Hi,

I'm fairly new to dance and have been learning foxtrot. And I'm having trouble with the heel turns. Any help? My teacher keeps saying if I maintain bent knees it will help. I just don't feel balanced.
Thanks

Here are a few tips to help:

(#1) Loss of balance on heel turns is often the result of too much of a deliberate and over-articulated lifting of the toes, causing the body weight to fall behind the heels. Although the toes will probably lift slightly off the floor, there's no need to pull them way up high.

As an exercise to counteract this error, practice stepping back on one foot and then drawing the other foot together, simply landing straight up over your flat feet (knees very slightly flexed). Don't turn at all... just practice landing the weight on the feet. When you're comfortable with this, and when you're consistently hitting your target, try then to do the same exercise, but land slightly towards your heel, although still with feet flat.

Note that "feet flat" refers to the position of the feet when they're together... during your back step you should still use the correct foot action of releasing the front toe, allowing it to lower gradually as it moves towards the back foot.

(#2) Another common reason for falling back behind the heels is poise: You may be landing in more or less the right place, but the shoulder weight is arched or slouched slightly behind the hips. Even a slight amount of back-weightedness on the part of the lady will kill a heel turn instantly. So if this is the case, you must work on pulling your tummy back to the heels, and not so much your shoulders.

Poise and posture, unfortunately, is a very sticky subject, and so I hesitate somewhat to tell you to exactly how to fix it without actually being there with you. The shoulders falling behind the hips is such a common problem on heel turns, that I am fairly certain that it's probably playing some part. But it's also easy to over-compensate, so you really need someone there to help you asses the correct position. Just know that feeling the tummy pull back to the feet, and not as much the shoulders, is the general solution to this problem.

(#3) On the flip-side of that, we have ladies who maintain their poise, but never actually dance a heel turn... they end up doing more of a toe-swivel type of action. It's not quite as awkward as falling backwards, but it does come with problems of its own: When you stop your weight early (before reaching your heels and allowing the back heel to lower), you block the man to a certain degree, and he ends up cutting his movement short and throwing his weight around you instead of swinging through you. The result is either under-rotation, falling off to the side, or both.

This problem often begins when a lady conditions herself to responding incorrectly to the feeling of early rise. Remember that when moving backwards, your weight should roll through the foot and the heel should lower, whether or not you rise in your legs. To correct this problem, you should focus on two things: First, allowing your back heel to lower completely *before* commencing the turn (CBM exempted). Second, and more importantly, actually allowing the weight to move back fully to the heel *before* commencing the turn. Finish the weight, then turn. The same exercise I described in #1 will help this problem, too).

(#4) In additon to problems pertaining to forward & back, there's also the left/right thing. I often see ladies dance their heel turns with space between their feet. This is the result of allowing the body weight (especially the top weight) to shift towards the direction of rotation.

When you dnce a heel turn, the turn itself should be taken entirely with the weight on the foot on which you stepped back; the foot that pulled in should remain free of weight, even when closed. It's not until the end of the turn that you as lady should change weight and begin to rise through the feet.

Knowing this, you can practice having your weight on the correct foot during your heel turn by stepping back, then drawing the front foot in and holding it against the weighted foot maybe an inch or so off the floor. If your foot is actually off the floor, you won't be quite so inclined to put weight on it. Try to practice the actual turn with the free foot off the floor. In so doing, you'll be training yourself how to keep your weight shifted towards the "inside of the rotation", which in this case is away from the direction of turn.

Remember that this is an exercise meant to teach you a particular point; It doesn't mean that you should always hold the free foot off the floor. When you are reasonalby confident that you know how to shift your weight to the correct position, you can put the foot back on the floor where it's supposed to be, and it will (hopefully) not take weight.

And finally, I have one last exercise which works really well on newcomers. It doesn't focus so much on error correction... instead, it's just a good way to get used to doing the correct set of actions in the correct order.

1. Step back
2. Draw (heel of) forward foot back towards back foot until they close
3. Turn (still first foot)
4. Change weight
5. Rise onto toes
6. Step forward with toe of free foot
7. Lower

That seems awfully complicated, so let's simplify it to this: Step, together, turn, change weight, rise, step, lower. That's it! And it works for both the natural and the reverse turns.

This is also a great exercise for those who have troble remembering which foot steps forward at the end of the turn. Instead of thinking in terms of LF/RF (which invariably produces the wrong results), do this exercise focusing on the correct action. The correct action will always produce the correct results, and you never have to memorize left or right.

Wow, that was a long one. Probably way too much to absorb all al once, so print it out and sorta maybe chew on it over the next little while. I hope it hepls!

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson www.ballroomdancers.com

I am excited that I can get some clear concepts from you. That's what I need to know, but I can't get from my teacher, in fact, most of time they don't explain clearly to me when I ask. Maybe they don't want to, not mean they don't know. That's the common situation you can see in group lessons in Taiwan.

Thank you very much. I don't know if there are some books or VCD wrote about that (something like Leading and Following lesson on this website.).

Thank you again.

John Shue, a man want to learn more, but don't how to do.

