to the toe and at the same time the whole of the foot of the rear foot to the toe. What else do we need to move the body.
I never got an answer about folding a shopper Docket about 1.inch. from its bottom to the right. That's the feet. Another fold about 2 inches to the left. And above another fold to the right. The rest is the upper body which is verical. Now you have a working model to prove where the balance will be when we bend the knees and lower the heels or raise them. Go to the door and what do you have. Do we have a natural movement or not there.

"I never got an answer about folding a shopper Docket about 1.inch. from its bottom to the right. That's the feet. Another fold about 2 inches to the left. And above another fold to the right. The rest is the upper body which is verical. Now you have a working model to prove where the balance will be when we bend the knees and lower the heels or raise them."

How quickly you forget.

You did indeed get an answer, but it wasn't one you liked.

Your mistake is that you seem to be putting an extra fold in your paper, corresponding to the hip. During the knee phase of the lowering, there should be no such fold - only one at the ankle and another at the knee.

This will place the thigh oriented vertically directly above the standing knee. And the body oriented vertically, positioned above the knee. And all of these advancing with the knee, so that they soon become located forward of the toe. But there is no pitching forward.

"Go to the door and what do you have. Do we have a natural movement or not there."

No - what you are describing, an accordion fold with an extra bend at the hip - is a very artifical movement which leaves the body weight stationary over the foot. That is not how people ordinarily move - instead, it is an error. It is true that there is briefly some benefit to practicing such an in place lowering to get the idea of what stationary balance would be, but to really dance you have to stop doing that, and learn to move your body weight as your knees bend. This means that for a forward step there will be no forward fold of the standing hip - instead, the hip will be located above the knee while there is still foot rise, above the knee as the foot rise is lowered out and the knee begins to bend, and finally ahead of the standing knee as the knee starts to straighten again.

Anonymous. Now hold on there.If there isn't a third fold at the hip how do you sit down. On the part that is the foot raise it to the fold. The part that is the shin with the second fold bend it to an angle of 46 degrees. If you keep the body upright the angle of the thigh will be the same as the shin to floor. It doesn't matter whether the part that is the foot is up or on the floor. It doesn't matter if the shin is a different length to the thigh. If you keep the body verticle where will your weight be centred. That's a peice of paper used as a model. Use an artists wooden figure, same thing. Or do it yourself. But pitch the weight forward or back and see the result and tell me that the same thing will not happen if we are the model.
One more thing .At the excent of our stride we are supposed to be on the front heel and the back toe which makes both legs straight and we are perfectly balanced at that time mid way, before the front knee starts to take the weight which is continuously moving forward pushed by the standing foot. '
This is beyond most of us, I believe this to be an aquired thing which happens only with years of training.
You and I will never get there except over a step or two when we force it to happen. But because we can't do it, it doesn't mean it can be completely ignored. We must strive for this even though we may never get there with comfort. If this is tacken out, thats the straight legs, everything we do will not be as it should be.This is where other strange things start to happen.

"Anonymous. Now hold on there.If there isn't a third fold at the hip how do you sit down."

You don't!

That's the whole point. The knee bend phase of lowering for a forward motion does not resemble sitting down at all. That is unless you make the mistake of trying to keep your body weight stationary, in which case you would have a fold at your hip and it would resemble sitting down.

Now a backwards movement into CBMP... that's a different story, and it does look a little like sitting down diagonally.

"The part that is the shin with the second fold bend it to an angle of 46 degrees. If you keep the body upright the angle of the thigh will be the same as the shin to floor."

Or the thigh could be vertical... same as the body. Later, after you are even further past the foot, the thigh will match the forwad tilted angle of the shin - though the body of course will be vertical.

"If you keep the body verticle where will your weight be centred."

At a point in space that is constantly progressing, as it should be, and hesitating only at the peaks of the foot rise.

"But pitch the weight forward or back and see the result and tell me that the same thing will not happen if we are the model."

No one has advocated pitching the weight. Instead, every post in this thread has included numerous reminders that the body remains vertical in the situation under discucssion.

