Ballroom Blitz #001

What is a Blitz? - Jan 23, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the interwebs my name's Ian

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Ian: Hey everyone we're here to talk about what exactly is a Ballroom Blitz we've got these coming later in 2023 so what can you look forward to?

Lindsey: Well, there are essentially short videos so just a couple of minutes long that are designed to help you along with your Ballroom or dancing in general journey.

Ian: That's it. Little bite-sized pieces, little nuggets of information largely unscripted but not entirely unedited.

Lindsey: Which is a good thing!

Ian: You can look forward to some blunt language...

Lindsey: From him.

Ian: Yeah, she's too nice for blunt language.

Lindsey: But they could be looking at a particular figure point of technique or my favorite I think is going to be the pet peeves.

Ian: Yeah I... watch out!

But all are all packaged in just a few minutes so you can take them wherever you are I dunno sitting on the loo on your way to work wherever you are in your lunch hour you can get a couple in.

But, we're going to smash them out as much as we can and hopefully they'll help you on the floor when you next get up for a social dance or wherever you just want a bus to move.

So, yeah look out for them they'll be coming soon um just as fast as we can produce and edit them see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #002

Outside Changes in Modern Waltz - Jan 30, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the interwebs my name's Ian

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Lindsey: Today we are blitzing a Modern Waltz figure, it's the lovely outside change let's have a look. This particular figure is a great one for just getting a little bit further down the floor without losing your lovely "waltzy" flow. It takes four steps all of them nice and slow; we're going to have a bit of a demo first.

[Demonstration to music]

Lindsey: So we're going to start with the leader Backing Diagonal Center and it's the follower who's who has the first drive step going towards Diagonal Center on their right foot.

So let's have a look at the leader steps first and the followers steps after that.

[Demonstration of Leaders steps - no music]

Lindsey: And now the following steps.

[Demonstration of Followers steps - no music]

Lindsey: So when we start we're nicely in line that means that my first drive step is going to go straight through Ian. This is a heel step for me but we're going to rise up onto the toes through the second step still forward for me but that makes it easy for Ian to adjust the angle we're coming back down that's number three and so he's ready for a step outside partner with a nice heel ready to go into the next figure.

That change of angle and from going backwards to forwards happens between steps two and three while we're on our toes so we've got some nice swivel there to make that happen it's only about a quarter of a turn.

[Demonstration of steps - with counts]

Lindsey: And that's all there is to the outside change so try it out on your Waltz and see how you go.

Ballroom Blitz #003

Spot Turns in Rumba - Feb 02, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the interwebs my name's Ian

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Ian: Yes today dancers we are focusing on Rumba, specifically spot turns let's have a look.

Spot turns are pretty much the first turn we learn and then we can upgrade them on our Rumba Journey you can also switch them into your Cha and get a little bit of a two for one but that's for another Blitz.

Ian: So, when we're dancing our Rumba but we know that we're following a two three four-and-one type arrangement and it's the same with our spot turns. We're going to turn over a spot and we're going to use the basic pattern of crossing as our step, gluing our feet to the floor and rocking changing weight as we continue to turn, and then settling four-and-one.

Of course the great thing about spot turns is if you can go one way you can go the other so we have step rock four-and-one, step rock four-and-one.

Ian: Now if you're trying this for the first time there are a few key things to make sure that you a) don't fall over and b) it doesn't feel too rubbish. First of all keep your steps nice and small we don't want to take massive steps and then our balance is an issue. So, we're going to cross our body and we just want to key off a few key elements.

We're going to turn about a quarter on the first step and we're going to key in one direction and you want to get your whole weight over this foot just like you would in any other Rumba step, and then I'm going to keep turning in the same direction as I rock my weight over but my feet aren't moving so it's just a nice swivel on the floor and you'll probably turn about a half a turn so now we're keying off another direction, and we're just going to simply take a nice slow side step finishing a 360 degree turn but our foot hasn't moved. That's why it's a spot turn it's over a single spot.

Ian: Footwork for lead and follow is exactly the same so if you both want to turn together say after something like a New York then you simply perform the turn in exactly the same way but of course lead and follow will be on opposite feet.

If the leader is going to put the follow in an underarm turn maybe after a simple basic then it will be still the same footwork but the follow passes under the arm instead of letting go of the leader.

[Demonstration without music]

[Demonstration to music]

Ian: And that is spot turns in Rumba. Try them out next time you're on the floor see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #004

Hip Bump in Jive - Feb 06, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the interwebs my name's Ian

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Lindsey: Okay chaps, today we've got a classic and nice and easy figure for you. It comes from the Jive and it's called the hip bump, let's have a look.

So, the hip bump follows the classic rhythm that we find a lot of in our base Jive moves. So, we've got a back replace for both parties, and then two chasses. There's a little bit of a turn but it returns us to our starting position. So, it's one that you can daisy-chain do over and over, and it's a nice settling one as well.

[Demonstration - no music]

Lindsey: So, as you can see this one is over in a flash.

We start in an open position usually facing our partner although it will work if we're a little bit opened out as well but we're going to do it facing. Ian's going to go back replace starting on his left I'm going replace starting on my right and you do want your hand grip to be leaders left to followers right for this one to work.

So, we're going to go back replace and at this point we're still facing each other we've got our first chasse now Ian ready on the left I'm ready am I right and what Ian is going to do is just over that chasse face forward so you're turning a bit a quarter to the right as you go and if he leaves his hand in that position and takes it with him that will mean that I will turn a quarter to the left and we'll just gently bump into each other here.

If you don't have any contact that's no worries but a little bit of light contact is fine. This move used to be called the "Shoulder Shove" they stopped calling at that for obvious reasons but a little bit of a contact right at the end of this first chasse is fine and that can help you do your second chasse back to where you started from.

So, if we go through that one more time we've got a

[Demonstration - with counts]

Ian: So, leaders just highlighting something that Lindsey has already mentioned, this is a great move to settle you down. So, maybe you've tried a whip or another turnee move or something that's got you a little bit off kilter if you're not straight ahead this is just a really good reset.

So, wherever you've started maybe you're in an absolutely god-awful position it's like “okay well rather than stopping let's just do a hip bump” as long as you've got some connection some tension there we can do a "good enough" back replace get in nice and close and then settle into a better position.

Lindsey: Now, with the actual hip bump moment, when we first try this out we can get a little bit excited about that and actually slow our other steps down to give ourselves a beat to do the bump itself. We actually don't want to do that, we want our back replace and our two chasses to have the same kind of timing that we would have for any of our other figures. We don't want to sort of kill a beat Just to do the bump.

Ian: No don't, don't do this don't do...

[Demonstration of incorrect timing - with comical slow motion]

Ian: because you get out of time.

Lindsey: You do.

So, if you think about that as a time at all it's a little 'a' but it's actually better to almost disregard it and if it happens great if it doesn't no worries.

So we've got

[Demonstration - with counts]

Ian: So, it just happens in between, technically there's a little 'a' there to give you some guidance but as Lindsey said honestly when you're first starting out just ignore it; you'll be fine.

Lindsey: Yep

[Demonstration - with counts]

[Demonstration - with music]

Lindsey: So, that is the hip bump try it out next time you're on the social floor trying out a jive. Try not to be too shovey with it, nice and light have some fun.

Ballroom Blitz #005

Feather Steps in Foxtrot - Feb 09, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs, I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Ian: Today dancers we are blitzing the feather step in foxtrot.

Depending on who you talk to you either have eight ways to dance one feather; or one feather danced eight ways; or eight different feathers...

We're just gonna do one. One blitz, one feather.

So, the feather step is the first thing we learn in foxtrot really and if you ask anyone that's done foxtrot for any length of time "what makes a foxtrot a foxtrot?" they will probably say feather and heel turns. Heel turns are not today.

So, feather steps are four steps, four. Some people will count them as three and it kind of fits in because foxtrot gets a bit mushy so the last step becomes the first step of the next step and all that sort of nice continuity bollocks. But, really if you're just talking about feather steps one at a time they are four steps.

So, a slow-quick-quick-slow or a slow-slow-and-slow to get that nice foxtrot feel. Leaders will commence forward on the right foot with a driving step in line with partner through we prepare to step outside step outside in our classic feather position, and then settle with a step on the left foot which as we've said is usually the first step of whatever you're putting afterwards.

[demonstration with counts]

Ian: Lindsey's going to talk about her steps.

Lindsey: I am. So, they're really the sort of natural opposite of what the leader is doing. They're starting with the drive step on the right we are going backwards on the left there's really not terribly much that we have to do you certainly don't want to go "oh they are about to step past me" and jump away from them. [You] should be nicely on the hip and nicely in a closed hold the whole time.

So, if we have a look at the follower steps I'm ready on the left and I'm going

[demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: And doing my best to stay just nice and calm in my leader's frame.

Ian: So, you will notice they're in classic foxtrot fashion there are no feet together and the whole idea of the move is to actually keep progressing forward down the floor. This is why we move outside of our partner so that they don't sort of block us as we try and go, and it would be the same whether we're doing forward feathers or back feathers.

Of course there are, as we've said, a number of different ways to dance your feather some of them cross into other feather territory, but in this example we just really want to pay attention to whether the lead is putting any body side lead in to keep the motion going in one direction or whether indeed we're changing direction over the prepare to step, and then step outside step.

So, with body side lead

[demonstration with description]

Ian: continuing [in] one direction towards you. And, without body side lead

[demonstration with description]

Ian: Slow changing direction but still fulfilling all the things we need to for an actual feather step.

[demonstration with music]

Ian: Well, that's it for this blitz on foxtrot feather steps. Of course, there is loads more to talk about with feathers, at least eight times more; one blitz for each type of feather, and a lot more nuances to get that real foxtrotty feel.

But, this should be enough to get you started, so crack that into your foxtrot the next time you're on the floor and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #006

There & Back in Cha Cha - Feb 13, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs, I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Ian: Today dancers we are blitzing the Cha Cha. We're going to do a little-known figure called  There & Back.

This one doesn't make it onto the social floor too often, and so we are on a mission to try and change that and you can be part of it today.

The There & Back again has 10 steps, so it's going to take up two bars; the same as a basic. But, it's a little bit different, we're going to bring our feet together and rock, so there's no real step-rock. We're then going to bomb burst apart with our Chas backwards. We're going to do another step rock, completely visually led at that point, and then Cha back together.

[demonstration of steps]

Ian: So, as you can see this step can get a little expansive so it does come with a warning; if you are leading this one make sure there's no one behind the follower, and make sure there's no one behind yourself as well. This is why we don't see it as much on the social floor but it is a lot of fun or when you can get it out.

So, we can leave this figure at any time we have arrived on a 1 [beat one] and we are standing on the leader's right foot, so we're basically going to use our left foot on 2 [beat two]. We should be in a closed position so don't lead this entirely visually that's a little bit tricky, but you can do it after a spot turn, after a basic, basically anytime you're in this position.

To lead it we're going to make sure that we create a little bit of tension in the frame to still the follower because how we're going to lead it is a close on the spot to change weight, so there's no forward or backward or sideward steps here, then we're going to have a weight change immediately after that, and then a little bit of tension to push the follow away, politely, and we're going to do our Cha backwards four and one. Once we get to this position now we have our more traditional step rock so step rock and we Cha back to our partner four and one.

Make sure that you offer that left hand so there's a point of contact to come back to, you're probably going to need that if you follow this with a basic because you'll have to apply your tension forward. Two.

[demonstration with counts]

Ian: This figure also has a little bit of variety in that whichever type of Cha you do going backwards you can do coming forwards you can mix them up you can do running Chas locking Chas you can do something completely different you can have one person do one and the other do the other you can really let your creative juices flow for performance purposes so it gives you a lot of variety. So, we're going to try it out and see what we can do.

So, we're going to try something out here to show you how you can let your creative juices flow with this move Lindsey is going to do a locking Cha backwards and a running Cha forwards, and I'm going to do a running Cha backwards and a locking Cha forwards to see if we can pull it off and give you some ideas; here we go.

[demonstration with counts]

Ian: Now leads of course you can lead the figure and give your follow a little bit of a push away, but you cannot lead them to do whatever Cha they're going to do. So, if you're going to do a running Cha backwards and they do a locking Cha, so be it. Don't change your steps to suit them, they won't change theirs to suit yours; and that way you're going to come back to where you started rather than get a little bit wibbly along the way and not quite match up or crash into each other.

Of course, if you have a regular dance partner and you want to mix it up then you can see from those chas you can just sort of add and take away the types of cha that you like to give yourself a little bit of variety, and you can move your bursting and reconnection point as you like so I'll leave that up to you.

[demonstration with music]

Ian: So, that is it for the humble There & Back again in Cha. Try it out on the social floor. Don't crash into people. Let your creative juices flow with the different chas, and let us know how you go.

Ballroom Blitz #007

Forward Locks in Quickstep - Feb 16, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls at the end webs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Today's blitz is all about the forward lock in the Quickstep a very useful one and a fun one so let's have a look at it.

[Demonstration]

So, this figure is following a classic pattern that comes up a lot in the Quickstep where we have a slow for a drive, [and] then we're rising up onto our toes for some kind of chasse, in which case this is the lock.

So, we have a quick-quick to take a step, and then lock the foot, a slow to come out of that chasse, and then ready for the leader's drive step after that into the next figure.

Ian: So, leads from your point of view this figure can commence inline or outside of partner, although most of the time you will probably be commencing it outside of partner. Irrespective of that, the first step is a driving heel on the right foot, slow.

We're going to take a side step to commence our locking chasse with a quick-quick up on the toes. We're going to come down with a toe lower after that, and the next step this is the one that has to proceed outside of partner so you will be taking a driving heel on the right foot and you will be taking it basically into whatever figure comes next; but, it has to come outside of partner there's no option to move in line with this final step.

So, in its entirety it would look like inline or outside slow step lock come down off the toe proceed outside of partner.

Lindsey: For the followers I'm going to demonstrate this both ways so that you can see. We're starting with a backward step on our left that's our partner's drive so it will be low. We'll feel them rise up and that will be our cue to rise up as well so we're coming up onto our toes, back with the right locking in front with the left and ready for a slow. Lowering the heel coming out of that lock they will then drive past us so we are backwards on the left foot again into our next figure.

From the other side we have,

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: So, even though most of these steps in this figure are outside we still want to have contact right hip to right hip we still want to be in a nice comfortable closed position; this is not an excuse to go "oh I have to step outside" and really twist away from each other. [That] just puts pressure where it doesn't want to be.

Ian: That's right, and leaders even though you can daisy chain these even though it's technically possible to do forward lock-forward lock-forward lock that's a boring as batshit Quickstep and it's really uncomfortable for the followers please don't do it. Experiment with it, use it in cases where you kind of need to but if that is your standard Quickstep get yourself to someone that can teach you a few more figures because it's really: a) boring; b) uncomfortable; and c) just poor choreography.

Lindsey: Now, we often get questions from the followers saying "how do I know it's a lock step?" and not something else that's a sort of a more traditional chasse where you just put your feet together. One of the major cues for us to note that it's a lock step is that this one doesn't turn. So, a lot of our other figures that sort of operate in the same way a drive step and then some kind of chasse usually have some kind of turn either to right or left this one shouldn't have any and that's one of our big clues that it is a lock.

