I'm having a hard time maintaining body contact and not turning too far away from the man when I'm lead into a feather or whisk. It's better than it was-- my partner's no longer turning/stepping away from me or pushing me with him arm, and I've broken my habit of wanting to turn too far on the 2 count, but I'm still doing something wrong because our hips are in each other's way on the 1 steping out from the step. 2 and 3 seem fine, but if I don't turn out and roll the point of contact too farfrom where it should be, we either bump hips or I get behind him, like a tango promenade, and I have a hard time moving out and powering on the 1 to get around him and back into closed. I have a feeling our hips are aligned wrong, but I'm not sure. Help! What am I doing wrong?

I understand what Jonathan means however his use of the term rotation in order to get the hips out of the way in the feather is going to be misunderstood by most inexperienced dancers. I can imagine body twists and foot swivels being made to accomplish this.

One should not consciously think of making any pronounced rotation in order to get the hips out of way in the feather.

I'm going to get a little technical now, however it is only way of solving this problem without introducing another type of distortion to one's dancing.

To solve this problem a dancer must employ 3 important fundamental techiques:
1.Contra Body Movement (CBM)
2.Right/Left Side leading
3.Contra Body Movement (CBMP)

These 3 actions employed in the 3 steps of the feather, respectively, will keep your hips out of each others way without any conscious thought of rotation.

(If your teacher has not explained these to you already then demand that he does and if he does not think they are important or does not know what they mean then he should not be teaching dancing).

This is how you will employ them in the feather to keep your hips out of the way. Assume that the man is starting with his right foot:

Man's steps

Step 1: Right foot forward with CBM .
Step 2: Left foot forward with Left side leading (preparing to step outside partner).
Step 3: Right foot forward in CBMP (outside partner)

The CBM on step 1 allows you to lead with the left side on step 2 which makes its natural to step 3 in CBMP. Together these 3 actions help create an unobstructed smooth movement.

The lady will do the following:

Step 1: Left foot back with CBM.
Step 2: Right foot back with R side leading.
Step 3: Left foot back in CBMP.

I will explain CBM, CBMP & side leading however this is entirely inadequate. Only a visual demonstration by an experienced dancer will clarify how to execute these actions.

CBM - This is a body action. The movement of the opposite side of the body towards the moving foot which is moving forward or back. This movement is used in most steps to initiate turn on the next step but it is usually not obvious. This movement of the opposite side of the body must unfold during the movement of the foot. Executing this body movement before the foot moves( twisting) or after it has moved (swiveling) will not create the desired effect.

CBMP - A foot position where the foot is placed on or across the line of the supporting foot, either in front or behind to maintain body line. We dance with our feet on 2 tracks in the "normal" position, CBMP changes that to a single track.

Right/Left Side Leading - Taking the same side of the body either forward or backwards with the moving foot. The couple are aligned "square" in the "normal" position (relative to the line of progression), Side leading changes the body alignment of the couple to a diagonal line, relative to the line of progression.

Keh,

Hard to say what the problem might be in this situation... there are so many possibilities.

I would think that if their difficulty maintaining contact stems from embarrasment, then they would have trouble with more than just the oversway. If this is the case, you might either work with them on contact in more basic ways (such as draganm suggests below), or consider the possibility that they may not be ready for body contact yet. It's perfectly ok, especially with younger ones, to start them out just a few inches apart.

If you suspect it's more of a technical problem, you'll have to be more specific about the conditions, as well as the context (i.e. what step are they using to dance into the oversway?) etc.

Sincerely,
Jonathan

Hi Reyesuela

I am an International style dancer so I will assume that you are talking about the Whisk in the International Style Waltz. Also my discussion does not refer to the Back Whisk or the Left Whisk.

A few things could be the root cause of your problem:

1. The man must be aligned, facing diagonally-to-wall. The lady must be aligned, backing diagonally-to-wall.

You will have all kinds of problems if you attempt the Whisk with the man facing the Line-of-Dance (or anywhere between Line-of-dance and diagonally-to-wall) and the lady backing the line-of-dance (or anywhere between Line-of-dance and diagonally-to-wall). And you then attempt to end in promenade position facing the line-of-dance.

2. Although the lady makes a quarter of a turn to the right between steps 1 & 2, her body must turn less than her feet. Her body only completes the quarter turn to the right on step 3. So turn your feet and not so much your body.

Turn the body too early and the lady's left hip gets in the mans way.

3.The man should close his left hip slightly towards the lady between steps 2 & 3. This has the effect of keeping is right hip away from the lady. His feet make no turn and are aligned diagonally to wall on all 3 steps.