"One more thing .At the excent of our stride we are supposed to be on the front heel and the back toe which makes both legs straight and we are perfectly balanced at that time mid way, before the front knee starts to take the weight which is continuously moving forward pushed by the standing foot."

You might or might not want to do that, but for a minute lets pretend you do. Now where will your weight be just before that, before any of it is on the front foot? Answer - supported by the back foot to the degree to which it is supported at all, but off balance because your body is far in front of the back foot.
'
"This is beyond most of us, I believe this to be an aquired thing which happens only with years of training."

You will have a lot better chance of getting both legs straight if you develop a willingess to send your body weight beyond your standing foot... The reason you cannot straighten your legs is that you put weight on your moving foot before your body had moved far enough. Send your body further before you even think about swining your moving leg through. Send your body further as you swing your moving weight through. And send your body weight further even in the instant before your moving foot takes weight. If you want a full action, you can't afford to neglect any of these - and you especially can't afford to lower by sitting down, as you still seem to be trying to.

Anonymous. Just a quick one I'm in a bit of a hurry. On a Backward Walk why am I in CBMP.
Sitting I'm beggining to think that you do get an angle between the shin and the floor but try to keep the thigh verticle . I was going to enquire from you about this one from a previouse post where you did say something about a verticle thigh. Just clear that one up please.
I didn't answer when you asked about the 46 degree angle between the shin and the floor and asked who said that. It was Steven Hillier in a lecture that he gave. And then of course I looked for myself. And what do I see.

"Anonymous. Just a quick one I'm in a bit of a hurry. On a Backward Walk why am I in CBMP."

Obviously you aren't unless it is a backward walk into CBMP. This came up only as a caution that while you must outgrow this idea of trying to sit down in a plain forward lowering movement, there are some other kinds of movement that do somewhat resemble sitting down.

"Sitting I'm beggining to think that you do get an angle between the shin and the floor but try to keep the thigh verticle "

Yes, that is exaclty what I have been trying to get you to understand for the past several weeks!

See how this means the body weight is moving forwards as you bend the knee, unlike a sitting down motion where the body weight would be stationary or even moving backwards?

Anonymous. Aren't you able to bend your knees and thigh without going into a sitting position. If you let your upper body lower it will always beat your knees and you will sit. You must feel as you lower, you lower through your knees and feet only. Can can imagine that somebody has you by the belt front and back, and are keeping the body up as you lower through the knees and the feet. Get the paper model out and lower verticly. Once again where is the center of balance as it lowers and does not sit or pitch forward. I would hope that you haven't got the model the wrong way around. Held in front ,side on .The first bottom fold is to your right. The second to your left and the third to the right. This should give you a perfect example of what will happen from standing on the toes and lowering .

"Anonymous. Aren't you able to bend your knees and thigh without going into a sitting position."

Of course I can - but you so far either cannot or will not.

If you bend your knee and bend your hip in equal amounts, your knee will go forward while your body stays stationary, and you will "sit down" directly over your foot, with no horizontal travel of your weight. That is a fatal mistake in many situations in partner dancing!

To bend your knee without "sitting down" you will need to keep your thigh vertical and your hip joint unbent. Which means that your entire body will be vertically aligned over your knee. Since your knee moves forward when it bends, this will also require that your body move forward. If you knee moves past your forward limit of balance in your foot, then you body also moves past it, and you are unbalanced and beginning to fall.

If you keep your body vertical throughout the fall, and if you start re-extending your knee at the right time, and swing your free leg through just an instant before you need it, you will catch your weight softly and gracefully in what will in total be a very smoothly flowing and elegant ballroom action. Of course there a million slight errors that could spoil it.

"Get the paper model out and lower verticly. Once again where is the center of balance as it lowers and does not sit or pitch forward."

There should be no pitching forward, but in a progressive dance the lowering must not be vertical - it must have a horizontal component as well, even from a position of closed feet. You can do the first part of the lowering - flattening the standing foot - more or less in place. But after that, as your knee bends, your body should be moving forwwards or backwards according to the step. This of course means that your center of weight is moving, and will soon be off balance.

Until you are willing to learn this, your dancing will always be choppy and inelegant.