Anonymous. If the lady is going to do her footwork and lowering correctly. That is from a fully extended position of the leg. Heel high off the floor, only the toe in contact with the floor. Then to draw the moving foot first by the heel and then the ball untill it draws level with the standing foot where at this point the heel of the standing foot will lower to the floor as the moving foot passes. If the man is going to thrust his weight to the point of imbalance, there is no way the lady will not be pushed onto that step and lower prematurly. If the lady finds that her front knee becomes locked and her toe sticks straight up, then the back heel is already on the floor. And her footwork and the whole action is wrong.

Hi Phil. I think you will find that on a sway the head is still in its original position with the shoulders that are still square in relation to the body. When he stands up after the Oversway it should not neccasary to make any adjustments. The Oversway is an up line. If our arms was in water up to shoulder height the left arm will not go below the surface, which we often see if a man dips his side.

Phil. Sorry I got onto an Oversway there. I should have kept to sway. There is a similarity there though. One of those early dancers discovered the Oversway when he got too carried away doing the second and third of a Natural and didn't get his feet together. He must have thought that feels good I'll call it an Oversway. In both cases the sides are stretched and not dropped.

"If our arms was in water up to shoulder height the left arm will not go below the surface, which we often see if a man dips his side. "

You are mis-stating the sin.

There is nothing wrong with inclining the arms with respect to the floor.

The fault is with inclining the arms with respect to the body. Though even that is not always wrong - it is wrong to incline the arms with respect to the body in a direction which inclines them with respect to the floor. However it is not wrong to incline the arms with respect to the body in the direction which decreases the incline of the arms (relative to the floor) as compared to the incline of the body.

In English, don't stretch to sway your arms. But you may if you wish stretch to sway your arms less than your body.

What is a down line. There shouldn't be a downline only an up line. Go to a Tipple Chasse in the Quickstep. How many people do you see who break there left side and produce a downline on the fourth step where the stretch should be up and out.By down I mean the man's left elbow is pointing to the floor, and in many cases the head also. What a mess.

"What is a down line. There shouldn't be a downline only an up line. "

Quickstep, what is a "down line" indeed! You and you alone introduced the term to this discussion, in the very post in which you argue it is a bad idea.

Have you nothing better to do than to argue with yourself?

"Anonymous or anybody else who thinks the man has shape to his left. From an upright position if you were to put your weight even slightly to the left."

Shape is not the same thing as weight position!

"Anonymous. If the lady is going to do her footwork and lowering correctly."

That would be a good idea. However, first she would have to learn what correcty would mean. Unlike the mixup you propose:

"That is from a fully extended position of the leg. Heel high off the floor, only the toe in contact with the floor. Then to draw the moving foot first by the heel and then the ball untill it draws level with the standing foot where at this point the heel of the standing foot will lower to the floor as the moving foot passes."

Very curious what kind of step you imagine you are dancing here, becuase it does not match the action of anything ordinarily used! You will never have your "heel high off the floor" unless you are dancing a waltz-like rise to close action. And in a waltz like action, the closing foot drags its inside edge of toe rather than its heel. If you were instead dancing foxtrot, a series of backwards TH's, you would drag the closing heel at first, but your standing foot would be quite low, as you are going to need to have your weight in the standing heel slighlty before the moving foot passes (not slightly after - that would be after the end of the step, in which case the footwork would have been writtin T rather than TH).

"If the man is going to thrust his weight to the point of imbalance, there is no way the lady will not be pushed onto that step and lower prematurly."

What defines premature lowering?

Answer - falling away from your partner. If the lady is arriving onto her foot to incrementally accomodate the forward movement of the man, that is as things should be. If on the other hand, she is falling away before him, that is improper. And if he is crushing her downwards into the floor, that is also improper. The difference is in the careful aim of the motion - more across the floor than down, and in the backwards person timing their action to match that of the forwards - no faster, no slower.

"If the lady finds that her front knee becomes locked and her toe sticks straight up, then the back heel is already on the floor."

This tends to happen if she tries to stay over the front foot too long. If she instead pushes away from it, and dances not onto the receiving leg but instead smoothly through it, the problem will not occur.

"And her footwork and the whole action is wrong. "

Sigh, you can quote the book, but you do not yet understand what it requests. And even in quoting the verse, you make fatal mistakes, such as the sequence of actions referenced above.

Anonymous. Again you do not watch any Video on Ballroom Dancing. If you did you will see that the extension to the rear is to the tip of the toe. I've just been watching to check. On the Letter Service on Video we have Marcus Hilton and Karen . I watched the Foxtrot and would'n't you know in the Foxrot the very last bit of the toe is reached by the lady and also the man, who's foot is to his rear, this is a Feather Step.. I also watched a profile on Soale and his partner in ordinary clothing. The camara goes from slightly above to see the stance, and down to the feet. Cerasol is even more to the tip of the toe.
If I might point out your lack of uderstanding.What you are doing is your foot is not going back with unbroken line . You are stopping when you get to the ball of the foot before it reaches its full extension . There is much more to this. The supporting leg is also being used. If the weight is not kept over it and the knee coming into the equasion then a full extension is not possible
Quote. It is not always possible for the novice, especially the middle aged novice to immediately adopt the correct poise and balance of an accomplished dancer. I will add to this, especialy if they can't learn. If you don't get that footwork right yourself, and an understanding of it. Please don't try to influence other people with your own misunderstanding's. You can argue till doomsday and you will still be wrong.All any one has to do is look for themseles, and you will look ridicules by continuing to argue on something that is there for anyone to see..I would not like any one to follow anything I might write. What I would say is look , read and record for yourselves.

"Anonymous. Again you do not watch any Video on Ballroom Dancing. If you did you will see that the extension to the rear is to the tip of the toe."

Quickstep, again you do not take time to read before responding, or you would see that I've never disputed that! The dispute was if the heel should be high of the standing foot - and the answer to that is a resounding NO, never in the foxtrot. What you are observing is the position of the moving foot early in the stride - a position that dissapears before it becomes the standing foot.

And we still have the issue of your having described a mixed up combination of several different step types, which never occur together.

More fundamentally though, you are suffering from the problem of trying to dance "over the feet" rather than "under them" - and this, more than anything is the root cause of your various phobias and obsessions with regard to techniques. When you try, for example, to avoid lowering the standing heel until your feet close, you are dancing "over" the foot. With such a path of movement, indeed, you must not lower the heel until your feet close - if you do, you will fall onto the foot and the forwards moving partner will fall heavily on top of you. However, even with the delayed lowering this is a very high and unstable way to dance, and not used by anyone serious in this day and age.

Instead, you must learn to dance "below your feet". The path of your lowering will be aimed to go below the receiving foot, causing the heel to lower earlier. Because the movement is going below the foot rather than above it, there is no falling down and back, rather a swinging down, almost to dip below the floor boards. And because you are almost hanging below the standing foot, you will not land heavily, and the forward partner will swing slightly under the backwards partner, which is the way the relationship should be. This lets you fall cleanly through the lowring step, achieve a nice low position in the knees for a larger stride, and then start up again in time to dance a nice step one. And because you are starting up from conceptually below the feet and below the floor, your heel will rise earlier than you are used to in step one.

You can if you wish be obsessive about sticking to exactly simulataneus heel touch and foot passing - and dance high and unstable, unable to make full use of your knees. Or you can learn to dance under your feet, stably, and swing below the level of the floor boards, for a full modern action. It's your choice...