4. Aligned diagonally to wall, the man must dance forward on step 1, To the side and slightly forward on step 2.

A common problem is that the man often dances to the side and backwards on step 2. On step 3, he crosses his left foot behind his right while opening up the left hip. The lady does the opposite and the hips collide.

I hope that you are familiar with the lines of dance so that you can understand precisely what I mean.

Len
( Competitive, International Style ballroom dancer )

The operative word, from my experience here is teenager. Yes , they are almost always embarrased, and in most cases when in full close contact tend to be distracted by (conscciously or not) other things. Get them used to keeping contact through simple walking back forward with some amount of turn.I would like to teach them all at once myself but the fact is it takes long time till they understand - feel what was it you are teaching them, and that is only if they try and try again and persist till the discovery moment.

The trick to maintaining body contact is making sure that your center is always pointed towards your partner (slight exception in PP, but more on this later). This presents an interesting challenge in O.P. position: One would assume that if you are to shift the tracks of your feet to move outide, you would therefore also shift your entire body over, too. But this is not in fact the case.

Rather than "shifting" your relative body positions to the left or right, you will actually rotate your bodies to an angle which is different from the feet (or rotate the feet to an angle different than the bodies, depending on context). This opens up a narrow corridor for your foot and lower leg to slip through without having to shift the bodies over.

To demonstrate this point, try standing in dance position facing line of dance and turn both of your feet 45 degrees to the left (pointing diag center). Your partner should also turn his or her feet 45 degrees to the left (pointing DW against LOD). Do not turn your bodies; only your feet. Walk forward towards diagonal center, first with your left foot, and then with your right. The right foot should be placed along the same track as the left. Notice that because your bodies did not rotate, you can still maintain body contact. But because your feet did rotate to an angle different than the body, you created a narrow corridor just wide enough to slip your right foot and lower leg O.P.

You could achieve the same effect by beginning facing diagonal center, and turning your body 1/8 to the right to face line of dance, while still leaving your foot pointing DC. Naturally, your partner would do likewise, ending with the body backing LOD and feet pointing DW against LOD. This time you turned the bodies rather than the feet, but the end result was the same.

When dancing a Feather step, it's important to remember that the bodies of both man and lady must rotate over the feet in order to create the narrow corridor necessary to move O.P. Without this rotation, you are forced to shift the bodies over, which puts strain on the dance position and minimizes body contact. It also makes it more difficult to re-adjust to the following step which is taken in-line.

Promenade position is different in the sense that your bodies do not face each other entirely. It is necessary to turn the hips into a "V" shape. But again, body contact is only possible when the feet are turned to an angle different that the body.

Assuming that you cannot rotate your top-line oppositionally to your partner's (this would break one or both top-lines), the only other option you have is to have your lower and upper body at different angles. So think of promenade as being parallel in the toplines, with the hips turned into a V-shape and the feet turned more (some would even say parallel to the top-line).

A few more things to remember about PP as a lady:

(1) In closed position, you have a right front to right front connection. When you turn from this position to PP, it should leave you with your center line to his right front.

(2) In closed position, you are dancing in front of the man's right front. In PP, this means that your position is slightly *behind* the man. Do not try to step past him on step 2 on your left foot; Keep that left leg slightly behind his right.

I hope this helps!

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson www.ballroomdancers.com

Perhaps this is off topic. I would like to know your techniques to help teens to achieve body contact in doing oversway. These are 13-14 years old kids. I have great difficulty have their hips connected. Maybe they just get embarrassed doing that due to the age?

Regards,
Keh Gough

Being a leader, my knowledge of the follower's steps isn't always very detailed, but I'll offer my comments. First, I believe that the Feather Step and the Whisk involve two different actions; the Whisk goes into PP while the Feather Step goes OP. I can't quite tell if your comments apply to only one or both of the two steps you mention. Here's what I recall being taught. For the Feather Step, I don't think you should really be rolling your point of contact very much. Since it's only going OP your contact should be about the same as in closed position. It may be adjusted a little to accomodate the OP position, but it shouldn't be a big change. The Whisk however does change position -- the follower makes a turn to PP. When you reach PP the follower should be positioned just behind the leader's right hip and the body contact will have to change to accomodate this position. Regarding trouble getting out of PP, you'll probably want more replies, but I don't think you should be trying to get back into closed position on the 1. As I recall, in a waltz Whisk, the follower's turn to closed position is made more on steps 2 and 3 (of a Chasse from PP say). This should be due to some hip rotation by the leader as well as a slight slowing of his forward speed which makes it easier for the follower to make her turn to closed position (she can keep her slightly faster speed and use the extra speed to come around him). I hope this helps, at least until you can get more replies.

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James Marshall
marshall@astro.umd.edu
http://www.astro.umd.edu/~marshall