Ian: That's right and the other clue is of course it should move in a diagonal fashion there should be some diagonal component. If you're moving dead straight with your hips it's really hard to lock, and if you're moving dead square with your hips it's also really hard to lock, and even harder to feel if you're the follower and you don't know if this is an actual lock or not. So, there should be a forward and a sideward component diagonalizing those hips to make it easier for you to lock forward or behind and feel for the follower.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: Locks and chasses in general are such a staple of our Quickstep so make sure you try this one out on the social floor next time a quickstep comes on.

Ballroom Blitz #008

4 Different Basics in Samba - Feb 20, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls at the end webs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Today dancers on the interwebs we are blitzing Samba Basics. Believe it or not there are 4 (four) of them so, let's check them out.

There are reverse basics; natural basics; side basics; and progressive basics. Lots of similarities between them but newsflash; you've got two feet and we're going to use them.

So, Samba takes from a little bit of our ballroom cousin terminology in that if you are turning to the left you're going to turn reverse if you're turning to the right you are going to turn in  the natural direction.

If you're going forward on the left foot in a basic you can turn in the leftward direction or the reverse direction, hence we have reverse basics, and the same is true on the right for natural basics.

So you can go forward on either foot. We often get used to going forward just on the left, particularly here in Australia where we have this left foot love affair with our New Vogue dances.

But, you can go forward on either foot so you get two for one in your forward and bounce [it's] just whether you're going forward on the left or forward on the right.

So, with turn going in the reverse direction our standard direction I guess is…

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: But, if I do exactly the same going forward on the right I get the opposite direction from the same action

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: Now of course it is really uncommon in Samba to just bash out a whole bunch of basics one after the other. But, it is important to realize that you can go forward on either foot and turn in either direction to save you having to go the long way around when you have to realign yourself and your partner.

Of course the other basic which is sort of left out in the cold usually is the side basic. We usually leave this out in the cold because we blow past it and just do whisks instead and we'll do whisks in another Blitz.

But, if I take that action instead of going forward and backward I move to the side

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: These are side basics there's really nothing else to say they're a basic action and they move sidewards instead of going forwards and backwards. These are really good stabilizing steps if you were to go that little bit extra and turn it into a whisk you might be in a position where your partner's a little bit less balanced so if you're aware that you can just dial it back and do a side basic it's really nice and stabilizing and a little bit easier for people learning Samba for the first time to accomplish.

Now progressive basics is sort of the black sheep we're going to mix a forward basic without turn with a side basic. So, you're still getting a full bar of basic so you still arrive back at where you started from; so, it sort of fits that basic pattern. But, the two halves aren't really identical or they're not really mirror images. We're going to go say forward on the right foot one two now I'm ready on my left and I might go to the side two.

So, I haven't changed my angle I've progressed down the floor which is where it gets its name but it's just sort of a little zigzag to get you out of trouble or away from somewhere. You may not use it very often but again, if you know that it's there then you can use it if and when you need to. So, if we do some turning reverse basics we have

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: Of course as is so often the case with Samba what you can do on one foot you can do on the other what you can do forwards you can do backwards so particularly with those progressives you can completely turn it on its head and have the follower come forward and I'll let you explore that for yourself.

And that is it blitzing out four different types of Samba basics of course we haven't touched on anything to do with Samba bounce or any other technique so there is a lot to unpack and add on there and we weren't really demonstrating it with that in mind.

But, try those out on your social floor try going left and right try going forwards and backwards and just try settling with those side versions or getting a little bit out of the way or down the floor with those progressive versions smash it into your Samba and we will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #009

Progressive Side Step in Tango - Feb 23, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls at the end webs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: On today's blitz we're looking at the beautiful Tango, so we're still in our modern dances, and the figure is Progressive Side Step, let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: The progressive side step is just a figure of three steps long so it's not terribly complex, and it's a nice sort of gentle turning figure so it's good for repositioning yourself on the floor getting round corners or out of scrapes.

This one is completely in a closed position a lot of our figures in Tango sort of switch between promenade and closed this one just stays in closed. So, if we are in a proper closed position with our partner then it's a nice sort of easy one to get through.

So, we want the leader's weight to be on their right foot followers on their left. This figure starts with the leader forward on the left and because it's forward on the left and turning it's going to be a reverse figure turning anti-clockwise and we have.

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: So, leaders your steps are really quite simple it is left right left. Have your weight on your right foot in your standard closed Tango position. You're going to take a quick-quick across your body into your follows space in a regular Tango fashion. Moving about a quarter over the next step, quick, and then essentially a Tango walk forward, slow.

You can turn this a little bit more if needed it will feel like you're walking around a circle but you want to maintain that nice closed position.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: Followers we have the natural opposite so we're ready to go on our right foot and in true Tango fashion we're really trying to wait to have our leg picked up the leaders step on their left is going to come right into our space so we'll feel our leg being shifted backwards and across.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: Of course none of our Tango figures work terribly well unless we are nice and low in a nice strong position with each other and waiting for each other. But, once we've got that in place this is a very useful figure and it feels great too so try it out next time you're on a Tango floor.

Ballroom Blitz #010

The Conversation Step in Slow Rhythm - Feb 27, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs, I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian and Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: On today's Blitz we are having a look at a  move that you can use in your Slow Rhythm, it's called the Conversation Step. It's a nice option when you're in  promenade position so first up let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So, as you can see both leader and the follower are looking forward, so we're in a nice promenade position you can do this move anytime you're in promenade position. [It] doesn't really matter what you've done beforehand, but you want to be ready on that outside foot.

So, the leader walks forwards on the left, [the] follow walks forwards on the right. This allows us to then point our inside foot forward, of course being a point we don't put our weight on it, it's just like a toe tap, and then we use that foot again to head backwards, feet together and then walking forwards actually putting our weight on that inside foot.

So, our walk and tap are both slows we've then got a quick-quick slow to complete the figure so it will be.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: One of the tricky bits there is that change of weight at the back, it's essentially a chasse, it's like a twinkle. So, leaders are going [it's your right foot] right together right to complete that figure and I, as the follower, I'm going left together left. This means that we're ready to walk again on that outside foot if we wanted to we could do the whole thing again.

Ian: As we've been demonstrating for the Slow Rhythm which is a really relaxed easy social dance you can see our promenade position isn't exactly tight and it's a nice and easy going figure. If you're dancing this in say a Rhythm Foxtrot your promenade position will be tighter but it's essentially the same thing. And if you want to give it a go in your Quickstep it's actually quite a nice hoppy figure as well for you to experiment with. So, this is a quite a nice easy relaxed version to give you a taster, and then you can go off and decide how and when to use it in other dances if you wish.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: So, next time you're on the social floor scooting about the floor with a Slow Rhythm if you've turned to promenade give the conversation step a go. As always, videos are great and we can express a lot in them, but it is nothing compared to actually being on the floor having a private lesson so get into a studio near you and we'll see you out on the dance floor.

Ballroom Blitz #011

Drag in Paso Doble - Mar 02, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Today blitzers we are doing Paso Doble the dance of the ball fight. A stupidly simple figure called the Drag. It's four beats long, only two steps, easy as pie, you can do it at home, anyone can do it in your Paso; let's get started!

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, it is as simple as that; only the four beats only the two actions, a little bit of Paso shape just for fun; let's take you through it. So, this figure commences in closed you will have your feet together leads you'll be ready to go on the right foot in a nice closed position all our strong Paso frame well [I'll] leave that for you to employ.

The figure is as easy as taking a strong side step to the right on the right on one.

One.

As we get there we're going to achieve our desired shaping and again I will leave that up to you. Now we're going to drag the foot as advertised in the name slowly, but then getting faster and faster over two three and four. Snapping those heels together for effect and returning our frame to neutral.

So it will look a little bit more like;

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: So because this is in a closed position if the leaders are ready on their right foot quite, common in our Paso Doble, followers you will be ready on the left so we'll be taking a sideways step on the left and following along with the leaders timing we will have.

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: And that is our Paso Doble drag. There are many more fun and exciting moves in Paso they're never as hard as you think it is loads of fun. Get yourself to a studio get some moves under your belt get yourself out on the floor and have fun with the dance of the bull fight until then see you in the next Blitz.

Ballroom Blitz #012

Cross Chasse in Quickstep - Mar 06, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls on the interwebs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Hey blitzers we are returning to Quickstep today with a fantastic figure called the Cross Chasse. [It's] quite useful and a lot of fun, let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, as you can see the Cross Chasse follows a fairly standard pattern of drive and then a  chasse; so a slow quick-quick slow. Slightly unique in that it starts on the leaders left foot and not the right, this allows us to cross the line of dance with the actual chasse portion. [It's] really good for getting yourself out of trouble; really good for upgrading later on when you want to turn it into a running chasse or a cross swivel; but for now let's just focus on the basic version.

So, leads as I've said before you're going to commence this on the left foot, it's quite versatile you can be in an open footed position, you can be anywhere between facing wall and facing diagonal wall, and in the rare case you can be facing line of dance as well. The amounts of turn are a little bit up for grabs, I'll leave that up to you. You're going to progress in line or outside of your partner on the left foot with a slow drive;

Slow.

Now we're going to perform a chasse but we're not on the foot that takes this down line of dance, so we have to actually cross the line of dance. If I take a side step here and diagonalize across the line here, that's going to be a little bit awkward because now I've gone backwards around line of dance. So, we don't do that, we keep going forwards. That means I have to turn my body, step across the line of dance almost so that I am facing down line of dance now, close my feet they're our two quicks, and now I'm ready again on my right foot. I'll usually be proceeding outside of partner here, worst case scenario down the line of dance but again as I said earlier angles are a little bit up for grabs depending on exactly where you are on the floor and what you need out of the figure.

So, we would have;

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: Followers, I'm going to demonstrate this on a couple of different angles so that you can see. We're starting on our right foot so we'll feel a drive step from our partner on their left. That will take us backwards on the right ready for our chasse left-together-left. So, we've got a Quick-Quick and then back slow. So, our Chasse portion is side-together-back really we're just following the direction of our leads.

As Ian said the angles can change slightly depending on what the leaders want to do with this particular figure, so we're really along for the ride. But, all up, we've got; back on the right then

Quick-Quick.

Slow.

Ian: So, we're going to demonstrate this together in two different ways; well the same way but in two different lines of dance. So, the first line of dance is going to be across the camera, the second line of dance is going to be towards the camera; so you can see what that last step and that final position often looks like.

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: So, as you can see a lot of fun nice short sharp easy to execute and really really useful for getting you out of trouble if you need [it] to, changing directions suddenly without making you come to a sudden stop, and of course can be easily upgraded into other figures. You can add a little bit of that sway that you saw, I'll leave that up to you, you can turn it into different things as you upgrade your Quickstep skills.

To do that make sure you get yourself to a studio, get yourself some physical lessons, get yourself on the floor. We hope these videos are helping but nothing can replace that private tuition or classroom tuition "in the flesh". So, make sure you do that and use this just as a subsidy, but for now try it out see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #013

Change of Place R-L in Jive - Mar 09, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the interwebs my name's Ian

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Ian: Welcome back dancing blitzers today we are hitting up Jive. We are going to be doing one of the many versions of change of place; this one is the all right to left (R-L) colloquially known as the under the arm [it] gets you from closed to open let's take a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, for both parties there is the classic back-replace in the closed position, which we'll go over just in case we haven't learned that yet, and then you have two chasses. And with a lot of our basic figures it is just a matter of where these chasses go and a matter of following the tension in the frame to get a good execution.

Leads we're going to cover your steps first although I do encourage you to watch the follow steps because a lot of what you're doing makes much more sense when you understand what you're asking your follower to do. Imagine you are in a closed frame with your follow in front you're going to do your standard back replace turning an eighth while your follow turns a quarter hitting up that Fallaway Rock position. Quick. and Quick. Now, here's where the differences come in you want to make sure that you don't return to square over that replace step you want to hold your one-eighth position and you want to wind the follow up you you want to give them a little bit of tension and then release them on their second chasse actually going under the arm.

So, our first Chasse is returning the follow to a closed position but not yourself. It's going slightly down the floor almost a compact chasse but making sure we do actually move winding up with our frame and then on the second one we are going to release them under the arm and follow them out to finish the figure.

So, if I do that two speed it would look something like

[Demonstration of leaders steps with counts]

Lindsey: Follows we also have a back-replace and then two chasses. Like Ian said, we're still in a closed position here so our back replaced turns us a quarter, but we'll feel the frame turn us back the way that we came before and our first Chasse is going to be more side-a-side.

Because the followers haven't matched with turning back to us they will feel that tension through the frame and all the fun stuff happens here between our two chasses. So, I've landed the right foot for my first chasse right-a-right we'll then get that release of tension through the frame and that will make me turn to the right and I'll have left-a-left ending up facing my partner who sort of followed along with me as I've turned under the arm. Let's have a look at that from a different angle so you can follow along; we have...

[Demonstration of followers steps with counts]

Lindsey: It's important to note that I wasn't quite in position right after the that first chasse that I used the second chasse to complete my turn so don't feel you have to absolutely whiz around in between your two chassis you should have time to get there nice and safely.

Ian: So, if we have a look at how that fits together now with both halves. If we aim at you at the camera you can see when we hit our Fall Away position leads have turned an eighth follows a quarter that's pretty standard for most of our Fallaway type positions we get through the Fallaway Rock in that position I'm going to keep looking this way but wind Lindsey in; wind her in there's a lot of tension now in this arm there's a little bit of tension underneath and I release that tension by taking the arm up a slight push through for the second Chasse and follow the follower out.

As Lindsey said follows you shouldn't feel the need to whiz around on that first step or in between the steps it's just a quick-a-quick quick-a-quick to get through both those chasses so there's no extra steps to turn with which means for you leaders you don't want to absolutely bolt out on that traveling chasse and bowl over your follower. So, you've got to be prepared to sort of dial it up or down depending on how they're going.

[Demonstration with counts]

And that is a blitz through the change of places right to left in the Jive. You can do a lot more you can overturn them you can upskill them you can find a lot of variety in different ways to smash it into your Jive but that's the basic version give it a go keep it nice and calm nice and small nice and forgiving with your partner and have some fun.

Ballroom Blitz #014

The Natural Turn in Modern Waltz - Mar 13, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the interwebs my name's Ian

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Lindsey: For today's blitz we are delving into the beautiful Modern Waltz. We're going to have a look at one of the classic foundation moves; it's the Natural Turn.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So, in dancing when we turn we essentially have two main options we can turn to the right or we can turn to the left with our partner. If we turn to the right it's called a Natural Turn. So, what you just saw there was our base foundation for turning to the right with our partner. There are many different ways that we can do this so you will encounter a lot of figures that essentially are variations of the natural term but this is where it all starts.

The Natural Turn has two halves and they're essentially a mirror image of each other. So, one of us is going forwards while the other one is going backwards and then we essentially swap roles. So, here we've got the leader going forward first, one of the big rules of thumb in ballroom dancing is that if you want to turn to the right the person going forward has to step has to drive on their right foot first So, if we have a look at the first half of our natural waltz Natural Turn it's following our basic waltz pattern of a drive a side step and a close.