Regarding the lady's heel turn:

The sequence was not numbered by musical counts, it was numbered by actions. In other words, the number 3 in the sequence does not necessarily correspond to count 3 in the music, it simply describes the third thing that you do.

I should clarify that an action is described as any kind of movement of any part of the body, whereas a step is simply defined as a change of weight, and nothing else. Turning your head is an action. Lowering is an action. Pointing your foot is an action. But none of these are steps. A step is something you do to shift your body weight from one foot to another. Therefore, while I described 7 primary actions of a heel turn, ony 3 of them are actual steps.

You shouldn't actually try too hard to connect every one of the 7 actions to musical counts, because many of them don't exactly fall neatly into exact counts the way you might want them to. The only thing that has a specific count is the 3 steps, which take place on the slow, the quick, and the quick. Everything else falls somewhere in between, with many actions partly overlapping others in time.

Remember, this was given as an exercise to teach ladies the logistics of a heel turn. It's "fool proof" inasmuch as it teaches the correct sequence of actions to the lady. When practiced slowly, it trains the lady to do them in the correct order and manner, with good technique. It does not, in particular, address the concept of rhythm. But it does give her the ability to dance the action correctly so that when time comes to practice to music, she has that much less to think about, and therefore a greater capacity to focus on musicality, following, dance position, and other such techniques.

As far as a hesitation, there is no place for that in the heel turn. Even if these actions did correspond to counts, the movement should be continuous nonetheless. Remember, not everything that takes two counts is considered a hesitation. Think about slow-quick-quick timing... isn't the slow a two-count step? But it's not a hesitation. Why? Because the body moves continuously through the step, without ever pausing. So in the end, a hesitation is not defined by the number of beats it takes, but by the action of the body. If the body slows to a complete stop before commencing another movement, you are dancing a hesitation. Otherwise, you are just dancing a slow step.

I hope I've managed to clear things up a bit for you. As far as your additional questions, I will come back and anser a little later.

Good luck, and happy dancing!

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson

Dear Waltz 1231.
1. Step back
*2. Draw (heel of) forward foot back towards back foot until they close
*3. Turn (still first foot)
4. Change weight
*5. Rise onto toes
*6. Step forward with toe of free foot
7. Lower

fiqure above is like take 2 hestitaion action, one is 2 and 3 step, another is 5 and 6 step.
Put weight 1 time in 3 beat, so no matter whether lady chage weight 1 or 3 times in 3 beat, there will be no problem. that's your mean"fool-proof method", right? Maybe, I think.

I have some question about this. Normally, we change our weight every step, but for a beginner of lady, if she don't know the exact footwork, don't know figuare or amalgamation , how does her know I am taking a hestitaion action without put weight on this step? Of course it is a leading problem, maybe.

Such as Waltz hestitaitio change(my teacher tell me to differant between 4~6 natural turn and 4~6 hestitaion chage is use of rising and falling, but It does not work everytime), cross hesitation, wing and closed wing or someting like this. How can I trasmit my intention to her when her don't know what fiqure name I am going to step. all those chage weight 2 time in 3 beat. How to prevent this happen?

and extend this question, how do I should lead, when there's & sycopation step, like as lock step, rever pivot in waltz, even in some Latin dancing. Becuase they take more step than beats of one bar.

Some figures, like Nature Spin and Open Impetus turn, my patener often dance the same, that make me can't end in PP postion. follow by weave from PP. But I know if I lead her with my hand with too much power, that will be very uncomfortable for her and it's a wrong lead way. But It's really hard to lead her by body action for me.

Thanks you in advance

JOHN SHOU,(know many figures, but I can lead it out all)

[This message has been edited by JOHN Shue (edited 01-12-2001).]

When you rise to the toe of a standing foot, the free foot should also be a toe. It will appear as though you are rising onto both toes because the feet are together. But in reality, your weight is only on one foot.

Jonathan

1. Step back (Using right leg)
2. Draw (heel of) forward foot back towards back foot until they close (left leg)
3. Turn (still first foot) (right leg)
4. Change weight (Left leg)
5. Rise onto toes (left leg)
6. Step forward with toe of free foot (right leg)
7. Lower

To Waltz 123 Please clarify, if you step back with right leg, I know there should be no weight on left foot, is that mean you rise onto toes with left foot only and step forward with right toe of free foot ? Please break down step 4 to 6 by using right foot for heel turn. Thanks

RF Back, Close LF to RF without weight, turn on R heel, change weight to LF, rise onto toes (weight still on LF), then forward on RF toe-heel.

I specified LF/RF on a reverse turn to help clarify the action, but I would if I were you avoid thinking in terms of left and right. The correct action always produces the correct foot, which is why I say "Step, close, turn, change weight, rise, step, lower". It's a fool-proof method of getting the correct foot every time on both natural and reverse turns.

Good luck!
Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson

Dear Waltz 123,
when you rise onto toes (weight still on LF), is that mean you do not rise onto toes of RF at all ? Thanks.

RF Back, Close LF to RF without weight, turn on R heel, change weight to LF, rise onto toes (weight still on LF), then forward on RF toe-heel