Surely, where you place a foot "pointing", it isn't going to move again, and the body having previously "turned less" has to catch up.

This doesn't apply to the first half of the NT, but the movement of a heel turn is significantly different. Lady will make the whole turn, to step out forward - any continuing turn would be ugly.

my point was that the heel turn in the ft reverse turn is different from the corresponding steps on say 2 and 3 of a rev turn in waltz in the sense that there is no body turns less on 2 or body completes turn on three.

i am not sure why continuing the rotation as step 3 is taken would be considered ugly particularly.

Interested. If you had access to youtube and Googled Marcus Hilton Basic Foxtrot and at the end of beat three ,on bar two, as the lady has closed her feet at the end of the heel Turn She is still facing the same way. That is backing diag to centre with the LOD. He is a mirror image except he is on his two toes To recap. He is feet together on both toes . She her feet together and is down. At this point there is no turn. He is facing diag to centre she is backing diag to centre.
Move the imagine on a fraction. You will see they both turn 3/8ths of a turn over his left and her right foot.For her the turn is a Heel Turn and not a Heels Turn
Without youtube you guys are flying blind.
Do you want to know how to use your head on a Spot Turn. Shirley Ballas will show you. Do you want to know every spin there is in all of dancing , Turning and Spinning Techniques. Or Hip to Knee Action. How about Latin Arm Styling. And probably the most important at this moment Core Rhythm.
Where Guy Howard gets his amounts of turn from will undoubtably have to be re - written. It just is not being done that way any more.
Terence Is unusually quiet at this time as well as Lluv2Dance.
To be fair to Guy Howard. If I turn 3/8ths of a turn. Or any turn at all I will pass every point on the compass. That doesn't mean stop and then continue. I suppose he never thought that anybody would think otherewise if he did he would have worded it a different way, To recap . The turn is continuous and not in stops and starts. But you will face or back every point of the compass within that 3/8ths of a turn. Does that make sense or not.
Back to the Heel Turn. Does she turn on beat one. No. or beat two. No. Does she turn at the very end of beat three 3/8ths of a turn. You tell me??. Those are beats remember and not steps.
Interested. When you bring the Waltz into this discussion . You on the inside of a turn must be familiar with NFR ( No foot rise) and how to apply it. It is a science on its own..

"at the end of beat three ,on bar two, as the lady has closed her feet at the end of the heel Turn She is still facing the same way. That is backing diag to centre with the LOD. He is a mirror image except he is on his two toes To recap."

Not even remotely true. By the end of BEAT three, more than half of the turn has been accomplished and the alignments will be somewhere between diag wall against LOD and LOD.

Perhaps you got confused by beats vs. steps - step 2 ends a little bit before beat three does, so by the end of beat 3 we should have achieved the final alignment of step 2, and maybe even some of the additional turn reserved for step 3.

Interested:

"With regards the idea of no turn on 1. How do you square that with Guy Howard which states "start to turn on 1" then "turn 1/4 between 1 and 2" this being defined as turn in the feet."

While the actual turn is measured in the feet, "start to turn" or its Alex Moore equivelent "commence to turn" is actually a redundant mention of the body action called CBM. It is not an actual turn of the feet, but a prelude to the turn of them. If you look at the given alignments, I believe you will see that no actual turn of the feet is documented in the placement of step 1, but only in the eventual departure from it.

Clive:

"Surely, where you place a foot "pointing", it isn't going to move again, and the body having previously "turned less" has to catch up."

I would not necessarily agree with this. The foot will not necessarily point in the ultimate alignment, but may simply tend towards the ultimate alignment with the difference made up later.

There's some tendency to demo pointing alignments by placing the moving foot extended in the new alignment while the body remains stationary over the standing foot, but they are not actually danced that way. Instead, the moving foot fully achieves its extension and pointing alignment only as the body is in flight away from the standing foot towards the moving one - its really a continuous process, not the hold-point-move one that is often used to introduce the concept.

Interested:

"my point was that the heel turn in the ft reverse turn is different from the corresponding steps on say 2 and 3 of a rev turn in waltz in the sense that there is no body turns less on 2 or body completes turn on three."