So, if we do the first half Ian's going to drive forwards on the right. Side. And Close. And over that turn we have turned three eighths (3/8s) of a turn. It's now my turn to go forwards. I'm going to go forwards on the right that will keep us going turning to the right so I go forwards at Ian on the right. Side. And we close our feet.

Depending on what move we've just done those drive steps will travel through your partner's feet. This is one of the things that we get used to pretty quickly when we start dancing, but it takes a little bit of courage. So, that drive on the right foot will travel through your partner's feet if you're going forwards and all the usual waltzy rules apply; the drive step is nice and low a nice drive, we then rise it up onto our toes as we take that sideways step, and then we close our feet and bring it back down to earth ready for the next person's drive.

As I said before this has two halves and each of us gets a turn to go forwards. It's very important when it's the other person's turn to go forwards that the person going backwards has their balance and waits for that drive step we want to stay nice and close nice and comfortable in the frame we don't want to go without our partner.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that is your classic Natural Turn, turning to the right, turning about three quarters (3/4s) of a turn. There are so many different variations that you can do of this idea of turning to the right with your partner, but this is the foundation move. So, practice practice practice, get on that floor, and happy Waltzing!

Ballroom Blitz #015

New Yorks in Cha Cha - Mar 16, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the interwebs my name's Ian

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Lindsey: Okay chaps today we are going to have a look at the Cha Cha it's a particular figure called the New Yorks [it's an] absolute classic let's have a look!

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: New York's follow the classic pattern that we find a lot of in your base Cha Cha movements of a step, a rock, and then a chasse following our cha-cha-cha four-and-one timing. Let's have a look at the footwork first and then we'll have a bit of a look at some do's and don'ts.

New Yorks can happen to either side we often do them in pairs or multiple groups but you can just do one and then move on to the next figure. Depending on which foot I am ready on that will determine which way I turn say I'm ready to use my right foot, I want to step forward into my New York so I'm going to be on a little bit of an angle already from my partner and I take a step forward on my right that's on beat two rock backwards on beat three and then I've got my cha-cha-cha. if I turn it a little bit I can set up one on the other side,

so I'll have:

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: One of the main points of the New York is that instead of one of us stepping forward and the other one that's stepping back as we do in our basics, we're both going to step forward. So, that requires us to turn side by side with our partner in order to take that first step so we're both of us stepping forward in the same direction then we rock and we face each other again for our cha-cha-cha, if we do it on the other side where both of us stepping forward into the figure rocking back cha-cha-cha.

Ian: Alrighty let's do some do's and don'ts first the do's do do this figure it's awesome. Do make sure when you're leading this figure leads that you don't stay too straight. As Lindsey said we want to be on a little bit of an angle you'll basically want to move through Open Promenade or Open Counter Promenade as appropriate.

So, you're kind of halfway there you've already turned about an eighth (1/8), and then by the time you get into the step taking that forward step onto you're turning the remainder of the amount. Don't get here and be very square and then take all that turn on step two it's actually quite harsh to do that and your followers most likely going to miss the lead if you try it.

Lindsey: Now after we take that first step a good check for us is if our shoulders are all in a nice square line. So, by that we need to make sure that we have turned enough to take that step that we're not sort of stepping over ourselves. But, also that we have an overturned it what you see a lot of is people almost going back-to-back and that's not correct we that sort of turns that into a sideways step and it's too far you'll have to sort of yank back into your starting position again.

So, we set it up over our preceding cha-cha-cha onto that slight angle and then it's just a little bit more turn our shoulders are nice and straight in a line we have an overturned and sort of rolled that shoulder forward or anything.

Ian: If you're a competitive dancer, well let's face it you're not watching these videos if you are but if you see competitive dancers do that styling that's fine but they obviously have a much more polished routine and a much better idea of their partner's tension etc. for social dancing when you want to pull this out just having some fun really don't overextend, it looks bad it feels bad and it's just not necessary.

Lindsey: Yeah.

If we do want to give this a little bit more shape though that's where you can play around with the arms for styling. So, we've just been demonstrating with a hand fairly low but we can sort of let our creative juices flow a little bit with an arm out to the side or up we find out to the side is sort of more balanced just make sure you're not hitting the people dancing next to you.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that's it for New York so nice and simple but kind of nice and flashy following that classic rhythm so make sure you stick it into your cha cha routines. As always, get into your local studios get on that dance floor and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #016

The Natural Turn in Modern Waltz - Mar 20, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs I'm Ian

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz

Ian: Can you remember when I said this... "heel turns are not today" well now it's time for heel turns.

It is time to tackle the heel turn the other thing from the feather that makes foxtrot a foxtrot, but of course there is a lot more to heel turns than we can cover in a single Blitz and heel turns crop up in more than just foxtrot so we're going to do what we can keep it short, but stay tuned there will be more heel turn orientated blitzes coming up soon.

You can consider your heel turn to be the fanciest Chasse you will ever dance. And if we start there and build up that is the best place to start because you are going to make a step, bring your feet together and then step out after that following that step together step type of arrangement just like a Chasse.

Of course a heel turn turns on the heel it doesn't turn on the ball of the foot this is incredibly important because if you step into a heel turn and turn on the ball of the foot you will get a very undesirable effect. Now, to turn appropriately on the heel of the foot you must be moving backwards. So, if you are traveling forwards into what is a heel turn you're not actually performing the heel turn portion, this means that the followers are most likely to perform a heel turn and leaders heel turns have a slightly different arrangement and a slightly different technique because they are leading the step as well as performing the heel turn; so, we'll leave them for another time. So everything you see in this video only applies to followers.

Of course Heel Turns can occur on either foot you have two of them you can travel forwards and backwards on either of them so you're either going to go left-together-left or right-together-right following your regular ballroom turning; if you're going back on the left you're turning to the right and if you're going back on the right you're turning to the left but the arrangement is the same. You step back or are more appropriately driven back onto that foot by the leader coming forward.

When the weight achieves the heel step when it comes over the heel and the heel has landed on the foot we close the feet just like a chasse, lift the ball of the moving foot to turn, change weight, and then step out on the original foot that moved. Hence, left-together-left or right-together-right.

[Demonstration with explanation]

Ian: So, you get heel turns to the left and heel turns to the right and even though they are most native to the Slow Foxtrot, they do occur in Quickstep and in the Modern Waltz. They never occur in the Tango and they certainly never occur in the Viennese Waltz.

Now depending on exactly what dance you are dancing the exact timing of your Heel Turn will change. The classic foxtrot timing is slow-slow-and or slow-quick-quick if you're that way inclined. However, if your dancing heel turns in Quickstep they'll often just be straight slows because the quicks would be too quick, and of course if you're putting these into a Modern Waltz like with a double reverse spin they will often have a chasse type timing of one-two-and-three or an and step somewhere along the line to get in that extra step of the heel turn.

And that is it blitzing out the heel turns. As you can probably imagine there is loads more to talk about with heel turns we have only just scratched the surface but these are the basis steps that you can put into nearly any Heel Turn the rest is a little bit more situational so we will talk about: frame, exact leads, [and] timings, things like that as we do individual figures but this will get you started in a very broad spectrum type of way. So smash it into your foxtrot and your other heel turn steps and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #017

The Reverse Turn in Samba - Mar 23, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: On Blitz today blitzers we are returning to the world of Samba, that progressional dance that takes us to South America with such fun bounce and verve. We're going to do the Reverse Turn; let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, as you can see in a very a ballroom-esque manner the reverse turn turns reverse just like other ballroom dances, which means it's going to turn to the left. And for the keen-eyed among you that have done some other versions of the reverse turn you will notice that the forward portion has a cross of the foot, so it's not quite a mirror image. Let's break it down have a look at both halves and get you dancing it.

For whoever is dancing forward as we've said we're going to turn reverse or leftwards which means you are coming forward on the left foot and there will be a cross of the feet towards step three. So, we are going to progress forward on the left in a very Samba fashion 1 [one]. Commencing to turn over that step coming around your partner in a nice Samba frame 'a', and then closing the feet in a crossed fashion 2 [two] achieving about 3/8s [three eighths] of a turn in that portion.

[Demonstration of forward portion with counts]

Ian: The rear portion is not quite the natural opposite because it won't have a cross of the feet. But, it does [can] progress from that forward portion. So, you have just danced a left-a-left going forwards, which means you're going to dance a right-a-right going backwards. Of course if you commence going backwards you're just gonna to start with that because that's what you've got to start with.

So, whether you have started without cross feet or you're in the middle of the figure and you have crossed feet that really doesn't matter. You're going to progress back on the right foot doing all the similar things as we did on the forward half. Taking back 1 [one], over the next step we're going to achieve our turn in a very Samba fashion about 3/8s [three eighths] 'a' and then closing the feet 2 [two].

[Demonstration of backward portion with counts]

Ian: It is very important in this figure because of that more open Samba Latin frame that our legs travel under us as we go. Don't take side steps either going forwards or backwards to try and cheat the turn, it just makes it harder on your follower. Allow your frame to contract if you want [it] adds a little bit of styling and makes the turns a little bit smaller but just remember to go forwards and backwards and dance all the steps.

Don't overturn the figure start out with two lots of 3/8s [three eighths] making it 3/4s [three quarters] as you go, and then as you get better you can increase it to 7/8s [seven eighths] or a full turn, but that has implications for what you're going to follow it with.

So, all together starting with the forward half

[Solo Demonstration with counts]

Ian: And all together starting with the backward half.

[Solo Demonstration with counts]

[Partner Demonstration with counts]

Ian: And that is a very basic Blitz on the reverse turn in Samba. There's loads more that we can do without adding bounce and technique and various styling changing the timing and even looking at the natural version as well.

But, for now, that will get you started it's a really good one for relaxing those legs getting you a little bit further around the floor and a break from some of that bouncing action so, I really encourage you to put it into your Samba when you're on the social floor. Try it out, give it a go, let us know how you went, and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #018

Closed Promenade in tango - Mar 27, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: My hair is a bit silly today. You can all deal.

In this blitz video today we're feeling a bit dramatic so we thought we'd do a little bit of Tango and the figure we're going to show you is the Closed Promenade.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: Tango loves promenade position, but of course we don't want to get into Promenade position and then spend the rest of the track having to do everything in Promenade so it equally loves coming out of our Promenade position; and this is exactly what this figure does. It starts in Promenade so you would have done something beforehand that ended in Promenade and this move gets us back into our classic closed hold again.

One of the main jobs of the leader is of course to lead to let the follower know that we are going into this move and changing our position. So, there's some framework to have a look at as well as the footwork. So, let's turn to Ian and he'll take us through it.

Ian: So leads the action for this step really happens between steps two and three the actual closing nature. Now, this is a Closed Promenade you're going to end with your feet together. The same steps do not necessarily apply if you're going to do an Open Promenade that will be another Blitz topic.

As Lindsey said, we will be in our Promenade Position having done whatever amazing things we have done. We will be ready on the left foot, which is slightly unique from your other Ballroom dances where often you're commencing in [on] your right foot in a promenade position.

So, our first step is going to be straight down the line with a very powerful drive-type slow step. The second step now that you're on this rear foot also has to be quite straight and you can't lead your follow to do anything too dramatic on that step so it's going to be quite straight. But now the action starts.

Slow.

Quick.

And over the second quick I am going to inspire my follow to turn back to closed. I am going to close my position to them as well.

Quick.

And now simply on the final part of the figure we close our feet slow returning to that classic closed-footed Tango position.

Close the knees or the feet depending on what you like and what your Technique is preferring and we're ready for the next figure.

[Demonstration of the leaders steps with counts]

Lindsey: [The] followers steps are what we call the natural opposite of the leaders. We are in promenade position with them they were ready to go on the left we're ready to go on the right and we have a forward walk in promenade another, one coming through on that back foot the left foot, and this is where we should feel the frame at work.

We're ready to take this step through along the similar line but the frame will turn it into a side step by turning the rest of us as well and then it's a simple matter of closing our left foot underneath us. So, we have

[Demonstration of the followers steps with counts]

Lindsey: There will be quite a change in the position of our head the followers change of the head from Promenade to closed is much more dramatic than the leaders and we can have some fun with it just don't hurt yourself. So, I'm looking forward in Promenade by the time I finish though, my head is well off to the left.

Ian: So leads you want to have a strong lead between step two and three as we've mentioned, and as Lindsey mentioned follows you are expecting the action to happen between those steps. But how do we make it strong but not too strong? How do we make it powerful but not pushing your partner over?

We want to observe just that nice Tango frame where we're not quite hugging the uh...

Ian: what's this part called?

Lindsey: shoulder blade!

Ian: the shoulder blade… but, we are hugging the rib cage. So, if we are in promenade position I'm going to take a

Slow.

Quick.

And now I'm moving all of my body I'm closing myself I'm closing the follower I'm using that extended extra contact

Quick.

putting us back in that closed position and then closing the feet.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: So that is the Closed Promenade such a useful figure in the Tango world really allowing you to play and shift between those promenade and those closed figures. So, try it out have some fun with it be dramatic stay nice and low stay safe and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #019

Demystifying Fan in Rumba & Cha - Mar 30, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome blitzers, today we are demystifying some language. We're going to be going over the Fan in Cha and Rumba,because the position is in both, and the naughty language that people use is in both.

So we're going to be setting a few things straight getting you on track so that when we actually Blitz out some figures you will know where you need to go and what you need to do.

Alright, first things first, there are two [2] major contexts of the word fan in ballroom dancing, specifically in Cha and Rumba, so let's just keep to those.

1) is as a figure: there is a figure called The Fan.
2) is a position, there is a position called Fan Position.

Now these are very different if you say fan without context and you can't determine whether you mean the figure or the position you're up the creek without a paddle before you've even stepped onto the floor. So, there are two contexts, let's go over them individually.

The position we will demonstrate in a moment the figure though, the figure is very specific it gets from closed to fan position, so the Fan Figure gets you to Fan Position. But, there are two ways of doing it and they sometimes get jumbled but here's the kicker you don't only have to do fan to get to Fan position you can get to Fan position from a bunch of different things, but they are not the fan figure they might be a Hip Twist of a sort or something else.

So, we need to separate Fan Position from Fan Figure and later on we're going to separate Fan Figure from the developed version of the Fan Figure. Both get you to Fan Position.

This is fan position. The important thing to note about fan position is, leaders your hips and shoulders will be square in one direction, and follows your hips and shoulders will be 90 degrees cutting across that position. You will also have your feet arranged in a specific arrangement that will make it very different in feeling to when you will be in a open counter Promenade position.

Basically, if it feels like you can do a New York or a spot turn from this position something isn't right.

However you have arrived in fan position, whether it is the fan figure or something else, leads you'll have all the weight on your right foot and your left foot will be parallel to the right; it's not forward it's not backward it is to the side with no weight. However, follows you will have all the weight on your left foot but your right foot will be pointing forward.

