I am having problems in my frame keeping my weight off of the man's left arm and I was just recently informed that I was not carrying my own weight. How can I fix this I have tried but I find myself concentrating so hard on staying "light" that my technique starts to falter. Also I am having problems staying down to the ground in my smooth especially, I can get down on the 1--2 and as I transition to the 3 I start to pop up like a top. If you can give me any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it because my partner and I will be attending Ohio Star Ball (my first time) and I want to do my best for this rather important competition. Thank you ahead of time I value all of your advice

It sounds like you are just starting out.

Can't say much about the popping up on 3. Took me several years to stop it, but I still do it.

But as for the frame, there are a couple of things to try. First, try to determine which muscles you are using to hold up your arms. Typically, it's your upper arm, or top of your shoulders. These muscles, I've tend to tire very easily, and so your arm will start to droop, making it look heavy. The muscles you actually want to use (and this will take time) are your lats. You can find these by putting your arms in frame position, pull the elbows backwards (like rowing). Feel your shoulder blades pop up. Now put your hands above your head and pull them down behind your head (overhead press). Same thing should happen. This is where your frame should orginate. (Side tip: When you do arms over your head, and the coach says pull your shoulders down, pull from the same area.)

A couple of other problems, is the man's hand tucked up under your shoulder, or is it falling down your back. I know this was my first reason for droopy arms, as my coach was used to dancing with shorter women. I was trying to maintain contact through the whole arm, which I needed then. Now my contact is at the palm and his hand on my back.

Next, is there a significant height difference? My arms are a bit longer than my instructor's, so our coach has him take his hand to the fingers more on the side of my back. That way my arms don't stick out by themselves.

Lastly, what does your coach say?

What I find really funny, is that I spent all these years learning how to be "light" in bronze, by carrying my own weight. And now that I'm starting in Silver, I find out that I have to be able to lean into my partner, and him into me (aka catching each other's weight) to create energy to explode out of a step and control the speed. Now I get to spend years learning how to do this. It never ends does it?

Like Dronak, I suspect you mean the man's right arm. When you are told that you are not carrying your weight, it really means you are not holding up your arms entirely on your own. In other words, you are resting your forearm to some extent on your partner's arm. The easiest way to solve this is to raise your arm (slightly) until it barely touches his shirt sleeve. If you can feel significant contact with his arm, you are not carrying your weight. Rather than thinking about being light, try to minimize your contact with his arm. You may even find it beneficial to eliminate the contact altogether until you get the feel for holding up your arms.

Blair

Yes the lady shouldn't be leaning or pressing against the man's arms, but if the arms are held completely off the man, there will be unnecessary tension in the arms, and he won't be able to feel you fully. instead of a nice circuit in the frame, there's just the lady's spine. It feels like a ghost partner. The man often feels that there's not enough connection, or isn't sure where the lady is, and tends to grab and pull the lady in. Even my beginning students feel the difference right away and prefer the more natural feel - having a partner with arms! It will take a while, getting lots of feedback, to get the right amount of tone in the lift and stretch, while still being flexible and relaxed in the muscles that don't need to work. Coaches and partners are great sounding boards here (keeping in mind that preferences vary).

Good luck in your dance quest!

It's always tricky to give technique advice without seeing or particularly being able to demonstrate and give the feeling, checking on the change. But here goes!

A red flag went up with me when you talk about try to "feel light". As with many things in dance, what it feels like to your partner and what it feels like to you (and what you can think about to get there) are different things! Many ladies fight their own weight, trying to "feel light". Weight is a GOOD thing in dancing - we need it to swing across the floor! You will feel light to your partner when he's not carrying your weight - you are. You should feel your weight good and strong over your feet. Ladies create an illusion of lightness to themselves by putting some weight off their feet and on to their partners. This will just create tension in the lady and tire out the man (and create bad habits and bad will).

So don't fear your own weight! Feel it through your nice vertical posture down into your feet and through the floor.

Popping up at the top of the swing is a similar problem - dancers try to rise and end up "lifting" their weight (often through the upper body too). Weight must be pressed up from underneath (as the note about lats touched on). And in the case of rise, it works even better to press down on the floor to cause the rise. This will keep weight as equally connected to floor as it is rising up, so you will keep a stable base. If you think of everything rising or everything sinking, that's when you get a wobbly pop-up or collapsing moment.

Have you ever done a leg press? Think of that... that the pressure from the legs and feet down will straighten the legs, not "lifting".

I hope this helps or at least gives you ideas & questions! Of course run these things past your teacher so s/he can feel the change in you and advise.

You mean keeping your weight off the man's right arm, don't you? The man's left hand holds your right hand, his right arm goes behind your back under your shoulderblade and your left arm rest on it. I'm not sure I can really tell you how to support your own weight better. I think TheDitz has a good point about using your lat muscles to hold up your arms. My teachers have said a number of times that you need to make use of the lat muscles in keeping your dance frame. Her other remarks sound pretty good as well, it's just that I remember being told to use my lat muscles, too, so I wanted to second that one.

As for popping up on the 3, I'm going to assume you're talking about something like waltz where you end in an up position on 3. If you're rising too fast, hence popping up, you might want to make sure that you begin your rise earlier. A basic waltz Natural turn has rise and fall as follows (according to the ISTD technique book): commence to rise end of 1, continue to rise on 2 and 3, lower end of 3; commence to rise on end of 4 NFR (no foot rise), continue to rise on 5-6, lower end of 6. That's the man's part. For the lady's part swap 1-3 with 4-6 since you do the back half of the turn while he does the forward half of it and vice versa. If you're trying to stay down on 1 and 2 then you'll naturally end up popping up on 3 because you've got to do all of your rise in one count to get to the up position. Instead make sure you're taking all the time you have, two full counts or somewhat more, to do your rise. That way the rise will be smoother and you won't end up popping up at the end of it. If this isn't the problem or doesn't help fix it, maybe you can try to explain in a little more detail what the problem is so we have a better idea of how to offer help.

TheDitz, yes, learning how to use your weight kind of changes as you progress levels. I know I'm not the best dancer so I probably don't do everything I should, but often I try to work off what the lady's giving me. I can definitely tell when the lady's using her weight to help drive our motion. As you'd expect, it's the more advanced ladies that do this most often and it really feels different to dance with them. I'm not always used to helping to control that extra power/drive from the lady, but it's good to at least feel it from some of the women I dance with.

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

I didn't post because I didn't know which dance RumabaLuv was talking about.

In smooth and standard, I was taught that the contact point of man's left hand and lady's right hand is at the outer edge of palms from the base of little finger to end of metacarpal bones. Lady place her index finger thru little finger in between man's thumb and index finger. But never press man hand downwards. Push the contact point toward each other just enough so that the man and lady can transfer the signal across to each other without push too hard toward.

The jointed hands should be at the height level of bewteen man's ear and lady's. I had experienced some ladies would push my hand down so hard that I couldn't hold my left hand up to that level to maintain a good dance posture any more. I kept fighting to get my left hand up to that level but she keep pushing it down till I finally gave up the struggle.

I did notice this happened to the ladies of lesser confidence(shy ones maybe). Especially during the 123 of natural turn or open impetus turn in Waltz, they were taking much smaller step to pass to my right side. In the mean time they are depending much of their balance maintaining by pushing my left hand down. True or not, I am quessing. By the way my wife is doing this a lot.

It is not as significant in Latin or Rhythm dances, however.