That's part of it, too.

But body flight encompasses not only the movement through off-balance phases, but the continuity of body movement through both the balanced over foot phases and unbalanced projection beyond foot phases. Visually, there should be no change in the movement of the body as it transitions from one to the other - unless of course you are trying to create a change such as rise or fall, in which case the change will be a smooth modification of what would happen without the change.

Don't you think the word Bodyflight is misleading . If you were to say to a beginner flight your body, they would ,if they took it literally, try to get their body in front of their feet. Tell me if you think this is wrong. The feet and the legs carry the body. The body does not carry the legs.The feet will always move twice the speed of the body which they are carrying.
" In the book of technique it says three times in as many pages that from a Standing Position or a Closed Position always feel that the body commences to move before the foot. Remember the speed of the foot is always greater than the body ".
Once we are moving you can forget that and do what comes naturally. Incidently this is exactly what we do when we start to walk. Try it an analize how we get going. Then figure out where or body weight is in relation to our feet and legs as we move across the floor.
Quote. The deportment is a characteristic of dances coming from Weston Europe and is a heritage of the origins of ballroom dancing from the Royal Courts of Europe .The erect and fixed torso is even more evident in Clasical Ballet, which had the same origins. Who knows why in the early days in Closed Hold the lady was taught to stand to the man' s right side. It was because the man had a sword on his left side. For more information read Don Herbison- Evans. History of Modern Ballroom Dancing.

"Don't you think the word Bodyflight is misleading."

No. But then it's also not the only term that's ever been used to describe the sitution - it's merely the most popular term.

"If you were to say to a beginner flight your body, they would ,if they took it literally, try to get their body in front of their feet. Tell me if you think this is wrong."

No. It is not the only posture that occurs in the sequence of body flight motion, but it is something that should be happening on many steps. I'm sure you'll disagree... too bad you weren't there when a many times world champion asked me to brace his arm so that he could demonstrate the necessity of sending his weight outside of the footprint of his feet.

"The feet and the legs carry the body. The body does not carry the legs."

Actually, both occur - the standing leg carries the body, and the body most certainly carries the moving leg.

"The feet will always move twice the speed of the body which they are carrying."

No. That is a very crude beginner approximation which can only be taken literally by someone who hasn't really thought the reality of what happens through. Someone who has never looked at a picture of a skilled dancer in profile.

"In the book of technique it says three times in as many pages that from a Standing Position or a Closed Position always feel that the body commences to move before the foot. Remember the speed of the foot is always greater than the body".

Yes. That is almost true. But notice there is no mention of two times - the word used is simply faster. And of course it overlooks that plain fact that the moving foot must be moving slower than the body when it starts and stops its travel. On average the moving foot is faster, but it aint' exactly twice as fast, and it isn't even quite always faster. These are the differences between beginner approximations and experienced reality!

"Once we are moving you can forget that and do what comes naturally."

Only if moving that way does come naturally. Sadly, many people who naturally walk that way do not exhibit these qualities in their dancing, because they try to hard to literally accomplish various impractical guideliens they learned as beginners...

"Incidently this is exactly what we do when we start to walk. Try it an analize how we get going. Then figure out where or body weight is in relation to our feet and legs as we move across the floor."

Often in walking as in dancing, your body weight is off balance in front of your standing leg.

Yo to Phil,
The following extract is from a lecture given by the late Charles Thiebault.

Now a few words on the development of power. I find that when discussing this with pupils over the years, very few show any understanding of this point. In fact most are quite vague on this subject. I get such answers as, I flight the body, or, I push from the middle line (how I hate this expression.) I try to explain to them that you cannot use the body to flight the body and explain that the body is moved and accelerated by the power of the legs. If I can explain my system it is as follows. I will use steps 1-3 of the Natural Turn in the Waltz or Quickstep:

/* As I lower on the previous step, LF, the RF extends so that at the end of the step it arrives in place on the heel then flat and that the knees should have flexed together, so from this position I allow my weight to move forward well over the RF. I then use the power of the standing knee and straighten it by pressing the knee against the foot, which will give a very secure contact with the floor and project the body forward and upwards, in an upward diagonal direction and so increase the body speed which will be decided by how much leg power is used. This action is very similar to the action used by a long jumper. */

"/* As I lower on the previous step, LF, the RF extends so that at the end of the step it arrives in place on the heel then flat and that the knees should have flexed together, so from this position I allow my weight to move forward well over the RF. I then use the power of the standing knee and straighten it by pressing the knee against the foot, which will give a very secure contact with the floor and project the body forward and upwards, in an upward diagonal direction and so increase the body speed which will be decided by how much leg power is used. This action is very similar to the action used by a long jumper. */"

Not bad... but anyone claiming to talk about power, and criticizing other's explanations should be EXTREMELY EMBARRASED to be caught leaving out the primary source of power: the downswing from the previous figure!

Where he dancing efficiently, no actual push would be needed in the natural turn itself. Of course one would probably choose to use one to make things more dynamic - but the body flight out of the previous figure actually should be enough to complete a moderate natural turn... provided you don't loose it.

What's been described is foot-push dancing. And that is really only part of the story- very sad to see someone promoting themselves as an expert who leaves out the other part!!

Dear Anon,

/* Not bad... but anyone claiming to talk about power, and criticizing other's explanations should be EXTREMELY EMBARRASED to be caught leaving out the primary source of power: the downswing from the previous figure!*/

I suppose Charles did mention the down-swing when he said, "As I lower from the previous step." Please remember this was said over 20 years ago.

/* very sad to see someone promoting themselves as an expert. */

Obviously, you don't know who Charles was. You have mentioned, Hiltons, in your posts, so I will assume you have had coaching from them - or still do - well ask them to tell you about, Charles.

"I suppose Charles did mention the down-swing when he said, "As I lower from the previous step.""

The problem is that he's talking about something that happens as the right foot moves forward - he's leaving out all of the energy recovery that needs to occur in the loss of altitude BEFORE that.

"Obviously, you don't know who Charles was."

A succesful dancer with a poor grasp of physics... Another prominent mistake was the idea of body speed increasing during the rise - actually, it decreases then, because rise is mostly about converting body speed to body altitude. A large amount of muscular push during the rise my slow the decrease in body speed, but anyone who is actually managing to increase their body speed during the rise is setting up a very inefficient dance indeed.

Why bother being efficient? Not just because it's easier, but also because our lifelong experience seeing objects move efficiently conditions us to see efficient movement as elegant.


Fortunately most of today's leading teachers do have a bit better intuitive grasp of the physics of the situation.

Anon,

/* A succesful dancer with a poor grasp of physics... */

Now I do know you didn't know, Charles. I can truthfully say that there is not a champion ballroom dancer, during the pass 20 years, who did not or has not benefited from his teaching.

"* A succesful dancer with a poor grasp of physics... */

Now I do know you didn't know, Charles. I can truthfully say that there is not a champion ballroom dancer, during the pass 20 years, who did not or has not benefited from his teaching."

You're COMPLETELY overlooking my point.

I see a lot beneficial in the passage you quoted.

The problem is that it is DANGEROUSLY INCOMPLETE - it leaves out the pre-existing movement and concentrates only on the muscular input.

You can learn a lot from this guy; but you aren't going to dance very well (against modern expectations at least) unless you also do some very important and related things that he overlooked, at least in that lecture.

Good ingredients, but a severe lack of the overall physical picture of how dancing works.

And the particular reason I object to it is not so much that it is leaving something out, as in that it starts out by ridiculing student comments that actually attempt to explain the key element the lecture ommits!