This is because to get to Fan Position leaders have usually done some sort of sideways chasse and follows you have usually done some sort of backwards chasse. So, once again, you haven't got to a point where you can do a New York where you've both done a sidewards Chasse. So use that as a good marker if the follow's gone back and the lead has gone to the side it shouldn't feel like you can New York, and therefore you'll be more in a Fan Position than in open counter promenade position.

So, that is a very quick blitz on Fan Position it should feel very different from your  open counter promenade as we've said, and you get into it via very specific means. We're now going to give you a quick blitz, just a quick run through, on the basic Fan Figure. We will leave amore in-depth analysis for that for a different blitz where we can focus on it a bit more but that [this] will give you an idea of the Fan Figure in its basic form that ends in fan position.

[Demonstration of the Fan Figure]

Ian: So, without any further analysis, you can see from that step there that we started in closed position, we went through a figure, and we ended in fan position. That's your basic Fan Figure. You can do it in Cha Cha, there we demonstrated it in Rumba, and like in many of those basic moves that are interchangeable you simply add to the chasse after the step-rock step.

So, that is it a quick Blitz through some terminology putting it all into perspective and sorting out the difference between fan position and fan figure. There is lots more to go over there are many ways that you can get into fan position, and then once you get there we have to know what to do to get out of it so there's lots more to say but we're going to leave that for another blitz.

Leave us a comment if you want to see something into or out of fan in one of the blitzes coming up. And, what's your experience with some dance terminology? It will be a topic of one of my pet peeves for the future so if you've got some fuel for that fire let us know. But, until then enjoy your Cha enjoy your Rumba f@$k it enjoy all of your dancing and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #020

Rotary Chasses in New Vogue & Sequence - Apr 03, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome back blitzers, today we are blitzing this thing called the Rotary Chasse. It's the first time we've delved into sequence dancing in one of these blitz... es... But, it is something that is worth going over. It does crop up in a number of sequence dances of various sorts. So, let's take a look.

Okay so, a rotary Chasse well what is it?

It's a chasse arrangement of steps so a quick-quick-slow of the form step-together-step that, as advertised, rotates. Please do not call this a Chasse Waltz. That is the most confusing term ever. If you're going to dance the waltz you need a timing of one-two-three. If you're dancing quick-quick-slow it is NOT a Waltz. So, Rotary Chasses are not "Chasse Waltzes". "Chasse Waltzes" don't exist! Now after that little pet peeve, let's have a look at the actual steps.

Ian: So, for the keen eyed among you, you will see that move it does have a lot of similarities with something like a Viennese Waltz specifically the natural turn of a Viennese Waltz. But it does have a few very key differences that make it a rotary Chasse.

One of the similarities though that we will focus on right now is the fact that it has two halves. It has a forward half and it has a backward half and they are basically mirror images of one another and if you are performing the backward half then your partner's performing the forward half, and then you essentially swap to get the rotation. Let's break this type of chasse down before we get into the rotation. A chasse has to be quick-quick-slow, step-close-step. But the steps can go in any direction. What we're going to do with the two halves of a Rotary Chasse is dance:

[Demonstration of Chasse]

Ian: Those are your two halves. Now what we have to do is learn how to rotate. In a nutshell the easiest way to rotate your rotary chassis is to imagine when you are taking your slow step you are walking. And, when you walk you don't walk in circles you walk in straight lines, and when you're dancing you dance around the room. So, if you're walking in straight lines around line of dance, that will get you rotating, initially, it's a good place to start; like so.

[Demonstration of Rotation]

Ian: For the observant among you you will note that the walking down the line steps happens on the slow, which means for whoever's coming forward which will alternate between lead and follow it is a driving power step.

[Demonstration of with counts]

[Demonstration to music]

Ian: And that is it a blitz through the rotary Chasse that is NOT a waltz. It crops up in March Rhythms, Foxtrot Rhythms and it can even be adapted into some Tango Rhythms as well. So, it is quite prevalent in a lot of the sequence dancing. Try it out give it a go hit us up for any comments or more information and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #021

The Appel in Paso Doble - Apr 06, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Today we have exactly one step to look at it is the Appel and it happens in the Paso Doble. It's an absolute classic and a very important step as well so, let's take a look.

[Solo Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: The Appel always happens at the start of the figure in Paso Doble and it is always performed to end with a weight on the right foot for the leaders and the left foot for the followers.

The Appel has sort of two purposes one of them is figurative and one of them is very much practical So the action that we're doing in the sound that it creates is like a bull sort of stomping its hoof on the ground and because the Paso doble is all about the bull fight then that's a nice sort of adding of flavor to your dancing. The other much more practical aspect of it is that it allows the leader to let the follower know that they're about to change direction.

So I'm going to do this as the leader first and I'll do it first facing you and then on an angle so that you can see. What we want to do is rise up onto our toes to begin with. If I want to land with my weight on my right foot that means I want to actually have my balance over my the ball of my left foot as I go up. I'm going to lower down and both of my heels are going to hit the floor but I'm going to transfer my weight onto my right foot. That means that the second step of my figure will be going somewhere or other on the left.

So, I rise up, and then come down you'll notice that both knees are bent, and we get that nice sort of sharp clacking sound of my heels hitting the floor. So we rise up and then down.

So if I combine the Appel with a step say I want to go forward into my figure that I'm doing, I would have my Appel land on beat one and then step on beat two and because we're nice and low when we finish our Appel that means that both of us have our nice stabilizing muscles engaged and we're able to change direction or take a nice strong step somewhere together in a balanced way.

So the appel should be a nice marker nice and balanced and get you ready for the next step what it isn't is a raising of one knee as if we're soldiers marking time we don't want to do our Appel like that. Now, the reason for that is that a I'm a knee my partner into then if they're doing a similar thing or into their leg, but also if I land on a straight leg that force ricochets up my leg and that's actually not very safe so we always want to make sure that we lower as we hit the ground, and then it's happening in a nice safe way I'm nice and balanced and ready for my next movement.

Depending on the hold that you are in with your partner you can get the arms engaged, but what we don't want is to gear up with our shoulders and sort of land our Appel twisted or anything like that so we don't want to go. It's a bit hoedown. So, we want to make sure that our chest is up, Paso Doble requires us to have a very sort of strong proud upright stance. So, we want to maintain that as we're doing our Appel and not get the elbows and shoulders involved too much.

Ian: So, if we put all of these things into practice we're going to achieve a nice strong Paso Doble stance, either after a figure at the beginning of a dance I'm going to rise up Appelling on my right Lindsey on her left, as is common with the Paso and it's as simple as

[Partner demonstration without music]

Ian: and into whatever you put next.

Lindsey: So, that in a nutshell, is your Appel. It's a very common movement at the start of a lot of different figures and it's a lot of fun. There is something called a Slip Appel as well but we will cover that in a separate blitz. So, for now, make some noise have some fun and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #022

Change of Hands Behind The Back in Jive - Apr 10, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Today ballroom dances we are going to have a look at a jive figure in our Blitz, and it is the Change of Hands Behind The Back. It's a complex sounding name but actually you can do the figure faster than you could say the name of the figure. So first up let's take a look at it.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: This figure follows our classic pattern that often comes up in our Jive of a back-replace and then two chasses. A left-a-left then a right-a-right for the leader and the opposite for the follower. We start with a right-a-right and then do a left-a-left. The fun bit of this is the arm work for the leader they get to do something a little bit fancy. So, the move itself sort of swaps us around but it's what the leader is doing with their hands as they do it, that is the trick of it; so let's have a look at that.

So we're going to start with our back replace because we're in an open position it's just a small step away from your partner backwards. So we've got a Back. And then replace our weight onto that initial foot. Ian's now ready to do his Chasse left-a-left. He's going to turn to face you guys doing this one so he'll sort of have a crossed position as he does this first one. But before he does that what he wants to do is swap the hand that his holding my hand with.

So you can see his right hand is coming down and it sort of takes my wrist. He's going to do this as he does his back replace or start the movement, and then as he's doing his chasse he will have my right hand in his; so we've got Back. Replace, and he's taken my hand, and then passed it back to his original hand over that second chasse.

If we do it from this side just looking at which hand he's got he's starting with the left, we've got our back replace take the hand in the right and he's going to take it behind his back you can see there I've sort of held back a little bit, usually in sort of right behind him at this point, but you can see he has swapped the hand back to his left again that means that we can pass by each other and end up on the other side.

We're just going to quickly have a look at the followers steps for this one as we do this movement so our back replaced goes: Right. Left. My first chasse is right-a-right and I too have a bit of a crossing action there as I do it, and then a left a left coming out the other side.

Now, even though this figure is swapping sides we don't have to do this big circle around each other. In fact the followers steps are a fairly straight shot from one side to the other and the leader is sort of shifting slightly out of their way and then back again to end up in the correct position.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration to music]

Lindsey: So, that is your change of hand behind the back for the Jive. There are some different versions of it and you can be a bit playful with the arm movements or whether you even take that hand at all but this is your base so start with this get on the floor have some fun.

Ballroom Blitz #023

Natural Turn in Quickstep - Apr 13, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls of the interwebs I'm Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is the Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome back to another Ballroom Blitz we're doing another natural turn today. A few blitzes ago we did it in the Modern Waltz, link in the description, today we are going to be doing it in the Quickstep. And in the not too distant future, we are going to be doing it in the slow foxtrot and you will see all the similarities and all the differences today is Quickstep; let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, you can see with that demonstration that this version of the natural turn does have two halves; just like the one in the Modern Waltz. But, these two halves are different they're not a mirror image of each other and they have very different things to do and both parts are very different for each dancer so let's break it down and take it from the top.

So, the first half is probably the most similar to the version of the Modern Waltz, again Link in the description, we're going to take a essentially a chasse turn a drive step close. We're going to turn about 3/8s [three eighths] and leads you're going to end up backing a line of dance, which means in readiness for the next half you'll have your follow pointing down line of dance ready for a drive step.

So, leads to start this figure you will be ready on the right foot being Quickstep you will probably be in an open footed position and the first step will probably go outside partner but that is situational so that we won't harp on that. I will be facing diagonal wall so in this example my line of dance is that way and the first three steps danced as a drive-side-together slow-quick-quick. You're going to take a right foot heel drive

Slow. Turn over the next two steps quick. Close your feet quick. And you will notice that I'm facing against line of dance so my partner will be facing a round line of dance ready to drive in the next part of the figure.

Lindsey: The first few steps of the followers will begin on the left foot will be going backwards and as Ian said the drive from the leader might come through our feet in line or it might go outside partner past us. [It] doesn't matter really as long as we are matching that step going backwards.

So, the leader drives we go backwards on the left for a slow, and then have a quick-quick where we go side together, I change weight here I should be ready on my right foot ready to drive a nice straight shot down line of dance.

Ian: So leads following along from the previous demonstration we've arrived here where backing line of dance we are now going to dance three slows so I guess this is a little bit uncommon compared to some of your other basic Quickstep moves, we've had a slow-quick-quick we're now going to follow it with three additional slows. So we're going to really put on the brakes we're going to lower our knees we're going to bend our knees lower our frame allow that follow to drive through with the power step take a straight step back remember to push your toe back don't land the step too early and then cut out their power and block them.

We're going to absorb all that power, slow, we're now going to pass our feet under us and align ourselves on our new dancing angle. Now, line of dance is this way we're pretty much going to use this figure only in a corner, so now we have to imagine that line of dance is straight to the wall, and I'm going to align myself so I am facing diagonal wall. So as this step comes past I'm going to allow my body to turn.

If my line of dance is this way I'm now facing diagonal wall because the wall would be along that side and now I'm just going to simply step out taking a nice easy going walk on the final slow towards a line of dance, or towards the wall diagonal wall to my new line of dance ready at the conclusion of the figure to drive again on my right foot into whatever comes next.

So, if we put those three slows on the end of our preceding slow-quick-quick the entire figure for the lead looks like this.

[Demonstration of leaders steps with counts]

Lindsey: Follower, we have the drive into that second half so we've still got three steps to go all of them slow all of them nice and low we start with our drive on our right foot. So we're forward on the right at our partner we'll feel them take us to the side, and then take a step at us so we will be sent backwards on that right foot. So from the top we'll have:

[Demonstration of followers steps with counts]

Ian: It is important that into that fourth step of the figure that driving slow for the follow that leads you be patient and allow your follow to drive forward. It's also really important for the follows that you give a nice consistent drive step forward because at this point there are a lot of different options that the leader could choose and you may not know particularly in a social setting which turn or or figure he's going to select at that point. So don't try and assume you're going to give a nice powerful consistent drive and leaders you're going to let them and not be impatient and drag them into the rest of the figure.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration to music]

Ian: And that is it a quick blitz through the Natural Turn this time in Quickstep. Watch out for the Foxtrot version coming soon until then bash it out. Remember to only use it on a corner more of that next time and we will see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #024

Progressive Chasse to Right in Modern Waltz - Apr 17, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Today on our blitz we are going to be looking at a lovely Modern Waltz figure it is the Progressive Chasse to Right. This particular figure has actually been stolen from the Quickstep So, it's going to have our usual timing that is applied when we do chasses in Wodern Waltz [it] gives us a little bit of speed, something a little bit different from our usual one-two-three, slow waltz timing. And it gets us a little bit further down the floor when it's needed. It's a great figure to do after the hesitation so what we might do is sort of set up in that position and show you what this move looks like.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: As usual the figure is named for what the leader is doing. So, the leader will have a drive forward on the left followed by a chasse to the right and on their right foot, so a right-together-right and the figure also includes the next step after that, that will be back on the one beat so a drive forward for the follower outside partner into the next figure.

Ian: So lead we will commence this figure driving forward on the left foot, usually diagonally center, but we'll leave that for you to explore. We're going to have our power drive step on 1 [one], and then commence a chasse with timing of 2 & 3 [two-and-three] making sure that we settle that timing, usually turning around about a 1/4 [quarter] over the move but again we'll let you explore that. But as Lindsey mentioned we have to include this next step ensuring that the follow is going to drive forward outside of us we're going to allow them to do that so we absorb that power say thank you very much take a nice slow backward step and then use it however you like into the next figure.

Lindsey: Followers for your step and I'm going to pretend that this is now my line of dance. So, my leader has taken a forward step on their left that means that we have a corresponding step backwards on the right back we'll we'll feel them rise up over that chasse so left-together-left up on our toes. Lowering down at the end that encourages us to have our step past our partner, so outside on the right foot with a nice slow drive into whatever the leaders would like to do next.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: Now, both parties need to make sure that even though we're rising up onto our toes for that chasse don't go too far up. Always keep your control keep your knees slightly bent that will activate the nice big stabilizing muscles in your leg, legs and in your core and you'll be able to perform this figure nice and smoothly and be nice and balanced and together ready to go into the next one.

So, that is the lovely Progressive Chasse to Right. Try it on your Waltz feel free to try it in your Quickstep as well, leaders follow it with a lovely backlock or some kind of impetus turn try it out on your dance floor. As always get yourself into your local Studio to learn more about that figure and more.

Ballroom Blitz #025

The Fan Figure In Cha Cha - Apr 20, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome back blitzers. Can you remember a little while ago when we demystified this term "Fan" in Rumba and Cha? And then I promised you that we would come back and we would do some fan type figures, in a little bit; well now it's time for that. Today we are blitzing the Fan figure in Cha Cha.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: What you just saw there was the most basic version of the most basic figure that gets you from Closed position to Fan position. If we need a revision on exactly what Fan position is go back and have a look at the demystifying fan video; I'll leave the link in the description.