I would not actually say that it is different in execution. The documented completion of the body turn for waltz tends to be reserved in execution until the CBM (if any) of the next figure. And the same is done in foxtrot - just as in waltz, we achieve the end alignment in the feet, but hold an underturned alignment of the body which is not lost until the next CBM action.

It would seem that both you and Clive are writting about the second step of a Natural Turn in th Waltz. NFR.
The lady keeps her weight over the LF and is still facing diag to centre as she points her right toe on step two, down the LOD ( not across ). Then as the man passes who does have foot rise. She follows him up into the rise. Not rising before but following
When the roles are reversed the man now does not have foot rise on one.
If this is not understood your V Waltz is a wrestling match also.
The Dynamics of a Turn. Stand with your partner at arms length out to the side. You in the centre turn . Your partner on the ouside is having to travell much faster than you who are hardly moving. If you don't keep thinking you will get in front of your partner making it impossible for them to keep pace.
But in dancing the man will use his strength to keep you in place. This then shows up in the dancing and you can no longer be a Ghost in a Dress.

"It would seem that both you and Clive are writting about the second step of a Natural Turn in th Waltz."

Only with regard to explaining pointing alignments.

"The lady keeps her weight over the LF and is still facing diag to centre as she points her right toe on step two, down the LOD ( not across )."

NO!

That's exactly the mistake people make in understanding pointing alignments. The foot does not fully achieve the new alignment or the extension that would go with it while the body is stationary over the left foot, it achieves it only
as the body is in motion. It is not a stop-point-go action, instead it is one that unfolds continously, albeit more slowly than the forward partner's larger action. The often demo'd pose of standing over the standing foot and pointing the moving foot in the new alignment never actually happens when the figure is danced through properly.

I remember the first time a teacher told me that the bend in both knees is usually quite comparable. I immedaitely objected, what about pointing alignments. That was the day I learned how pointing alignments are actually danced - not by extending the foot and then moving to it, but rather by extending it and developing the alignment only as you move towards it.

Anonymous. you have got that completely wrong.
Its no good sending you to youtube which you obviously do not have . So instead go to Learn the Dances right here and tell me what you see.
Isn't the ladies weight still over the left foot and the heel still in contact with the floor as the right foot is placed.
Look at what is and not what you think it is. Don't write into it something that is not there.

"Isn't the ladies weight still over the left foot and the heel still in contact with the floor as the right foot is placed."

The heel is in contact with the floor, but the BODY is no longer OVER the left foot as the right foot reaches its ultimate position. Instead, the body has already moved away from the left foot towards the soon to be achieved placement of the right foot.

The only support at this time is through the left foot, yes, but the body is not in balance over it. Instead it is accelerating through an unbalanced position towards impendending arrival on the moving foot. You could not stay there - it is only possible to do this during a continuous motion.

This is ultimately the difference betwen real, fully-flighted dancing, and a series of poses: real dancing involves passing through positions which cannot be sustained as static poses, because during these intermediate positions the body is not balanced, but must continue in movement.

If you could look at the action during frames 128 to 137of the video "Natural Turn Narrated counts. (0:26)" on this website, you would see that during this time when the right foot is moving towards its placement, the lady's body is moving away from her standing left foot. The pointing alignment is never achieved while the body is stable over the left foot, but only as it moves away from it towards where the right foot is about to arrive. You might also note that the knees straighten together - the moving foot only achieves extension as the standing leg's straightening pushes the body away from the standing foot.

I had a feeling this might be a CBM thing. it is a shame the technique book does not make this clearer. Looking at the amounts of turn as you suggest clearly suggests no turn - but does this refer to the turn at the end of foot placement or at the end of the step. Having acheived a particular alignment on placement during the first part of the step there is nothing to say I cant make any turn or continue turning on the latter part. Indeed it would be deterimental to acheiving smooth continuous turn. So the question what do the tabulated alignments in GH refer to.



OK - Again more confusion from the way this book is written in that it seems odd they should make a point of the delayed body turn in some instances but not others.