Hi Phil,

First, with regard to the lowest point in rise and fall, I can agree that the collection of your weight on the 1 is the lowest point. However....if you TRY to make 1 your lowest point, aka lower onto the 1, you will create a late lowering and a poor quality of movement. You must try to complete your lowering at the end of 3 to create a forward, linear movement on the 1. The collection and compression of your body weight into your right leg on the 1 will be caused by the bending of your right knee, which will make the 1 the lowest point, BUT it will be only very slightly lower than the transition to the 1.

I agree 100% that your first movement should be a lowering. That is what I meant by "starting with the 3" in my previous post. You must lower BEFORE moving forward, (or any other direction for that matter.) Then you will not be lowering on 1, but you will most definitely be DOWN on 1. (Forgive all my caps...there are no italics and these things get so wordy, I feel a need to make the important bits stand out.)

As for opposition between the upper and lower body, we could go on and on about that, but for the moment I'll just explain in the context of rise and fall.

The idea is simply that as you lower (from the base) you feel that your upper body continues to stretch upward. This prevents the common problem of the upper body slumping as you lower through the knees. As you rise, you feel your shoulder weight connect downward into the floor. This prevents the (again) common problem of the shoulders coming up as you rise, and also helps to improve grounding and balance.

Obviously, as you focus on the opposition of the upper body to the rise and fall, your upper body is in fact still moving up and down along with the lower body, but it is not compounding what the lower body is doing.

I would also like to figure some ideal consistent way of describing timing relative to music and relative to movement, but my brain is not up for it at this precise moment. :) Maybe later!

-Melissa

Many thanks for this Melissa. I will be thinking about my upper body movements a lot more in the next few months!. I certainly had a tendency to slouch in the past on some lowerings, but i think i've corrected that.

Phil

The misinderstanding of the correct technique in rise and fall has been a pet subject of mine for a long time. As Melisse suggested there has to be a loss of height as the feet get further apart. If we go far enough we will do the splits. That is what some people misinterpret as further lowering. You would n't believe how many arguements I have been involved in regarding this topic, even with some people who teach and should know better. Now this has been confirmed by an expert, Melisse, we had better have a look at the first step of the Feather in Foxtrot had n't we. Whoops!!

Now you've put your foot in it!!

The timing of the waltz is rely 1@2@3@ the reason for this is to use the whole bar of music with a continious movement,even gleave an 8 time world champion would count the first few bars of music this way every time he competed in order to get into the groove. IF you arrive to early at the top you will have to pause to wait for the music to catch up ,thereby loosing important momentum that with the help of gravity will carry you down and project you forward into the next movment. The lowest point is 3@ .The highest point is 3. Moving onto the right heel on (one} is a forward movement with right knee flexing to create a soft movment, the left knee coming alongside the right knee with full weight over the right foot on [1@}

To contiue: It took me a long time to understand the lowering action. Lowering without moving forward is sitting therefor, the more you lower or flex the knee the more power you create to project forward creating a longer stride and giving you increased energy to swing into the next movement. THe mistake that Many people make when they lower more is to slow down to much thereby not being able to use that increase in compresion to move forward