But, for now we're just going to focus on that figure, how to get you from closed position into Fan so you can follow it with something amazing like a myriad of Alamanas or a Hockey Stick or something even more atrociously awesome. So if we assume we have either a rocked in or done some sort of figure to get onto the correct foot steps one to five are going to be just like a closed basic.

Putting in an eighth of the turn to the left as we go between steps three and five simply put

[Demonstration of steps 1 to 5]

Ian: Arriving here having turned about an eighth but with a little bit of momentum.

So we've done the first five steps just like a basic put a little bit of turn in to get a little bit of rotational momentum in, and now we're ready for the gutsy step. Everything about the Fan figure, the most basic version that we're doing today, happens in the next step; step six.

We want to make sure that for the follows they believe that we could just be doing another basic; so we want them to step straight at the leader. When they step straight at the leader the leader needs to coordinate his left hand with his right hand with his right foot in order to get a very drawing in effect so that they can then politely deposit them [the follower] in their new direction so they can Cha into their fan position.

So leads if we have arrived here ready for step six of the figure you are due to go back on your right foot. The follow will be coming forward at you you're almost expecting just to do something as benign as the last half of a basic. We're going to make them believe that we want them to step in at us. But, we're going to use our right hand on their shoulder blade to contract our position just a little bit, as we do that they will draw closer, as we take our back step and as we do that with our right hand, we're going to bring our left hand down and around so that we can put them into that fan position in the remaining steps. So on step six we want this effect happening, ready for step seven to turn them into that fan position.

Lindsey: So followers, as Ian said, step six is where it all happens but we kind of need to make that step to dance that step as if nothing unusual had happened; it's kind of like just  a heads up of what is to come. So we will have just gone Cha-Cha-Cha, our chasse action landing  us on our right foot ready to take that step forward on the left; we're expecting that.

So, even though the frame draws us in a little bit closer, and that right hand sort of drops as the foll uh sorry the leader drops their left hand, we still don't want to do anything at this point we have just been drawn in we are exactly where we need to be. We don't want to suddenly go "oh it's a fan" and try and turn or do anything that we weren't already about to do at that point.

Ian: So, if we have arrived at step six this is now where all the action happens. I'm going to drop this hand, I'm going to draw the follow in we're going to take the step and we're going to set up a little bit of turn as we've got our momentum from the previous five steps. It will look all in all a bit like this.

[Demonstration of step 6]

Ian: And as you can see here Lindsey's come straight at me she's allowed that step to happen she hasn't decided that, yes it's a Fan she knows what she's doing and she's going to start to head in that direction, she's waiting for me to put her on her place for the next few steps, and that way we're dancing together not two individual parts.

With all that taken into account what happens on step seven? Well as I get my follow in on step six I have changed my hand position, I've brought them closer. I now need to get them in a position so that they can go backwards into a Fan position. We want them to Cha backwards into fan. So, to do that, as we said in the previous demystifying fan video, I need to put Lindsey on a perpendicular to me I need to make sure that she's turned 90 degrees or one quarter. So as we take our step seven, our replace step, our rock step, I'm going to rock her a quarter. Across that way so that now if she was to Cha backwards and I was to Cha to the side we would achieve a perfect fan position.

[Demonstration of steps 6 to 10 with counts]

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: And that is it your basic Fan figure in the Cha Cha. Of course if you take out the chasses you can get double your money by doing it in your Rumba and you can upskill it into the developed version which puts a little bit more pizzazz into it as well. But,  this is a fantastic first step on the social floor to get into your Alamanas, Hockey Sticks, and all those other fantastic things from fan. And now we can see after our demystifying video how we get to that position and why it shouldn't feel like in New York. So, put it into practice get onto the floor get into your local studio so you can get more practice with a professional in your local area smash that like button and we will see you in the next blitz.

Ballroom Blitz #025

Demystifying “Open” in Modern Ballroom - Apr 24, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome back blitzers to another Ballroom Blitz Demystification. Today we're talking about the term "Open" in Modern Ballroom. Let's get talking about it!

So, the term "Open" has a number of different meanings depending on the context that you are talking about it in. Which, considering how often it is used in a ballroom setting, is to be quite frank; a pain in the ass. So, we're going to talk about the 2 [two] major ways the term open is used, and then you will have a better understanding of some of the contexts that it's [used] in and at least have a few guiding lights for when you find it in something that you don't know exactly what it means.

So, the first context, or the first meaning that the term "Open" can be, basically refers to promenade. Or sometimes you can think of "Ending in Promenade". So if we take the term, or take the figure, an Open Impetus [Turn] or an Open Telemark; in this case the term open means you're going to end that figure in Promenade Position. So you have opened the frame for want of a better analogy really. And those are the ones where usually if it precedes the name of a figure that's kind of a good rule of thumb, and there are many other ways that you can or many other figures that you can find that in.

Why some of them are called open and the others are called ended in Promenade who kind of knows? Someone somewhere in a stuffy jacket and the top hat decided that that's the way it was going to be shoved it in a book and that's how we all reference them now. But, that is one major way that we use this term "Open" kind of as a replacement for "Ended in Promenade Position.

So, as an example Lindsey and I are going to do a Closed Telemark

[Demonstration]

And we keep [stay] in a closed position. If we do an "Open" Telemark we will end up in the Promenade Position.

[Demonstration]

And that makes it an "Open" figure.

Ian: The other major way that we use the term "Open" is more of a reference to the feet. If we take an "Open" Natural Turn for example, an Open Natural Turn doesn't end in promenade position; but, it doesn't close the feet through the figure either. So, the feet remain "Open" for want of a better phrase. At no point do they actually close together you don't chasse through them at all. It's just a bit more like walking and when you walk down the street you don't step close step close you just walk one foot then the other.

This then causes problems when you have open turns in Quickstep, because they're often called "Running" turns and so some of them you just have to learn that open in this context means don't close your feet and running means the same thing but in a different dance. Then there's all sorts of other crossovers like a running chasse where you don't cross your feet but you close your feet because it's a chasse but you don't because it's running and it's just a bit of a hot mess. So, you kind of just have to learn a few of those exceptions as well. But, the other major one the take home from today is the "Open" in this context means you don't close your feet throughout the figure.

If Lindsey and I now do a Chasse Reverse Turn

[Demonstration]

At every point we have closed our feet.

If we do an "Open" Reverse Turn.

[Demonstration]

At no point have we closed our feet.

Ian: So, that is it a rough and ready smashing through the idea of what open means in Modern Ballroom. We haven't touched on Latin and we haven't really touched on New Vogue and sequence either; they have their own terminologies unto themselves. I hope this has helped clarify a few [things]. I hope you find the exceptions. Let us know in the comments whether you have any of these types of terminologies that you would like clarifying or if what's your experience of the term open whether it's helped or confused you when you're trying to work out certain figures. If you like this content smash the like button don't forget to subscribe all those fantastic things and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #027

Solo Spot Voltas in Samba - Apr 27, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Welcome back blitzers, today we are looking at a Samba move and it's an action that comes up a lot in Samba, it's a Volta but we're going to be looking specifically at the Solo Spot Volta.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: The Solo Spot Volta is used, funnily enough, when you want to turn on the spot. So it's using our classic Samba bounce rhythm and the Volta action; which I will show you independently first, and then we'll see how that matches in with how we turn it around.

So, the Volta action first if I just do it to the side is this action that comes up a lot in our Samba where we are standing on one particular foot you can do it both ways but say I'm standing on my left foot here I bring my right in front and I bend my knees so that's our sort of Volta position, and if I'm doing multiple Voltas which we nearly always do we're going to take our other foot to the side and then bring that foot back into that same position and in that way we can sort of shift it where we need it.

So, with my Solo Spot Volta the idea is I should be able to turn a full turn around by doing my Drop. a. Drop. So if I'm turning it around if I'm ready to drop on my right foot I'm going to turn to the right so I'm doing a natural turn here a clockwise turn and it will look a bit like this.

[Demonstration of Solo Spot Volta to the Right]

Lindsey: If I've got my weight on my right foot and I want to do a spot filter I'm going to have that Volta action on my left foot which means I'm turning to the left; and I will have

[Demonstration of Solo Spot Volta to the Left]

Lindsey: turning all the way around.

So, when we're doing Solo Spot Volta our timing is the same as our basic movement so we'll have a 1a2 1a2 timing. So, if I do one to the right it will be

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: If I want my Solo Spot Volta to get all the way around I'm going to show you side on the first dropping action where say I'm going to my right I'm going to come onto my right foot. I'm going to turn a quarter so that's my first step there with my weight on my right where I'm going to place my left toe is going to be kind of behind me if you think about where I started so I need to get my toe over here that means that I can turn on the spot and I'm back to that Volta position having turned a full turnaround.

One of the challenges as we turn around that swiftly is to keep our balance. What you'll find is that if you bend your knees in that Volta position and squeeze your thighs together, always making sure we're keeping the rest of us nice and upright, you will find you can keep your balance much better.

Often it's the follower doing this movement and they can either do it under the arm as the leader does something like a whisk, or they're often required to do it when the leader is doing a foot change into a different position, but you can do it with the leader and the follower both doing a spot falter at the same time with the leader say turning to the left while the follower is turning to the right, and then maybe going back the other way.

We're going to do a couple of Whisks first, and then you'll see Ian set up with his hand signaling that we're going to do spot faulters next.

So we'll have,

[Demonstration with counts - Whisks into Solo Spot Voltas]

Lindsey: If Ian wants to lead me doing a Spot Volta while he's doing Whisks it will look a bit like this.

[Demonstration with counts - Whisk with ladies underarm turn (Solo Spot Volta)]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: So, that's it for the Solo Spot Volta. It's a very useful move to be able to do and it's a great example of what we can do with our Voltas; a really versatile action. So, see if you can get them into your next Samba when you're on the floor. Get into your local Studio to find out more and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #028

Open Reverse Turn (lady outside) in Tango - May 01, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Today ballroom blitzers we are heading into the world of Tango. We've got a fantastic move for you; it's a reverse turn there's several different ways of doing a reverse turn in the Tango. We're going to show you the lady outside version.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: This figure takes up two bars and its timing is Quick-Quick-Slow Quick-Quick-Slow. In many ways it's very much like reverse turns in our other dances where we want the person coming forward on the left foot, which turns us to the left, and there is a forward half and a backward half.

The thing that makes this a lady outside, or partner outside, is in the middle portion the leader is encouraging the lady to step past them rather than straight at them. So there's  some care they need to do with setting up a particular angle to lead that.

Ian: So, leaders you should be prepared to come forward to start this figure on your left foot, because we are turning to the left; turning in the reverse direction. And as with a lot of these types of turns we will turn about three quarters of a turn over the figure; so, the best way to start is actually facing diagonal center.

Moving in for the first portion, and then back out for the second portion. If we start on our left foot we come in with the left. Quick. We turn around the follow quick here I'm going to make about a quarter of a turn so not quite half [way] just yet. That keeps the follow outside of me so if I take a contra step. Back and underneath. They will be inspired to take a contra step forward and across and that way they remain outside of me in the first half of the figure hence lady outside. For the leads it would be

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps 1 to 3]

Ian: Now that we've arrived at the Midway point we have a second series of quick-quick-slows but we're going to instead of approaching this like an open term with open feet at the halfway point we're going to end it much more like a chasse turn. I now have a little bit more than 3/8s (three eighths) of a turn to make up for. So that over the whole figure I have 3/4 (three quarters) of a turn.

I'm going to inspire the follow to come forward as I take a quick, I'm going to take a small step quick aligning towards the wall, and then slow to close my feet ready in my Tango position to follow with any figure that comes from a closed footed position. Putting that all together we have:

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps]

Lindsey: Followers we'll start this move backing diagonal center as the leaders are coming forward diagonal center on that first step. We're ready to go backwards on our right, we've got a couple of steps but by the end of step two we should have realized two things:

a) that it is in fact a reverse turn; and
b) that they are setting up our step past them.

So we should feel it in the frame and the amount of turn. So we're going backwards on the right as the leaders come forward. Quick. And Quick.

By the time we land our step to the side here we should feel like there's a bit of a passage there. Now, this doesn't mean that the leaders have disappeared or given us a huge amount of room we should be still nice and snug on the hip but we should get the feeling that we are being guided to take a step across ourselves and that should pass outside of our partner. Meaning it's not through their legs it's it's sort of on their outside of their leg there.

So that's our first half we've got quick-quick-slow to get there. [The] second half I'm ready to come forwards on my left that will help a nice drive step there will help the leader turn us the rest of the way off to the left so we've got a Quick. Quick. and then close the feet Slow.

So all together I'll have

[Demonstration of Followers Steps]

Lindsey: and those two center steps are my forward work having an nice passage past my partner.

As with all of our Tango figures we are staying low we are staying close. Even though we are stepping past our partner we don't need to worry about coming to promenade position; we stay in a closed hold the entire way.

So we have

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that is it for the reverse turn lady outside. You will come across reverse turns in Tango and indeed other dancers as well. We'll put some on in future blitzes so look out for them there are different ways to end it so all sorts of fun that can be had. But, that will get you going that will be your base for a while so try it out on the Tango floor have some fun with it, be nice and dramatic with it and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #029

Cuban Rocks in Rumba - May 04, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Today on blitz ballroom dances we are going back to Rumba. We're going to do a nice simple figure called Cuban Rocks. A little bit of hip action without going too far at all let's get into it.

[demonstration without music]

Ian: So, as you can see from that demonstration stupendously easy figure the Cuban Rocks are, and incredibly versatile because you can put them in a number of different places. Essentially with this figure you want to keep your Rumba timing of Two. Three Four-One. or some people like to prefer Quick-Quick-Slow. But, all we're doing is changing our weight. We want to have complete weight change on two another one on three and then a very slow one over four and one so we haven't really taken our feet anywhere we are just rocking in Cuban timing.

These figures can be danced in the closed position [or] they can be danced when your feet are in any open orientation. Some people will dance them with a  movement on the first step so from a closed footed position, I don't go in for that but you kind of can. So, you can then put them basically after a New York after a hand to hand basically anytime you find yourself with open feet, you can hold position, you can do one bar which will basically exchange the weight that your foot is distributed across so that you might go into a particular figure or if you do it in pairs you basically get back to exactly the same position so you've just taken a break and not gone anywhere.

So, if we've arrived at a position where we have open feet and we are open to the side a set of Cuban rocks would be:

[demonstration with counts]

Ian: Having that nice slow Rumba settle on that last beat and if we did the same but back the other way it would be:

[demonstration with counts]

Ian: Of course if we have arrived at an open footed position where we are forward and backward, you can even sneak these in diagonally if you like, it's exactly the same principle we have:

[demonstration with counts]

Ian: Exactly the same just forwards and backwards instead of side to side.

