Ballroom Blitz #072

Video

youtu.be/nvOiQz6hJ_o

Transcript

Ian: Why hello there random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz!

Ian: Hello there blitzers, welcome back to the channel. Today we are doing the next in a series of a few different blitzes about the Natural Top. So a few blitzes ago we looked at Rumba and we gave you the guts of the Natural Top. We said we would come back and basically talk about how to get into it and what you can do out of it in future blitzers. Well, today is one of those blitzers. We're going to be focusing on Cha to get into it, but the steps are essentially the same in this version of everything we're going to show you today. If you're dancing it in Rumba simply remove your Cha Chasse, and of course if you're dancing it in Cha, just leave it as is and make sure you do your Cha Chasse in the Natural Top. So, let's get into it.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So you can see from the demonstration we are going to modify both Closed and Open Basics. This modification, or often referred to as a Development, can come from either. So, straight away you've now got two entries into your Natural Top; you can be doing it from either Closed Basics or Open Basics.

So, leaders if we think back to the Rumba version of the Natural Top, that Natural Top Blitz that we did, we'll leave a link in the description, your commencing position had open feet with all of your weight on your left foot. We are going to develop our steps one to five of our basic, so the forward portion for the leader of our basic, which means we are going to commence on the left foot. We have our step and rock just like any other basic. Now it's about time that we have to start thinking about what the follows commencement position for the Natural Top is, and if you rewatch that video you will notice that when Lindsey commenced her follows position she had crossed feet. This is very important, we want to set up, we want to start and we want to commence that natural turn that clockwise turn so that we can create that crossed feet position for the follow, and then enter the Natural Top. How do we do this? Simply I am going to Cha in a clockwise direction by about a quarter. So I'm going to take the first one out to the side but commencing to turn, close my feet as with any Cha action Cha Chasse close towards is fine, and then on the last one finish a turn of about a quarter, a little bit more is okay. And at this point your follow will have been charring towards you, as they essentially hit your turn their feet will commence to cross, you will have commenced to to turn in the natural direction, and you will be at the start point of your Natural Top.

Lindsey: Followers as Ian said at the start of this we may not know that this is the development that will lead into our top. So we are very happily just doing what we always do with our basics, which is backwards on the right, rock on the left, and it's at this point that the leader starts to turn clockwise, that we sort of get "uh oh okay I think I know what's coming up". We've still got a chasse to do right-a-right, but if we think our leader is turning this way around us, clockwise around us, and we just let those feet fall where they do, right-a-right, we end up with those crossed feet. That is our starting point for our top. So looking at it from the other side, if I take my back and rock and right-a-right, but I'm turned a little bit to the right you'll see just with my feet falling underneath me, my right foot has naturally ended up being crossed in front of my left, thus if you can see it from that angle.

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: Of course the Natural Top is only conducted in a closed position and we talked about the Latin box in that Blitz. This means if you are leading the Open Basic development into a top, you must close that position and so there is some arm work that needs to be done. Don't think too much about the arm, but leaders what you are trying to do is coordinate and synchronize your tension and your movement of the arm to encourage the follow to come in, collect them into that closed position, and take them to the right. If we think about all these things individually they get kind of complex, if we just allow them to happen and think of that end position they are actually a lot simpler just by doing the steps.

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And there you have it a couple of ideas to get into the Natural Top and of course if you have lasted the distance this far you got a bonus demonstration at the end there on the developed version into the Natural Top itself in Cha. Very much like the Rumba just with a few more steps and a little bit faster. Smash these into your Cha and your Rumba. Let us know if you have any ideas for how to get out of the Natural Top, they will be coming up soon, they are wide and many. We won't go through all of them but we'll give you enough so that you can get your creative juices flowing. Try it out on the floor, let us know how you go, see you next time.