I would to find out if there are different types of natural spin turn in the international waltz style of dance. I am being taught a figure but find that it is different from an illustration in a textbook which I use.

regards.

Hello, Keh, James, Jonathan,

Thanks for your replies. I don't feel competent to accurately describe the figure I am doing in detail. It is now being called Natural Spin Turn with Underturn. However with practice it feels good and looks good and Jonathan's response is comforting.

What is more comforting though, is the sudden realisation that there are people in other parts of the world who are readily available to share your concerns and willing to offer assistance. Thanks to Ballroomdancers.com

While we are at it could someone explain what is underturn and overturn?

Regards,
Andrew.

I would say that the overturned Spin is a very different beast than the basic spin, because it's not just a matter of a little more or less rotation. It turns it into an entirely different movement -- steps are described differently, different technical execution, and with different figures to follow. In fact, the overturned spin is almost exactly halfway between a normal Spin Turn and a Natural Pivot, or maybe just a hair closer to the pivot, beleive it or not.

There's also something that's been coined a "Running Spin Turn", but it's not really a Spin Turn at all. It's one pivot (count "1") followed by 1-3 of an Open Natural Turn (count "and 2,3").

Just about anything resembling or containing Natural Pivots might be described as a Spin Turn of one sort or another, so it suffices to say that there are many possible variations of the Spin Turn. But as it is written in the book, there are basically three versions: Basic, underturned, and overturned (the overturned usually to be followed by a turning lock).

Sincerely,
Jonathan Atkinson
www.ballroomdancers.com

Hi, Andrew:

Can you give us a little more detail about the natural spin turn that you were taught? Personally I think natural spin turn is a wonderful figure which I danced a lot in q-step, waltz and foxtrot and I think there is only one natural spin turn. I was taught a reverse spin turn but never really like it and seldom danced it.

Regards,

Keh Gough

Keh Gough

The Running Spin Turn appears rather similar to the latter part of a Double hair-pin (done with a heel drag in the Trot), any relation?

Sri.

Dr. Sriram Shankar,
Durham, NC.
email: DancngFooi@aol.com

First a reply to Jonathan, I guess you're right that the overturned Natural Spin Turn is kind of different from the regular or underturned ones. The technique book doesn't say much about overturning it besides you can do it and follow with say a Turning Lock to the Right. But I do see your point, overturning this figure does tend to change the move a bit more than the regular turn or underturning it. As for the Running Spin Turn, it looks like a kind of cool move (I saw it in the IDTA book), but with the syncopation, speed, and amount of turn, it's too hard for me to get right now.

To Andrew, figures that turn will normally have some standard amount of turn you're supposed to use according to the technique books. You can call this amount full, regular, standard or whatever you like. Underturning a figure means to do less turn (total) than the full amount and overturning it means to do more turn than the full amount. That's basically it. How much you underturn or overturn usually has certain amounts, too, but in practice if you're doing it for floorcraft purposes, you do whatever you need to in order to make things work.

For example, the full amount of turn on a Natural Spin Turn is 1-1/4 (1.25). Normally when you underturn it you turn 1 full turn and when you overturn it you turn 1-3/8. In all cases steps 1-3 have the same amount of turn, 3/8, and the difference is how much you turn on steps 4 (the pivot) and 5-6. The underturned Natural Spin Turn is easier to get at first, so I think most dancers are taught that version before learning it with the full amount and then how to overturn it. Your teacher should probably tell you that it's underturned though, just so you're aware of it. If you have other questions, feel free to ask, we all like discussing dancing.

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

As far as I know, Keh is right, there is only one Natural Spin Turn. You can dance it underturned, overturned, or with the regular full amount of turn, but those are just minor variations on the same basic figure. Maybe in the open levels there are other similar figures, but the syllabus just has that one. There is also a Double Reverse Spin as Keh alluded to, but that's a very different figure. If you provide a little more information, perhaps we can give you some more help.

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