"Anonymous. I stand between a door frame. My first finger and my middle finger on each hand on each side of the door jams. I move up and down to a knee bent position, My hips do not bend and the body stays verticle."

Does your thigh remain vertical?

If it does not, then something at its upper end is bending. I called that your hip, maybe you would prefer a different name?

Anonymous. My thigh is at an angle of 45 degrees along with my shin and the angle that my foot is from the floor. My heels lower and at the same time or thereabouts my shin and thigh will reach the 45 degrees. My body stays as it started verticle. There will be no nodding or bending forward from the waist. If this is to be followed by a step one heel will not lower. Another excercise for thoes in a hurry. Use the full weight of the body against the kitchen sink and do some simulated press ups.

"My thigh is at an angle of 45 degrees along with my shin and the angle that my foot is from the floor. My heels lower and at the same time or thereabouts my shin and thigh will reach the 45 degrees. My body stays as it started verticle. There will be no nodding or bending forward from the waist."

No one said anything about bending FORWARD.

However, if your standing thigh is at a 45 degree angle and your torose is vertical, then it is quite obvious that there must be a 45 degree angle of bend in the vicinity of your standing hip.

If you would take a more careful look at the picture of the lady in forward walk #2, you would see that she does not have such a bend, because her THIGH is nearly VERTICAL.

She is doing it properly and projecting her weight past her foot as a result. Whears you have this mistaken extra bend at your hip, because you refuse to commit your weight forward into the movement.

Anonymous. Define hip. We obviously have different ideas here, My hips are the pelvis which goes to the part where the pelvis join the thigh. From there down is the thigh. If the shin bends then the thigh bends the bit above it doesn't. Another way of looking at it is three blocks of wood one on top of the other. They are stacked from the waist to the bottom of the Pelvis. They will remain one on top of the other and will not get out of line or tilt, according to Steven Hillier

"Anonymous. Define hip. We obviously have different ideas here"

Don, regardless of how you choose to define hip, two simple facts remain:

1) If your thigh is at a 45 degree angle and your torso is vertical, then somewhere between your thigh and your torso there is bend totalling 45 degrees.

2) The woman in picture two has her thigh nearly vertical, despite her shin beeing at quite an angle.

If you haven't figure it out yet, she is doing something very different than what you do. I happen to consider what she is doing much closer to being right and what you are doing severly wrong - but at least you could admit that there is a big difference between what you advocate and what she is doing!

Anonymous. If you can look at the last picture. Imagine the feet are together and on the toes with the same bend of the knees. Now lower a bit more or as to your liking. Which gives us the back of the head over the heel which would put the body weight a litte further forward. If you had in your hands a bottle of Coke held to the seems of your trousers they will remain with the bottom of bottle still facing the floor. Didn't you do any P. T. at school. The angle of the back leg on three looks to be at the correct angle if the feet were together . All of that just to explain that the knees bend and the body doesn't

"Anonymous. If you can look at the last picture."

I could really care less about the last picture.

What I am still trying to get you to see is that in picture TWO the thigh is vertical. That is proper.

Wheras when are at a corresponding point, you have said that your thigh would be at a 45 degree angle. That would be improper - it would keep your body back over your standing foot, and not projected forward (but still vertical) into imbalance where it needs to be.

She has her thigh vertical - you have yours at 45 degrees. How can you possibly still be ignoring such a huge difference, after we've literally spent MONTHS on this topic?????????

Don. Some Yoga will give you back your strength! Bikram Yoga is wonderful. If you do it for approx. 2 month religiously you will have more strength and flexibility you ever had.

Ballroomlady. Don't tell me you are another who can't bend the knees without bending forward. Try a broomstick alongside your body. Can you go up and down without having to bend forwards. If your knees are weak you most likely can't. What's with you people, have you no strength in your knees, legs and ankles. If you haven't, or can't you are building your dancing around a faulty technique.It is like painting a peice of wood and you put the wrong primer on. It doesn't matter what you put over it, it will be wrong. It's as simple as that.

Don. It was you, who said, that your knees are not as strong as they were. I am not sure, if there is a misunderstanding but to me it sounds that we are speaking about two different things.

1. Bending your knees and keeping your torso in vertical position
2. Bending your knees and keeping your hips over your knees with your torso in vertical position

The first one, when done slowly is a part of a good yoga exercise or even an exercise for weightlifting. The second thing is what you need for dancing.