To get a nice easy-does-it Cuban Rock, leads you need to be just that little bit more stronger in your lead to make sure you hold the follow in position so they don't take a step that they're probably expecting to take in that first two beat of your Cuban rocks. Once you're there we want to maintain position and tension and just ease through the rest of the figure. And then same-same when you're coming out the other end and you want to move again. Make sure we apply appropriate tension, and then move into whatever figure kicks you off once you're done.

[demonstration with music]

And that is about it for Cuban Rock super short super easy super versatile when you need just that little bit of a break on the Rumba floor and with a little bit of practice in that tension you can plop them in almost anywhere. I challenge you to find as many ways that you can put them into your Rumba smash 'em out try them on the social floor and let us know how you go that's it from us for now we will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #030

Reverse Turn (incorporating feather finish) in Slow Foxtrot - May 11, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Hello blitzers, today we're looking at a [Slow] Foxtrot figure and it's an absolute classic; it's the reverse turn incorporating feather finish.

Now this move has some absolute staples that come up in the Foxtrot Rhythm. For starters it has a heel turn, that's performed by the follower, and then at the end it is taking us into a feather position.

Now, if you want to study up on what exactly the Heel Turn is, what we have to do to lead and to perform one of those we've made a video of that you'll find it in the description underneath.

Also we have had a look not at the Feather Finish but at the Feather Step and that's got some important information in there again the link is down below.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: As the name reverse turn suggests this figure turns to the left. First the leader drives forward on the left creating that turn anti-clockwise and then halfway through the follower follow suit.

Ian: Leaders, we're going to commence the figure facing roughly Diagonal Center ready to go forward driving on our left foot, putting the follower into their heel turn.

So, we're going to drive forward, move around the follow into the heel turn, stepping back in the stock standard classic exit. Straight back, taking that second quick and settling in; this sets up for the follows drive step.

[The] follows are now going to drive forward we are going to let them and then move into our feathered position to create our feather finish, and of course because we don't want to end here with feathered feet and offer quick, we're going to add one more settling slow into whatever we put next.

So with counts we would have:

[Demonstration of leaders steps]

Lindsey: We are in a closed position when we start this figure so, as the leader comes forward on the left followers we want to go backwards on the right. And because we have a Heel Turn to perform then we'll feel that being led by the leader steps sort of stepping past us and keeping us on our foot.

Wherever our heel lands on that first backward step that's where we will be performing our Heel Turn so we have: backwards on the right, heel turn and we change weight at this point onto our left foot so we can step out of our Heel Turn forwards on the right foot.

That's just a toe step, it shouldn't go terribly far but it should set up the direction of our next drive. As promised that's on our left foot to keep us turning to the left so we have a drive forward on the left, the leaders will then take over again we'll feel ourselves taken to the side, put into a feathered position, so we'll be crossed in the legs there and then it will finish with a slow once more will be going backwards on our right foot.

So we have:

[Demonstration of the followers steps]

Lindsey: Performing heel steps and turns and feathers isn't always the easiest but there's a few things that can help us keep our balance and keep together and get a nice smooth action.

The first one is for the followers to really try to just take that initial step and then close their feet, we don't really want to help with the turn by sort of jerking our frame or our shoulder or our head around it's for the leaders second step that we don't have that sort of swings us around into position. So, if we can take a back seat on that one and just try and keep nice and upright keep our own balance over our heel that is for the best.

Leaders when you get to your backward steps after that, again you kind of want your balance and to have a back seat that's for the followers to take their forward steps at you so they should sort of be setting the length of step at that point.

And with the feather finish as with any other feather step one or other of us in most cases and in this case the leader is stepping past their partner, that doesn't mean that we come off the hip we should still be in a nice close position right hip to right hip. It's the angle and the turn that allows that step to come past the followers rather than at them.

So, what we have is: the leaders drive and I'm just going to close my feet there Ian then goes to sleep I take my forward work he takes over again and we're through.

So, from this angle you should see at the end when we do our feather we're still nice and close on the hip, we haven't come apart.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

And that is it for the Reverse Turn Incorporating Feather Finish in the Slow Foxtrot. So, have a go, keep it smooth and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #031

Chasses to Right in Paso Doble- May 11, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome blitzers, today we are returning to the fun bullfight dance the Paso Doble Another stupendously easy figure called Chasses to Right. Let's not waste any time let's dust off those boots and get into it.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: And it is as simple as that; Blitz done!

No.

We'll give you a little bit more information.

But, it is pretty much that simple. We're going to take two sets of side close, starting on the leader's right foot, to the leader's right. Because all of our steps [in Paso Doble] bar one, start on the leader's right foot, we don't need an Appel.

So, we're going to take a right close right close for the leader, and then because we're in a closed position it will be a left close and left close for the follower.

But you do have some options of whether you're going to do this in an elevated fashion so a bit more up on your toes or if we're going to keep it a little bit more dramatic with bent knees ready to go into different figures.

So that kind of depends on what look you want and what the function of the step after that is going to be.

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And now, it's as simple as that!

As you saw no Appel [just] a simple series of Step closers step closers progressing to the leaders right. if we consult our literature it will tell us it has 4steps but as we know Paso Doble is easy to cut these things in half and do 2, or add a few more and do 6 or 8 if you really want or need to do that and can't find anything better to do.

Being in a closed hold it's really easy just to hold the following position and lead the figure a little bit off the cuff. So really easy just to plop in whenever you need to. Try it out give it a go have fun with your Paso fight those bulls like you've never fought them before and we'll see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #032

Aerials in New Vogue & Sequence - May 15, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome back blitzers, today we are going back into the world of new Vogue and sequence and we're going to take a look at these things called Aerials. In layman's terms they're the "kicks" where you don't want to kick your partner and you don't want to fall over so let's work out how to do that.

So if we're dancing a sequence dance we have to be a little bit more prepared to use both halves of our body a little bit more equally so we're going to kick on our left or kick on our right. And we're going to stop using that word "kick", and we're going to be a little bit more fancy now that we know that it's called an Aerial!

So, what is that? Well it's not a punt and we're not going to point our toe to the sky. Because, what you'll do if you point your toe to the sky, you [will] stretch all your hamstrings and all those muscles at the back, that pulls on your back that throws your weight back and before you know it you're on your ass on the floor everyone's laughing at you and it's like what happened so we want to avoid all of that.

How do we do that? The easiest way to do that is if you're going to point your toe point it a little bit more to the floor. Now don't go the complete other way and go point to the floor because that's not a kick either that's a knee to the crotch that we don't want to do either.

So, an Aerial is going to take both of those ideas and just soften them a little bit. We're going to keep our legs a little bit bent because that's good in dancing for balance anyway and we're going to swing from the hip while keeping everything about our leg nice and stable. So it's as if your hip is a hinge and your leg is a pendulum; we're just going to swing it out like so and you can see nothing has happened.

So what are we not doing we're not doing that. That's called a Develope, and it's nice but it's not an aerial, so don't do it! You can do this on both feet and if you need to we're going to lift that standing leg as well.

Because often you've done a three-step or something else into this and we're going to lift that standing leg, come up onto the ball of the standing foot, get a little bit of stretch and height and grace happening.

So, we're not going to mark time, we're not going to punt footballs, we're just going to stand on our standing leg turn our hip into a hinge, keep everything nice and still about our moving leg and move it usually forwards but there's obviously a little bit of back swing as well and that really is the basics of your aerial.

Lindsey: Now of course some of the fun of the new Vogues is that we end up in all sorts of different holds and positions with our partner. If we're performing an Aerial and we're an open extended position or otherwise known as side by side with our partner. Often we are stepping on our outside foot and Aerialing with our inside foot the one closest to our partner, in which case would you usually have just a nice sort of straight swing out in front of us; like so step and swinging that leg through.

[Demonstration of Aerial in open-extended position]

Lindsey: It's usually followed by a backward motion after that because that pendulum action is perfect for changing our direction from going forwards to then proceeding backwards.

There are other times when we are in promenade position, so we're still going to take a step forward and swing forward but it's not going to be straight forward with our hips otherwise we are going to kick each other so it'll be a little bit more across your own body like so.

[Demonstration of Aerial in promenade position]

Lindsey: A step and swing and again usually proceeding backwards after that.

Ian: Now really the final thing to talk about with Ariel is the height. Officially if you read your dancing literature you kind of get three versions or three heights of Aerial whether it's low medium or high.

Really, unless you're dancing competitively or going out for a high level medal that doesn't necessarily have to apply but basically the rule of thumb is if you end up on your bum you've gone too high.

So, we want to make sure that we're not kicking to the stars we're not trying to get our foot over our head or kick the person in front of you, they generally don't like that either, we're just going to have a nice leisurely swing forward and back. You'll find the best feeling is when you can synchronize that with your partner, [it] doesn't always happen but it's a nice standard to aim for, and we want to make sure that you just don't go too high because there's no need for it and usually it takes longer than you have in your timing

And that is it blitzing the basics of Aerials. They're not Developes they shouldn't end you on your bum and you should have some fun with them. So, don't kick yourself or anyone else or your partner put them into your New Vogue or any other sequence where they come along. Let us know if you have any questions about Aerials or any other line shapes that pop up in your New Vogues, and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #033

Short Chasses in Slow Rhythm - May 18, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Today we are doing some more Slow Rhythm. That nice easy going get up anywhere type of ballroom dance that you can cheat a few things into and out of to make it even more fun and adaptable.

Today we are going to be doing what's called Short Chasses and we're going to use them to cheat our way into Promenade and back out of Promenade so we can get some fancy steps on the floor without needing too many fancy steps to get into them so let's have look.

So, a Chasse is usually quick quick slow step closed step and you can do them in all sorts of different ways. What are we going to do today with this thing that we call a "Short Chasse"?

Well, basically we're just going to do the quick quick or the step close.

And we're going to start in either closed position or Promenade position, and when we close our feet we're going to swap to the other one. So, we don't have to do anything like an Open Impetus turn or open Telemarks, or sort of larger scale moves that you might not usually see in your Slow Rhythm.

We're just going to side close into and out of Promenade so we can get to our walking and conversation steps and other things like that. Nice and easy does it but a little bit of a knack as well so we can both do it together.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, as you can see not too hard at all and hopefully as you can imagine really really useful as well.

Where you put these in the rest of your Slow Rhythm

type of steps is kind of up to you. Anytime you have an opportunity to move to the side you can close your feet and then shift your partner to the Promenade position for your short Chasse into Promenade, and then of course whenever you're promenading and you're on the correct foot you can close your partner and close your feet and then get started again.

So, let's take a little bit of a look at exactly what we're doing with the frame, and then maybe where we can put these in so you can get the most value out of them. So, if we are in the closed position and we want to move to Promenade Position I have to politely tell my follow that I want them to change their frame from closing that right hip to right hip to rolling around the side so we can walk in the same direction; and I want to do that as I close my feet.

So if we've taken a straight stock-standard side step as I close my feet I want to give a polite push with this hand on their shoulder blade a polite amount of resistance with my forward hand so that they know that they're going to close their feet and change to promenade. This here if we close our feet under us we'll enable the follow to close their feet and we get a nice clean walk into the next figure.

[Demonstration from Closed to Promenade]

Ian: If we are closing out of Promenade position it's kind of the same thing but in reverse. We want the follow to take a forward step and at this point we can almost say that it's like any other regular promenade step.

But as we close our feet we want to inspire the follow to close their body position as well, which will then require a small swivel on their right foot, so that we have closed closed our head closed our frame closed our position ready to take usually a forward walk for the leader which then is a backward walk for the follower into whatever figure you do next.

[Demonstration from Promenade to Closed]

Ian: I like to insert these short chassis to and from promenade while we're dancing our basic quarter turns to left and right. Our quarter turns to left and right in our Slow Rhythm have a walk a step closing a walk.

So, if we imagine changing to and from Promenade in the middle you can still put those walks before and after and you can use your natural step-close to perform your Short Chasse and change position in the middle. That's what we're going to show you now.

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: So as you can see they're easy to plop in with your basics either side. Now, of course, there are many other ways that you can put these Short Chasses in many other places and we'll let you explore that. But, if you're going to do them this way pretty much it's always going to be the leader's left foot that will walk out and that means it will always be the followers right foot that will walk out. Both into Promenade and back into the Closed Position.

Now you can do this from either half of your basic so the leader can be going backwards and then Chasse into Promenade or out of Promenade. So, there you just need to really have a command of your frame and your follower so that you can indicate to them exactly when and how and where you're going to go when you're using this move; So that you can get the maximum benefit out of it.

[Demonstration with music]

And that is it blitzing out short chassis into and out of Promenade position

Do you know what dances well in Promenade position?
- The Conversation Step.

Do you know what we've already blitzed?
- The Conversation Step.

I will put the link in the description so you can revise that one and now you can dance through your Basics into Promenade into your Conversation Step out of Promenade and Back to Basics again. Give that a go on the floor, let us know how you go, check out all the next ones, and we will see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #034

Fallaway Rock in Jive - May 22, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Today dancers we're going to keep nice and toasty warm with a Jive move, it's called a Fallaway rock, you may know it as a basic or a closed basic it's where we tend to start when we first learn this dance. So, let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: This figure is following a pretty classic rhythm of a back-replace by both partners followed by two chasses. We want to keep it nice and tight, nice and light, because the Jive goes pretty fast.

The first job with most of our Jive moves is to get a little bit of tension going through our frame in this case it's a closed frame and that's what the back-replace is for. So, the leader is going backwards on the left foot, and then; it's called a back-replace if I back up here so you can see my feet...

...going backwards behind it there's a little bit of a turn here for the leader backwards onto the left foot, pressure through the ball of the foot first and then the heel lowers to the floor.

You can see what that's done to my forward foot, I actually lift that one up and then replace it right back to where it started making sure I get my weight on that second foot so I'm ready for my chassis on the left.

For the follower it's almost exactly the same we have a little bit more turn. So, if I'm facing my partner here when I do my back replace it again is going to sort of land just behind my other foot we don't want to actually take a backward step anyway we want this to be largely on the spot. I'm going to turn a quarter and my lead is going to help, so my first step which is on my right, I lift my knee and it will land there and I have turned a quarter. Again the ball of the foot hits the floor first, I then push my heel down with some control that pops my left foot up into the floor but I'm going to just replace it back to where it was with my weight on it ready for my chasse on my right.

So, if we start facing each other Ian's going to end up on an angle and I'm going to end up turning a quarter to face you guys.

So we have a:

[Demonstration of steps 1 & 2]

Lindsey: With most of our Jive we don't have that many slows we have Quicks and we have Quick-a-Quicks. These two are two quicks so we will have:

[Demonstration of steps 1 & 2 with counts]

Lindsey: After we've had that almost sort of a slight push away, and then sort of snapping back towards each other again creating that tension we're going to do something with that tension with our two chasses.

So, the leader will have a left-a-left followed by a right-a-right. Followers will have the opposite and what we're going to do is to square up with each other and take those chasses in a sideways direction first one way towards our hands, and then the other. So, if we do it from this angle you'll see us do our back-replace: then our first chasse is going to take us along the floor and our second one is going to take us back from whence we came.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: Hardly any of our drive moves are terribly big because they are fast but we do want to make sure that in this particular figure we do get that sideways movement with the chasses so we don't confuse them with any of our other figures that it might be.

