Anonymous. As you wrote which was nearly correct on your paragraph 4.
Commemce to rise e/o 1. Continue to rise on 2 and 3. Up on 4. Lower e/o 4
Then on your last paragraph you are contradicting your paragraph 4. That sounds like your advocating that on step four your weight is split. We know that's not right don't we. This isn't step 2 and 3 of the Natural Turn in the Waltz you know.

"Then on your last paragraph you are contradicting your paragraph 4."

No. In what you are calling paragraph four was about the literal application of the technique given in the book.

The last paragraph was about the different details of technique required when extending the book's concept of movement to a scale of movement not considered by the book. When the overall lowering is more than the book considered, the loss of foot rise becomes only one of several contributors. Most of the additional lowering occurs after the loss of foot rise, so for the overall timing of the lowering to be comparable to that in the book, the lowering of foot rise will have to be done earlier to get it out of the way so that we can proceed on to the enlarged knee lowering and keep the progress of our overall lowering in coordination with the progress of our travel.

"That sounds like your advocating that on step four your weight is split."

No. I am arguing that the arriving foot is incompletely weighted, but the remaining fraction of weight is not on the departing foot. Instead, the remaining fraction of weight is simply not supported at all. This incomplete support is what causes our descent towards and ultimately past the arriving foot.

Anonymous. Words, words and more words. Cut out the words and just get your weight over that left foot and lower. We have two beats of music in which to do this which gives us plenty of time to arrive and lower. I cant see anywhere on any simular step in the Quickstep where we would have a gradual rise from one step two the other on a step which is side and slightly back. Also let us not forget that the lady on that same step has a slightly different technique.

"Anonymous. Words, words and more words. Cut out the words and just get your weight over that left foot and lower. We have two beats of music in which to do this which gives us plenty of time to arrive and lower."

If you arrive at the original height and only then descend, your movement will be bumpy and discontinuous. To dance smoothly, you will have to be descending throughout the entirety of the descending step.

If you use the literal book meaning of lower as the loss of foot rise only, then the specific time which this occurs within the overall process of descent will depend on how much descent you ultimately intend to take. If your overall rise and fall is moderate like the book authors imagined, then this official lowering will occur about when they say it should. On the other hand, if you intend to descend more than they imagined, most of the increase will occur in continuation of the descent after the feet are flat on the floor, so they will have to be flat on the floor earlier in the overall process of the step.

"I cant see anywhere on any simular step in the Quickstep where we would have a gradual rise from one step two the other on a step which is side and slightly back."

The direction of the step is irrelevant to the trend of rise and fall.

The question of applying Scrivener's comment on feather fall to quickstep would be if there are any situations in quickstep where the book says to lower at the end of the descending step, but in actuality the body descends throughout that step. Obviously, this occurs in just about every quickstep figure having rise and fall, though the resemblance to the feather situation would be most readily obvious in passing steps.

anonymous . If i read you corectly you appear to be saying that on a side step the descent is throughout the step. Wouldn't that mean that the foot has been sent to the side without weight. If it isn't. Then the foot must be be under the hip line before we lower. Which would make it a smaller step. A smaller step than the first quick. Plus we have a slow to do the lowering on.
Flat feet. We never have two feet that are flat on the floor at the same time.
One or the other is always slightly raised. Thats the one that is going to move next.

I see you got tired of all your old names and invented yet another one. Why?

"anonymous . If i read you corectly you appear to be saying that on a side step the descent is throughout the step."

More accurately this is true of a separating (rather than closing) descending step.

"Wouldn't that mean that the foot has been sent to the side without weight."

Not in the sense of the usual meaning of the phrase "without weight". However, no step should have weight until the moving foot finds its position on the floor and stops moving.

What will probably confuse you here is that even though the moving foot has not yet received weight, and the only pressure is through the standing foot, the center of mass is no longer balanced over the standing foot. Instead, it is in flight between the feet.

