Hi everyone,

This morning was the first day of the Int'l Std "bronze brunch" class, and wow! was it rigourous!

We were taught to stand with our bodies squashed up against each other all the way down our right side. This certainly made things difficult. It was especially disconcerting to try to step RF fwd and be rubbing against your partner's leg the whole time. It felt like dancing while hauling a wiggly sack of potatoes around on your thigh! Even a good old left box turn was hard -- I ended up on the wrong foot several times and my timing was miserable -- something that never happened once in 2 months of recent social dancing classes.

But one can also sympathize with Arthur Murray for trying to simplify dancing -- otherwise I doubt anyone would.

I can't imagine this is correct. It seems that one should maintain just a light contact with your partner and never contact each other's legs... We'll see next week... meanwhile I am hoping to line up a practice partner and put in some time this week before next week's meeting.

Thoughts?

ps: At this rate it will be a while before I get to try out my synthetic PP lock step, eh?

I guess dave_hat's class is for, at least, intermediate dancers, who can danced basic step quite "naturally". I think they never teach Body Contact to absolutely beginners. Those should focus only on which leg/foot to move, counting and timing, knowing the basic hold and poise, moving with partners.

Body Contact should be introduced early, of course not too early. But learners are not required to do it exactly the same as the "true" technique. They only need to know what is correct, and do as much as they can. It's applicable for one year experienced dancers and higher, and necessary for really serious ones only.

No I don't think body contact is heavy. Just enough for both dancers "feel" the move and rhythm of each other. Right, enough to establish connection. About legs contact, I sometimes feel, but can't admit whether it always happens (constant contact) or not.

One comment about body contact in PP: for me it is "Right" to "Center". When in Closed Position, it is slightly R to R (Man's R side to Lady's R side). Therefore, when "switch" to PP, keeping the frame stable, Lady's body will "roll" to Centre, not to L side since it is too far. Any comments?

Best regards,
MSN

Following up on the posts by Dronak and PantherSon:

Yes, the body contact in closed position does cover a region, not a small spot. The main difference is that the center of contact tends to be lower (at least in American style as I know it) for tango than it is for waltz or foxtrot.

No, the leg contact is not constant, certainly not on the lower part of the leg, but it does happen. My teacher likes to have a light brush (man's inside right leg on woman's inside right leg) on the right foot forward step, because it keeps the man's right foot from straying over into the territory for the woman's left foot.

On promenade position, I didn't want to get too specific since dave_hat was talking about closed position. When going to PP, the man is to the left of the woman in closed position (from his point of view), so when the woman rolls off his hip, the man will be slightly ahead of the woman, and contact will be more forward and to center on the woman. (Not all the way to her center though, I think).

Much harder to explain in words than to show!

-John