Now, because the Jive is fast and because between those two chasses we're changing direction we want to make sure that we're doing this lightly but safely. So, we use pressure through our feet to help keep things nice and light but to be able to use the floor to help change direction and we want to make sure that we have nice soft knees. So, you'll feel the balls of your feet. The heels are touching the ground as well when they need to to help keep things nice and light but under your control.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that's all there is to it. So the Fallaway rock is a great starting place. It's also a great move if you forget all other moves when you're out on the social floor. You're nicely in contact with your partner and you can repeat this move because it lands you exactly where you started. So use it as a base for either doing another one or launching into your other Jive moves. Have some fun, we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #035

Quarter Turn to Left (Heel Pivot) in Quickstep - May 25, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome back blitzers we are doing a Quickstep move today and it is a little known one and a far underused one called the Quarter Turn to Left also known as the Heel Pivot. Now, most people know it's bigger brother the quarter turned to right and we will probably Blitz that at some stage but let's face it it's old hat everyone does that one we're going to do Quarter Turn to Left (Heel Pivot) today so; let's get into it.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: As with a lot of our basic Quickstep moves the rhythm for this figure has a Slow-Quick-Quick-Slow. And as advertised in the name Quarter Turn to Left it turns a quarter turn to the left. So, if you do know the quarter turn to right you can now perform Quarter Turn to Right, Quarter Turn to Left, Quarter Turn to Right. But, this one is a little bit different. It does have a heel pivot for a very specific reason. We want to exit this figure in line with our partner not outside of partner like so many of our other Quickstep moves.

This means you probably don't want to do too many in a row because you kind of lose your Quickstep flow, but it's really useful if you need to keep your partner a little bit close and exit so that you can enter into a figure starting in line.

Leads you've arrived at a position where you need to turn a quarter to the left. Usually that means you'll be backing diagonal center so that you can turn to face diagonal wall, but you might find other uses for it as well. The follower will be driving forward you are going to go back on your right foot with a slow. I will let Lindsey discuss the follow steps in a moment.

What I want to do now though is perform the heel pivot or as I like to call it the penguin feet and the first part to do that is you're going to point the toe of your now moving foot your left foot you're going to point that in the direction you're going to go next and glue your heels together. So, you have like penguin feet this creates a lot of tension across the top of your legs; that's going to help you turn.

That's your first quick step to glue your heels together. The second quick step is to pivot the heel of your right foot to close your feet, that's where the name heel pivot comes from. And now all I have to do is take a light walk forward on my left foot and I've completed the figure; that's our final slow.

So, if we put those all together we have: slow back right glue the feet together quick left close the feet quick right walk out slow left.

[Demonstration of leaders steps

Lindsey: I will face you for the start of this one but then I'll switch it round. The leaders were going backwards on the right foot that means that we're ready to go forwards on the left and this is our drive step. So we make sure that we've got a nice steady standing foot, the left foot goes forward and we are going to take a drive at our partner so, that's going to go into the floor diagonal center.

Now as the leaders are doing their heel pivot for the quick-quick they're sort of on the spot at that point with their heels together but we're on the outs outside of the circle in this case, so we will have a side step and close. It's important that we're following the hip around and following the frame around to judge where exactly that second step is going to go. After our drive step we're sort of the passengers again and we need to follow where our leader is going because it could be multiple different figures.

As my left foot comes in to meet my right or my second quick I'm going to change weight, that means I'm ready on my right foot for the final step, and you will feel the leader come forward at you which means we will back it up on that right foot in the direction that the leader is going. True to its name we will have turned a quarter over that figure to the left. So we will have: a slow with a drive quick to the side quick close our feet slow backwards on the right.

[Demonstration of followers steps]

Ian: Now leaders when you are going through for your quarter turn to left in your Quickstep there's two main things you want to remember. One, this is a heel pivot not a heel turn. So we do want to get that penguin feet step and pivot your foot to close don't step back and turn on the same heel then you will be most likely to skip a step or if not skip a step you will turn far faster than your follower will will be so you'll actually essentially be out of time with your partner.

Now to help with that brings us to our second thing This is a unique step in that after you take that first toe heel backwards, you get three heels in a row; your very flat footed, there's no rise and fall because you're not actually performing a chasse. This means for the followers don't be perturbed by not feeling that rise but kind of take it as part of the lead that you're going to be doing the Quarter Turn to Left and not something like a Progressive Chasse or something like that.

This will enable that forward walk at the end to be in line with your partner kind of the reason why we would be doing a Quarter Turn to Left to remain in line and you wouldn't have risen out done less turn and end up proceeding outside. So keep those two things in mind it's not a heel turn and you don't rise through the figure. Three heels in a row.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it the quarter turn to left in your Quickstep. Slightly different from the quarter turn to left in your Slow Rhythm, but a really really useful one for getting you up on the floor quickly without needing to get outside partner and do Progressive Chasses and [Forward] Locks and all those sorts of other things that you will eventually get into but can get onto the floor without when you use this one. So, cheat it onto the floor, give it a go, stay in line with your partner, stay low, have fun, and we will see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #036

Hockey Stick in Rumba- May 29, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome blitzers, today on Ballroom Blitz we are returning to the field of Rumba and we're going to start from the Fan Position, fan related links in the description, and we're going to be doing a figure called the Hockey Stick. Let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So this figure commences in the Fan Position and we have done a blitz on the fan we will leave the link in the description. The first two steps from fan position are the classic gimme steps whether you're doing it in Rumba or Cha, we'll go over those and they will be a stock standard no matter what figure you would do from that position.

Once we're from there there's a very specific lead to get us into the Hockey Stick, and once we know we're in the Hockey Stick it's all systems go, we just need to stay nice and compact. Let's break it down and have a deeper look. Leads if you have arrived at Fan Position your first two steps the two-three whether it's Rumba or Cha always will be to step forward on your left foot, two, at this point you're also going to inspire the follow to close their feet, but I'll let Lindsey cover the follow steps in a moment, and in classic Cuban style we're going to take the three beat to rock back into position.

[Demonstration of Leaders steps 1 and 2]

Ian: From here leads it's all systems go this is where you have to push the BIG red button and start telling the follow exactly what you are leading. In this case you are going to imagine there is a massive ray of light coming from your upper left corner and you must block it out, you must block out the sun, you must put your left hand almost over your right shoulder if it doesn't get this far across you're leading the follow in[to] No Man's Land. If You Lead the follow to no man's land they won't do this figure.

So, after steps one and two taken on beats two and three, as is normal with our Cuban timing, I am going to now close my feet on the classic four and one and mix it with my arm work lead.

[Demonstration of Leaders steps 1 to 3]

Lindsey: For the followers steps if we've just been put into Fan Position we would have just gone backwards on our left foot leaving our right foot ready to move. Our lead is about here, if you can imagine them, so they've got a hand here we should feel as they're taking their forward step a slight pressure through the hand that encourages us to draw our right foot underneath us and put our weight onto it. So our first step isn't actually taking us anywhere it's switching feet so it's, two, and I'm now ready to use my left foot.

If you want to be fancy you can put a little bit of a ronde action in there, but we still need to switch our feet so we've got on beat, two, ready to go on our left foot now. And that step will be forwards we will be starting to draw in front of our partner starting to shift towards them. The movement of the hand from the leader at this point, doing that blocking the sun movement bringing it across, will encourage us to take another forward step and this will truly bring us right in front of them.

So my first three steps here are:

[Demonstration of Followers steps 1 to 3]

Ian: Now that you can see us in Fan Position you will notice that as I take my step forward I'm going to give a slight push to encourage the follow to close their feet

Two.

I'm now going to allow my arm to draw back as I rock

Three.

and this is where the lead happens I'm going to bring this arm up block out the sun the hand position will have to change because I can't hold my palm in the same position and take my arm across so let that happen as I close my feet and encourage the follow through onto her step.

[Demonstration of steps 1 to 3]

Ian: From this position you will notice that the follower walks dead forward. Follows you don't want to think, "oh, I know it's a Hockey Stick", and start to move it towards the final position, and leads you don't want to think, "oh, it's a Hockey Stick", I need to move my follow to that final position. We're about to get really compact we need to keep each other close just for a few steps like so.

Two.

Three.

Walking forward, and there is very little space at this point between lead and follow.

Ian: At this point leads, we are committed to a Hockey Stick and we have to coordinate our arms and our feet. We have just closed our feet brought our arm to the leading position and our follow is now in front of us. We're due to take our right foot into a step and we're going to step on the spot backwards into a Cuban cross. And why I say on the spot backwards I don't want you to step back and I don't want you to move anywhere else I want you to stay on the spot but take a Cuban cross to put tension across your hips.

That's the footwork. The arm work in this next step is you have to encourage the follow to turn in the opposite direction. You're going to give a slight push with your arm. At this point we will now be approaching a tandem style position, so one behind the other a single file if you were to take a profile position, ready so that the next step I can step out, following the follower and then enter the last phase of the figure.

[Demonstration of Leaders steps 4 to 5]

Lindsey: Followers we would have just taken that right foot forward and we're going to continue with some forward work, but the effect of the leader doing their Cuban cross and that sort of slight push forward is that our forward step won't continue along that same line we're on it will switch us to that one there. So, it's just an eighth [1/8] of a turn to the left. If you were sort of straight with the walls you'll end up on a diagonal at that point. So our next two steps are two forward steps along that new line we've got;

[Demonstration of Followers steps 4 to 5]

Ian: Now it is important at that portion of the figure that we have taken a forward step both lead and follow. We're about to turn the follow back to a open facing position but we haven't done it yet we have to land that step first. At this point leads we have all of our weight over our left foot, we have taken step five, we have followed the follower out in a tandem style position, and now we are going to drop this arm. The drop of the arm after we have landed the step, will inspire the follow to turn in place, between steps five and six we have to land the step first, and then make the turn.

Lindsey: Now followers this is where we have landed step five it's forwards on our right foot even though we know at this point, we're pretty sure it's a Hockey Stick and that we are going to turn to face our partner again, we don't want to do it ourselves. Just the action of Ian dropping that hand very neatly turns me for me and at the time that the leader wants me to turn. So I get to do not much there at all except just be ready to be turned.

Ian: Now that we have made that turn between steps five and six all we have to do is finish the figure. The last step of the figure, now that we've returned to an open facing position, is a straight walk four-one forward on the right for the leads back on the left for the follows

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it for the Hockey Stick in Rumba. If you're wondering why it's called a Hockey Stick it traces the shape of an American ice-hockey stick. So, if you are sitting here in Aussie land going what's that all about where we only have field hockey; that's where it comes from. If it helps call it the dog leg it just helps give you that shape. You really want that eighth of a turn into tandem position, and then that nice sharp half a turn back right at the end. Don't turn it all yourself, try and keep that creative tension, help each other, have fun with this on the floor and go kick some goals. We'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #037

Reverse Turn in Modern Waltz - Jun 01, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Welcome back dancers. We are in the modern land today with a Reverse Turn. Now, we've already done the Reverse Turn in the Tango and the Foxtrot, links below; today it's the turn of the Waltz.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: Now, in ballroom dancing we've got two main options when we turn, we can either turn to the left or turn to the right. When we turn to the right it's called a Natural Turn, and we have I believe done the Natural Turn in the Waltz already, again link below. But, a Reverse Turn always turns to the left. It has two halves where the leader comes forward on the first half, and then performs the backward half of it after that, and it's the opposite for the follower. So it's one of those moves that is nicely balanced, allows some good drive forward work for both the leader and the follower, and it's an absolute staple for all of the fancier moves that we can do later on.

So if we do a full Reverse Turn here, it's going to take up two bars of music. Six steps in all and following our classic step-side-close step-side-close for our Waltz pattern.

The steps for the leader and the follower are actually the same as each other it's just that the leaders are doing the forward portion first. Now, in the Modern world if we want to turn to the left we want our drive step to happen on that left foot. So, whoever's going forward, in this case the leaders, they want to do that on their left foot. So first things first that drive forward on the left we then turn on that toe take a sideways step on the right and close our feet. And that's the first half of it we should have turned about three eighths of a turn. If the leaders want this to travel down line of dance they will start looking diagonally out into the floor so diagonal centre. By the time they do those first three steps they should have their back nice and square to line of dance. So, those steps again we have forward side close.

Once I'm here I'm ready for my backward portion. I should have changed weight once when I closed my feet so I should be ready on my right foot. That means my follower is driving forward on the left I will let them do that go backwards on my right foot take a sideways step and close my feet. And once again I've turned 3/8s of a turn I should end up about diagonal wall.

So all together I've got forward left side close back right side close and each portion of that has turned me to the left it's turned me anti-clockwise.

Followers, like I said before our steps are essentially the same it's just that we're doing that backward portion first. So, we are ready at the start of a Reverse Turn to go backwards on the right foot, back-side-close, and at this point I am facing square with line of dance. [A] good indication that I've got the forward work now. I've changed weight ready on my left I drive forward side and close and I'll be looking diagonal into the centre against line of dance; but probably ready to go backwards again after that.

So we have six steps in all in a closed position with our partner we have:

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music}

Lindsey: And that is the Reverse Turn in the Waltz. A really beautiful move and it's the base for any other fancy move to the left that we may encounter down the track. So, all the usual things apply for the Waltz, stay nicely together keep it nice and light and beautiful and floaty. Have some fun with it put it to good use on that dance floor.

Ballroom Blitz #038

Bota Fogo Actions in Samba - Jun 05, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Hello dancers today we are heading into the world of Samba and we've got one of the classic actions that Samba has it's a step called the Bota Fogo. Bit of a strange name; bit of an awesome move. Let's have a look.

The Bota Fogo action follows the same base rhythm as a our basic movement in the Samba. We've done a video on that so we'll put a link below. So, it's following a count of One-a-Two One-a-Two, and we'll either go Left-a-Left or Right-a-Right.

So we're going to look at the sort of classic base movement of this. You'll see that I'll shift forward slightly towards you as I go I'm going to start ready to go on my left foot and it's going to cross slightly across me in a contra position to begin, and then (so that's my one) "a" is my right foot coming out to the side. This is not really a step it's a sort of point out to the side I don't want to shift my weight over to it it's really there so that I can reposition my left foot onto a different angle on two. So if I take it back a little bit our count is One-a-Two.

If I go on my right foot same thing I'm going to cross over myself slightly in that contra way; One. My left foot now comes out to the side a-Two. So there's just enough pressure into the ball of my foot to allow my previous foot, my first foot, to be picked up and repositioned; so the repositioning of that foot is about a quarter. The important thing in a Bota Fogo is that where I land on one, that foot then doesn't move it's repositioning on the spot. It's not sliding towards me, it's not jumping away. So wherever I land is where I stay.

Now the timing of this is quite delicate with where we turn so we've got our one. When I poke my foot out to the side I still haven't turned myself yet. So I want to poke, and then turn on two; so it's a delayed movement. You'll also notice that my upper body is not moving nearly as much as my lower body, this is kind of a classic Latiny thing, where in order to emphasize the movement of the hips I'm keeping my upper body quite still. So if I'm looking at you guys there you'll notice that my lower half is doing much more than my upper half so we've got.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that is the basic Bota Fogo movement. We will do a bunch of different videos later down the track that shows you how you can put this together with your partner; there's all sorts of things that we can do: forward ones, backward ones, crisscross ones, contra ones, there is a whole host of ways that we can use this move. We'll also look a little bit deeper into where we can sort of put in that body tick that nice Samba movement in those other videos so watch out for those. Get onto that Samba floor have some fun it's the ultimate party dance so get into it.