"If it isn't. Then the foot must be be under the hip line before we lower."

The foot must be in position to receive weight before it can receive weight. The foot will stop moving at a position along the glidepath of the diagonally descending trajectory of the body, but NOT not under the position where the body is located at that instant in time, because the body will be continuing to move as it finishes the descent. You can readily observe this in the quickstep video right here on this website.

If instead your foot were under the position of your body at the time when it starts to take weight, then to finish lowering without over-shooting the foot you would have to halt the travel of your body and lower in place vertically. This would make for very choppy and awkward dancing, nothing like the grace and continued flight that characterizes skilled dancing.

"Which would make it a smaller step."

No, your assumption about where the foot would have to be is wrong, and thus your conclusion is as well.

"Flat feet. We never have two feet that are flat on the floor at the same time."

Almost, because the departed foot will have articulated so that only its heel or toe is on the floor. However, when the moving foot does pass, it is likely that it will do so parallel to the floor before articulating again in the other direction.

Anonymous. So in your last paragraph 10. 6.09 you are agreeing that we do not have two feet flat on the floor at the same time. Why not just admitt in simple language that you were mistaken.
To get back to the lowering on the 4th step of the Progressive Chasse or the 4th step of the Lock Step. Dont all of the technique book say that we lower at the end of step 4 and that none of them say we lower into that step. Yes or No.

"Anonymous. So in your last paragraph 10. 6.09 you are agreeing that we do not have two feet flat on the floor at the same time."

Not exactly. The general concept is sound, but I pointed out there that we actually do often have two feet flat on the floor at the moment of passing.

"Why not just admitt in simple language that you were mistaken."

Because I was not mistaken. Granted it would have been better to say "foot" rather than "feet" but there was no mistake in the message.

"To get back to the lowering on the 4th step of the Progressive Chasse or the 4th step of the Lock Step. Dont all of the technique book say that we lower at the end of step 4 and that none of them say we lower into that step. Yes or No."

First of all, you must realize that the technique book is only talking about the timing of the loss of foot rise - the actual descent begins before that. However, literally applying the technique book's foot lowering timing is not compatible with the size of today's dancing either.

You will never learn to dance until you realize the difference between the technical language and the practical execution; especially the practical execution necessary when your goals grow beyond those envisioned by the technique books. Look around in the real world of dancing, and you will see people moving much more elegantly by lowering out their foot rise earlier. If instead they kept the foot up as you want, then they would have to disrupt the path of their movement to wait for it to lower, or simply not lower very much and not move very much (as was the practice when the books where written)

Yes, there are situations when you can lower a heel too soon, but in reality the problems caused by lowering it too late (or not at all) are much more commonly seen. This is perhaps because many of those who might fall into the lowering the heel too soon mistake have instead been allowed to self-disocover a method of casual dancing that doesn't use the heels at all, but only the ball of foot and in some cases toes. As a result, the lowering the heel too soon problem tends to turn up only briefly - when someone has a teacher who is insisting on foot usage, but hasn't quite mastered the body mechanics of it all yet. In contrast, the lowering the heel too late problem plagues a category of dutiful students who keep trying to do exactly what people like you are telling them they must, despite the fact that it is not compatible with the overall dynamics of their dancing.

To be a dancer, you must learn to gauge the practical dynamics of movement in your own body. A technique book can be a source of ideas, but you must also look to today's active dancers. When today's dancer differ from the technique, you must use your own body to experiment with both methods and discover which is more advantageous for a specific goal. This is the life of a dancer; the life of an armchair expert is a bit simpler.

In the Quickstep the contact point between the partnership needs to be a shade higher than in the Waltz and Foxtrot for obviouse reasons. Also the unskilled don't get high enough on the toes. Walk around on the toes and then when dancing do the same on any step that is a Toe. If anything is known about Light and Shade you will use the driving Heel Lead to take you onto the Q's