Guys all you need to remember on the step being questioned. I think it was a Natural Turn in the Waltz International Style. Dance your weight from foot to foot and dont try to turn before your weight as arrived over the standing foot. If the posture between the partnership is wrong then you haven't a chance of doing it correctly

Dead right!

Don't forget, that this movement is by no means restricted to the Natural Turn (it obviously applies equally to a Reverse Turn), but it has general application to all "Outside" & "Inside" turns, where the turn in the forward movement is divided, using a swivel action, and the backward component has a foot placed in a "pointing" alignment, with no swivel. The two movements fit together perfectly, just as they should, just as long as no one does anything so silly as to attempt to step "to the side".

Think in terms of the second step on an outside turn as being like a latin "forward walk turning" and all will be well.

"just as long as no one does anything so silly as to attempt to step "to the side"."

Although step is defined as being to the side, no one has been suggesting that the proper action to achieve that is to take a step to the side. Instead, it's been clearly explained that the action is forward.

It's critical to recognize that the definition of a step as given in the book's charts is not a literal instruction for how to execute it, but instead a description of where you will end up. It is an outcome description of the result, not a procedural description of what to do.

Based on the outcome description, the student or teacher must consult the collection of rules (some of which are stated in the official book, some more of which are found in Ballroom Dancing, and some of which are simply not written down) to determine the actual procedural action that is required to achieve that outcome.

Hello everyone,
I wanted to throw my 2 cents in here to say that if a pro is spending a lot of the lesson time having to look up things, then I would go to another teacher. Although as many messages point out, it's not possible to remember EVERY figure, the pro should not be using expensive lesson time to learn and teach him/her-self. A good pro should prepare for the student lesson prior to the lesson; ie...if he/she is going to teach a move that is unknown or not completely remembered, then study it BEFORE the lesson so the student isn't paying a lot for the pro to learn or refresh his/her memory.

I am a student who has taken many lessons from many pros; for the cost that is charged for lessons, in my opinion, the pro should be prepared.

Telemark. What is very hard to explain is the person stepping backwards , in this case the lady on the first step of a Natural Turn, must hold that position untill the man passes. This is called NFR ( no foot rise ). To turn to soon will have the lady arriving before the man who has the longest distance to travel. An easy way of explaining this is the lady must follow the man up and not the other way around.

"Telemark. What is very hard to explain is the person stepping backwards , in this case the lady on the first step of a Natural Turn, must hold that position untill the man passes. This is called NFR ( no foot rise ). To turn to soon will have the lady arriving before the man who has the longest distance to travel. An easy way of explaining this is the lady must follow the man up and not the other way around."

That's an easy explanation when the lady is on the inside of the turn. When it's the man on the inside explaining it gets a bit more complicated - she follows his expression of intent, but his body must follow the movement of hers.

NFR is when rise is felt through the legs and body, but when stepping back no rise occurs in the supporting foot. It has nothing whatever to do with a turning action.

On a Natural Turn, the man passes on 2, and the lady passes on 5. Both have a back step with NFR, she on 1, he on 4. Apart from the very slight difference due to the lady being offset to the man's right in normal hold, the two actions are exactly the same. The lady dances inside, then outside, and the man dances the same actions but reversed in order.

The only way the lady arrives first is by dancing out of time. The forward 2nd step is longer than the 2nd backward step, and this is how the change of place occurs. The position from which the turn is taken between 1 & 2 is best set up by the correct use of CBM on step 1. As the second step is taken, the body rotation continues, so that the lady has turned her body side on to the direction of movement, while the man swings forward in the space just vacated by her right side as he turns to face her. If they have kept good body contact, they stay completely together, and as the man completes the last 1/8 of turn on 3, the lady completes the body turn.

"NFR is when rise is felt through the legs and body, but when stepping back no rise occurs in the supporting foot. It has nothing whatever to do with a turning action."

Actually it has a lot to do with the turning action, as being on the inside of a turn is one of the more common causes of NFR.

How, exactly, does being on the inside of a turn, "cause" NFR? That has to be one of the silliest things I've ever read here.

When I step back, TH, and start to rise e/o 1, I do so with NFR. If I am turning, my heel will not release until I have my full weight on the next step, ended to the side, and I could hardly do otherwise; but if I was not turning, the rise would still be characterised by NFR. It wasn't "caused" by the turn, and has no effect on the way that the turn is executed.

"being on the inside of a turn is one of the more common causes of NFR

How, exactly, does being on the inside of a turn, "cause" NFR? That has to be one of the silliest things I've ever read here."

It's a quite natural result of making allowances for your partner's travel and upswing.

"When I step back, TH, and start to rise e/o 1, I do so with NFR."

I hope you don't always do that. It is after all an application defined character, and I'm sure our friend Don/Quickstep/Serendipity will be along to remind you of a very important situation when you should not.

"If I am turning, my heel will not release until I have my full weight on the next step, ended to the side, and I could hardly do otherwise; but if I was not turning, the rise would still be characterised by NFR."

But it would be a very different sort of NFR if you were not turning - you would roll your weight through the heel and release the toe.

"It wasn't "caused" by the turn, and has no effect on the way that the turn is executed."

On the contrary it clearly is caused by the turn, because it would be a very different type of NFR action if there were no turn.

It is the specific type of movement created into step one that determines the nature of the foot action which will occur upon arrival and dancing through the foot. Two of the common situations can be characterized by NFR, but they are still two very different sorts of NFR.