Ballroom Blitz #053

Video

youtu.be/ypH6kDWoLIM

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer from the inter-webs, my name's Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Hello blitzers welcome back to the channel to what I hope will prove to be a fantastic Blitz for you in foxtrot. We're going to be doing these things called weave endings, so let's get into it.

Now you might be wondering why we're doing weave endings and not weaves, or a specific weave, and that's because really the weave ending is kind of the guts of all of them. We have the Check and Basic Weave, or we have the Natural Weave or we have Weave from Promenade [Position], all of those are defined weaves in your slow foxtrot. Some of them cross over into your Modern Waltz as well, but really it's the last four steps that occur in all of them, and if you get a mastery of where those four steps commence then this weave ending can come from almost anything before it. So, we're going to look at the last four steps, which I consider to be this thing called The Weave Ending, and then in future blitzes we'll be able to do specific entries into that to cover specific weaves for you to try on your foxtrot floor.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, as you can see from the demonstration, not overly complicated and this idea of a "Weave" tends to give us visual images of something that is far more complex and turns far more than it actually does. You're only going to turn roughly a quarter, you are going to have four quick steps, particularly in your in your foxtrot which we're talking about today, for even quick steps, and you're going to end in a feathered position. We're going to talk about getting into the critical position, or what I call the critical position, for where these four weave steps commence. And then when we do future blitzes you'll see that you'll have specific entries designed to get you there, and then you put your weave ending on, and then you'll have a better understanding of how you can or how to recognize the position, so if you get there accidentally or from any of these other entries, you can put on this weave ending and get out of it with some proficiency.

So the easiest way to think of the critical weave position is if you stand with your partner in a closed position with your feet closed, but attain a nice closed position. Now leads, essentially all I want you to do is take a reasonable side step on your right foot to the right, and of course bring the follows with, you so they sidestep on their left. Now, you've created a gap here and you've created space so that the follow should be able to proceed on their right foot between the two of us. So they're not going to step in line, they're going to step outside. If we achieve this position and have a momentum somewhat in that direction somewhat, in the direction of my shoulders, this allows us to step into that weave ending with our first step and that is really the guts of the critical position. Every other "Weave" that you will examine, and every other figure that then says "finish with a Weave Ending" gets you to that critical position.

So, leads once we've hit that critical position you've got four quick steps. We're basically going to take the first step quite straight with some contra-body movement so that we maintain our direction of flow without too much turned too early. This is because if we turn too early, we turn away from the follow and then their step can't step straight outside, they feel like they need to step through us, and the whole thing is dead before it starts. So, we're going to take quite a straight step under us a lot of Contra allowing the follow to step outside of us. Now we have a little bit more freedom to start turning and on the following two quicks we're going to turn about a quarter. Stepping almost straight down the line here commencing to turn, these are sort of guidelines for the amount of turn. But really what you want on the third step is you want to commence to step outside as if you were taking a feather step, so you've opened now your own frame just enough so that you can allow your final step to enter that feathered position; nice and comfortably, of course with your follow following along, and then we would have a drive step to come out of it. So really it's kind of a straightish step with some Contra to maintain your direction and flow, two steps to set up the turn usually about a quarter but you can eke out a little bit more if you need too, and then the final step is a standard feather step to finish off, preparing to lower and drive into whatever you choose to put next.

Lindsey: Followers we will have previously felt that sideways movement that gives us our invitation to step past our partner on the right, regardless of how we've got there. We now have our four quick steps, forwards on the right and across outside our partner, forwards on the left and we'll start to feel that turn anti-clockwise, our final two steps will feel a little bit of backwards motion diagonal towards the wall, quick-quick into that feathered position.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it for Weave Endings in the slow foxtrot. You can put these in the Rhythm Foxtrot you can of course cross over some of them into the Waltz and we will come back and do more specific blitzes on: The Natural Weave, The Check and Basic Weave, and maybe even the Weave from Promenade Position as well. All of those will hit that critical position and then have those same four steps to end. Until then though try and recognize that position you can smash these into your foxtrot well before you know exactly how to get into that position as long as you know what the position feels like. So give it a go, let us know which one of those weaves you would like to do first, let us know if this has been helpful, and we will see you in the next one.