"Anonymous. I think this belongs in the Physics of a Step. To go to the point of imbalance and to then catch the weight. To me that means that if I stand with my feet together and lean forward untill my weight is no longer balance. If I don't move my foot and catch my weight I will fall flat on my face. That is Latin and not in the Standard style of dancing. "

Your mistake is in leaning forward.

You SHOULD NOT LEAN FORWARD!!!

Instead, you should move your entire body from the knee up forward, while maintaining its vertical alignment over the standing knee.

This will move you forward, and it will take you appropriately off balance, but it will not involve any leaning.

As SQQ mentioned, you can try this by kneeling against a wall - your knee and everything above it will touch the wall and be perfectly aligned, while your standing foot will be some distance from the wall, with your shin at an angle.

That is how every lowering and/or heel lead step in standard is departed. Some might or might not want a similar action in latin, but it is absolutely required for standard.


With a good Latin teacher who knows how to teach, we learn this the first time we ever do a Rumba Walk. To put this into Modern. I have never heard of it. I have enough DVD's of both styles of dancing which I have looked at in slow motion. In Standard there is no visible signes of an imbalanced weight. In Latin there is. But even in Latin the foot always arrives first every time and will beat the body.