Lets start a new discusion. I still have the old Alex Moore book. If you look at the charts you will see that the mans and ladies steps are the same size . In real life this is not possible.Take a promanade step , an Open Imputes into a Reverse Weave. If we both take the same size step on the same timing, the lady will never get around. Except with the use of the man's strong arm. Not my words , but those of John Woods. Back to the charts and the book. In the preface Alex tells us that the book must not be taken in a parrot like fashion. Now the question. Foxtrot . Reverse Turn. Is the man's first step big or small. Is the ladies the same size. Who has the big step . Is it the lady or is it the man. Remembering the book shows the same size. One of my teachers said. "That the technique book comes with a soft cover so that it can be bent"
Which goes straight back to Alex and the parrot

Foxtrot, reverse turn, man's first step cannot be a big one as he is to lead the lady into a heel turn.

I think not only the soft cover may be bent, but also the knee!

Happy stepping!

Good luck leading a heel turn with a bent knee...

Skipper. Dead right on the lady taking the bigger step with the first step of the Reverse. As a man I would not go in on a bent knee though.Just a slightly smaller step.I was always told that the lady being on the inside takes a smaller step. I was told wrong. The lady has to get out of the way so a bigger step is required.

If you care to note it was written in a separate paragraph, you would certainly know for sure that I didn't mean to bend the knee on the first step of foxtrot. LOL

But bending (flexing or contracting) of knee is important in the course of dancing generally.

Fwd / bwd steps with the partner moving vice versa cannot have different size (physically impossible), assumed we want to keep a constant ballroom dancing hold. Side steps in turns have different sizes, because partners have to cope with different distances in their aligment.
When I teach the man's first step of the Reverse Turn in Foxtrot in contrast to the one in Waltz, I stress their difference not in their extension but in the way of treating the weight distribution over the foot. In Waltz, where we want to produce a closed three step turn with maximum swing for both partners, man's weight is transferred over the R side of man's L foot at e/o 1. The other way, when we want to lead lady's heel turn in Foxtrott: weight going over the L side of man's L foot e/o 1 a little bit. So I tell the man: stop the lady's progression, but go on yourself.

I think you'll find if you put the foot in what the English would consider to be the proper position (which looks confusingly like CBMP) you will move diagonally across it from the outside of the heel to the inside of the toe for both waltz and foxtrot reverse turns.

The key difference is that in waltz you will soften the knee as you arrive on the foot, while in foxtrot you will keep the knee straight. In both dances your heel rises before your right foot passes the left, starting an upswing - but in foxtrot the straight leg picks you and the lady up into the heel turn, wheras in waltz the softer leg swings the bodies towards a step two further in advance.

(a very slight diagonal though)

Don -- It sounds like you may be misunderstanding the concept. On forward and back steps, you can't actually take a step that's a different size than your partner. If the person moving backwards takes a smaller step, he gets stepped on. If he takes a larger step, he separates from body contact. Those who speak of a size differential are usually describing the second step of a turn (eg the side step).

Generally, however, the actual size of differential is very small. For a quarter turn, the size of differential should in theory be exactly the same as the distance between partners. If you're in body contact, that's hardly more than a couple of inches. True, as you increase the amount of turn, you have to increase the differential. So with a typical 3/8 turn, you might be talking about 3 inches. But that's assuming you use absolutely no CBM. And if that's the case, you've got bigger fish to fry.

When you use CBM -- particularly that of the curving variety -- you're essentially diminishing the differential of distance on step 2, and replacing it with a [i]rotational[/i] differential on step 1. In other words, when you curve your track on 1, and the person moving bacwards has a greater curve than the person moving forward, you don't actually need to take a bigger or smaller side step on step 2. Or at least, not nearly as much.

Also, it should be noted that the reason novice dancers don't "get far enough around their partners" usually has a lot more to do with the direction of the second step than the size of it. This is easiest to see in Foxtrot, where the lady literally has no side step at all. This should make it very easy for the man to get around her with very little effort. And yet beginners often miss the mark, sometimes by a large distance. The cause is almost always the man's "deflection" of his second step. Instead of following through his first step and taking the second step in the same direction -- say for exanple towards diag center -- he'll stop slightly short of his first step, deflecting the energy away from his partner and taking his next step towards line of dance. At that point it doesn't matter how big his side step is, he won't have the correct foot placement to move down line of dance on step 3. So the problem here is direction, not distance.

In my experience, I've rarely found a need to speak much about the difference in distance of that side step. It does the job, but I personally think it's overrated, overused and over-emphasized. And those who put too much stock in it usually come out short-changed. Realize that there are more advanced techniques that reduce the need for a size differential to a minimum. And when everything is applied in the appropriate amount, you end up with movement that's more organic and a partnership that's more cohesive.

Regards,
Jonathan

Thanks Jonathan. That comment hopefully will end this session of blather about bent this and inside that or outside the other. Sheesh that gets tiring!!. Just do it people!! Leave the micro analysis to those in the science labs.