Ballroom Blitz #039

Shoulder to Shoulder in Cha Cha - Jun 08, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey 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 blitzers and welcome back to yet another Blitz on the Cha Cha. Today we're doing a super simple move, anyone can do it, it's called the Shoulder to Shoulder. Let's get cracking.

[Demonstration without music]

As you can see from that demonstration this is a super simple figure it is really really useful on the floor. It follows our regular Step-Rock-Cha-Cha-Cha pattern and you can do any number of them as you like. To get the overall feel of what this move is doing, we're going to imagine half a hexagon. I'm going to be Cha-ing along one side and stepping and looking along the other sides, the sort-of diagonals if you will. Traditionally the leaders will step forward into this figure, and they're going to use whichever foot crosses the body to step onto that diagonal, and then follow the rocking pattern and Cha-ing across to the other side.

If you are a follow you're going to be doing basically the natural opposite where you're still going to be Cha-ing along that first side, but be turned and step backwards before rocking and swapping sides. That's the general construction of what we're going to do. So if we put a little bit more fat on the bones there, if we consider that we are in a closed position, leaders you have all your weight on your right foot you're ready to step outside partner on the left.

We have step on two rock on three four and one to Cha. And I'm going to on my final Cha, if I want to repeat on the other side, slightly open up to achieve that angle, so now I'm ready on my left foot, ready to use my right to repeat Step-Rock-Cha-Cha-Cha.

Follows, if I assume the follow position for roughly the same move, we're going to be standing on our left ready to have the leader pass outside of us. We step back on our right rock forward four [three] and be Cha-d across for our four-and-one. And again if we feel that slight opening of the frame, it means we're probably going to do a second one. We step back on the other foot on the other side rocking forward four and one.

So we have:

[Demonstration with description]

Ian: Probably the most important thing about this figure is that you do get that stepping outside position and actually step outside of your partner. If you're still inline when you take that step it's not really going to feel like a Shoulder-to-Shoulder, and the change in angle between the two is going to feel a little bit obtuse.

So, really make sure you get into a position where you can step outside of your partner. Beyond that this the figure really is as simple as that we don't want to make it any more than what it is we want to get our Step-Rock-Cha-Cha-Cha type pattern. But, do be aware that you can do these in a number of different ways. We've demonstrated them in a closed position with the leader going forward, you can retain a closed position and bring the follower forward.

A lot of people will do the developed arm version particularly after a turn where you have two arms up and you'll have a much more of an open frame; still stepping outside, still following the same angle principles but just with a slightly more open and a bit more visually impressive frame. But, the guts of the move is the same.

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it blitzing the Shoulder-To-Shoulder in Cha Cha. Super simple, go out and find different ways to to do them let your creative juices flow just keep to those angles have fun and we'll see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #040

Chasse Vs. Waltz in New Vogue & Sequence - Jun 12, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome blitzers to today's Ballroom Blitz. We have a little bit of a special treat for you today, something a little bit different, and something inspired by one of our viewers commenting on one of our videos. The comment was on our Rotary Chasse video, for the New Vogue and Sequence dances, thanking us for the video and just basically commenting that they often get this confused with when to waltz. This got me thinking, we should really examine the similarities and the differences between a Natural Waltz and a Rotary Chasse, and give you an indication of when you're going to use which one; because obviously if you do the wrong one it's going to feel quite strange. So, that's what today's Blitz is all about. When do you do a Natural Waltz and when do you do a Rotary Chasse. Let's get into it.

Ian: Well firstly the big indication and this works most of the time not all the time but the big indication is if you know which dance you're dancing often the Waltzes simply have Waltz in the name. Swing Waltz, Palmer Waltz, Twilight Waltz President's Daughter's Waltz, they all have Waltz as part of the name. We often don't just get the term Twilight or Lucille or Swing it doesn't tend to happen that way. So, if that is the case then you kind of know that you're going to do a waltz it should be in 3/4 time and really then the question at the end is is it a Natural Waltz, turning clockwise, or is it a Reverse Waltz, turning anti-clockwise; but, that at least solves the Waltz or Rotary Chasse argument. Of course if it doesn't have that like Pride of Erin, which I think it's danced a bunch of different ways but there is a Waltz version, or something like Charmaine. Charmaine does not have Charmaine in (foxtrot rhythm do a rotary chasse at the end) so we kind of have to know which one we're going to do. So if that's in question then we kind of want to work out is it in 3/4 or is it in 4/4. So let's have a look at this 3/4 versus 4/4 idea and how it actually impacts the moves, and that will help guide us as to the difference in the setup and the difference in the execution when you're actually dancing your sequence dances.

So we've arrived at a position where at the end of a sequence we're going to do a Waltz the waltz rhythm is in 3/4 times so it's dancing 123 223 sometimes it'll feel like 123 456 but basically you have a base 3 rhythm. With this style of dance you need to be taking your drive step first and in classic Waltz fashion you're going to: Drive. Side. Close. So the basic steps will be Drive. Side. Close. Drive. Side. Close. Drive. Side. Close. Drive. Side. Close. and with the music that will feel like One. Two. Three. Two. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. Two. Two. Three.

If we have arrived at the end of a dance where a Rotary Chasse is required, then Chasse timing is a little bit different and the Chasse construction is a little bit different. A classic Chasse should be danced Step. Close. Step. and it should be danced Quick. Quick. Slow. So, if we compare the two, we're going to take instead of our drive first it will come at the end. We're going to dance Step. Close. Step. Step. Close. Step. and this as far as the timing would go is One. Two. Three-Four. One. Two. Three-Four. often denoted as Quick. Quick. Slow. Quick. Quick. Slow. Let's have a look at these side by side and see how the two compare.

So a Natural Waltz would be One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three.

A Rotary Chasse would be Quick. Quick. Slow. Quick. Quick. Slow. Quick. Quick. Slow. Quick. Quick. Slow.

[Demonstration]

Ian: So seeing the two styles side by side we noticed the Waltz Rhythm 123 is dead even; you get one note one beat per step. While the Rotary Chasse it is broken into slows and quicks and we have our closed step in the middle. Let's talk a little bit more about that.

So here is where you can actually accidentally be doing Waltzes instead of Chasses and Chasses instead of Waltzes. And it really is not the rhythm because technically speaking you can do the same steps in either rhythm. That's just something that's unique to the dance that you're dancing at the time, or the music that you've got playing. But steps wise you still have three steps, you're just spreading them over three beats or four beats depending on the dance. But, it's where the close of the feet and where the power step comes in; that's the bit that will trip people up. If you are required to dance a Rotary Chasse you must do the side close and then allow someone to drive. This basically means that if you're setting up for a Rotary Chasse, your overall position must be parallel with the wall. Your line of dance will be to the leader's left side, the follows right, and you will sidestep and commence to turn in that direction as you go, so that the walking step, the power step, is then headed a down line of dance. But that doesn't happen until step three.

Conversely, if you are Waltzing, the power step comes first; it's a drive side together and the classic Waltz type rhythm. This basically means that whoever is driving first must already be pointing somewhat down line of dance so that when that drive step happens it doesn't literally send you into the floor. We want to power that step up and then turn as a result of the power. So when you set up these two if you are preparing a Rotary Chasse we want to be in a closed position, head and shoulders parallel with the wall, and if we are setting up for a Natural Waltz we're going to turn somewhat, nearly a quarter, so that whoever is driving forward powers down the floor and we commence to turn and travel around line of dance and not start spiraling into the floor or in any other undesirable direction.

Ian: So, if we have concluded a dance ready for a Rotary Chasse you can see we're in our classic closed position our hands are pointing down line of dance and we are ready to side and then power side and then power in a quick quick slow type fashion. Quick. Quick. Drive. Quick. Quick. Drive. Quick. Quick. Drive.

If we have concluded a dance ready for a Natural Waltz we have changed our position so that whoever is driving forward in this case the follower, they're driving forward first, they get that power step first and then we close our feet on step three; much more like. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three. One. Two. Three.

One final element of confusion that is worth noting is that if you compare the Rotary Chasse to a Natural Waltz, the waltz turning clockwise, the drive step occurs on the same foot. You will always be driving forward on the right foot to turn in the natural direction so that you can perform both the Rotary Chasse or the [Natural] Waltz. This is why it's often the case that the Rotary Chasse gets confused with the Natural Waltz, but very rarely does the Natural Waltz get confused with the Reverse Waltz; because that power step occurs on a different foot in that case. So, we really want to pay attention to that setup position so that by the time you get to the power step there is no confusion you are either Waltzing in 3/4 time or you are Chasse-ing quick-quick-slow in 4/4 time.

Ian: And that is it how to disentangle whether you are Waltzing or a Rotary Chasse-ing at the end of a sequence dance. Sometimes it will be in the name as a big clue, if it's called Waltz it should be in 3/4 time and you will be Waltzing. But, then of course how to effectually set up your position before the waltz happens so that you are either side stepping into a Chasse or driving into a Waltz. There are always examples of both people driving forward in a Waltz so it's not always the leader going forward or always the follower going forward so don't let that trick you. But you are definitely never ever going to sidestep into a Waltz that will always be your Rotary Chasse.

I hope this has helped you out if you would like a comparison between the Reverse and the Natural Waltz, we can do that for you as well; let us know in the comments. Let us know if it's been helped full let us know if you would like us to do anything else. Thank you to those who have been commenting on our videos they have been very very nice thank you and they have inspired us to do other videos like this so do keep that up. Try that out on your floor next time and we will see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #041

Impatience Pet Peeve - Jun 15, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome blitzers to today's Ballroom Blitz. If you've been with us from the beginning or indeed if you have recapped any blitzes and watched the very first one you know that we would have foreshadowed a couple of things; some blunt language and then eventually these things called pet peeves. I think we've delivered on some blunt language already but we haven't yet delivered on some pet peeves and it's just about time. This is the first, one I'm going to tell you one of my pet peeves, which is impatience; let's get chatting.

To be fair this particular situation that I'm going to use in this pet peeve is not all about impatience, but it is a big factor and we're going to hone in on that today. There are other things that go into it and there are all sorts of different reasons for this situation to occur and it's not always one person's fault. I might rag a bit on the leaders and I might rag a bit on the followers it's not always one person's fault it's usually a combination of a whole bunch of factors. But basically today I'm going to point out one situation where too often I see people being far too impatient with their steps, and then complaining that they don't work. So we're going to take a chill pill, we're going to calm down, we're going to get we're going to let people do their own work when it's their turn, and we're going to slowly shawl in in a relaxed slightly more patient way improve our dancing. let's have a look at the Natural Spin Turn in Quickstep.

[Fictional Re-enactment]

Ian: So what you saw there was a classic situation where we arrive, sometimes at a corner other times not, but in a situation particularly in the the natural turn type turns in the Quickstep, where we have momentum, we have turn, we need to in the middle of a figure basically come to a controlled stop and exchange control of who is producing the power. The leader produces power into the figure and halfway through the figure we come to a foot closed, stalled, position where he then grants permission to the follower to produce power for the second half of the figure; or at least that's what should happen! What we often see though is this transition doesn't occur and for whatever reason, but for the focus of today for a very impatient reason, the leaders will yank the follow around or the follow will then impatiently push the leader too early because they're too sick of being yanked around; this is my pet peeve! Take a moment, understand what is going on, if you are not driving forward you cannot, period, produce power. It is physically impossible, in ballroom dancing, to produce power on a backward step. Quite literally, in that moment, that is what your partner is for. If you don't let them do that you have zero, ZERO, recourse to complain that they've taken the wrong steps.

Ian: So really that's the guts of my pet peeve and any more and it would become a psychotic rant and that's not what you're here to watch; so let's not go down the path anymore. Let's talk about what we can do in that moment to fix this impatience, apart from just taking a chill pill and letting things happen, what can we actually do to improve our dancing, to improve our spin turns and pivot turns and other things that focus around this particular situation. It occurs in Waltz, it occurs in Foxtrot, it occurs in Quickstep. We see it in Quickstep the most because we have that momentum and it's Quickstep so people go too fast anyway; because it's in the name "quick". So, let's have a look at what we can do just to calm things down and turn this peeve into a pro.

Ian: So I'm going to pick on the Natural Spin Turn as I've said in Quickstep, mainly because it's just the main culprit for this, but you can even be turning reverse; it really doesn't matter. The type of setup of figure that I'm worried about today is this idea where the leader is going to move forward first with a drive step of some description, we have come to a halted position, if you're doing this in Foxtrot then the lady's done a heel turn that has other implications, but Waltz in Quickstep we've usually done a Chasse style turn, we've brought our feet together and at this point the follow should drive forward. When they don't, or when they're not given the chance, the rest of the figure doesn't work, and then we default to using our upper body yanking people around and things like that. How can we fix this? First of all if you are a leader and you are prone to getting to this position and stepping backwards and across and starting to turn; don't do that! And if I line myself up with the camera you'll see what I mean. If I have lined up here if my follow is driving they should be driving to you in the camera. If I am doing this because I feel I need to get them started, or I'm just impatient I want to go around the corner, their drive step is going to be rubbish. Even if they can give you a drive step you've stepped off the line you're in no position to absorb their power it's just going to be balls; and it's your fault, in that case. So the first thing for the leads is we take a chill pill. We settle, we relax, we be patient, we close our feet, we compress our knees, and we prepare our frame to absorb a power step that we have invited the follow to do. By leading this figure you have given the follow permission to drive and produce power in that step, it's really rude if you then don't allow them to do that. So the first part here is we're going to close our feet and settle and prepare to go backwards and wait for the follow to drive.

Ian: Follows what can you do? I will admit here most of your failures are produced by the impatience of the leader; but, it's not always the case. Sometimes there's a bit of reverse psychology going on and you're so used to being yanked around a corner you will try and get in quick, and so you will try and do this and yank and sort of get your heel step in because that's what your instructor told you to do, and so we're being impatient because we're not being waited for. That's a little bit harder to fix, my suggestion here is if you have an impatient leader, don't take the step. That is really a blunt force instrument in teaching them that if they're not waiting for you, you're not going to do your step; because you can't. It's a little bit pissy, a little bit narky, but it works. Let's say that's all fixed and they're waiting for you, and now we have this position where you should be driving forward. This is where we have to throw off the shackles of the follower and say "I've been given permission to drive, that's what I'm going to do". We're going to compress while the leader is being patient and waiting for you, we compress our leg, we are ready, we don't hold back, if we're dancing a swing dance, so anything other than Tango, we're going to be sliding the heel across the floor maintaining hip contact, and driving forward. Then your impatience can set in where once you've driven forward we have to produce the power, and then wait. And I understand that this is really frustrating but please don't power and throw yourself into a turn, because at that point anyone that's done any volume of Quickstep knows that there's eight to a dozen different options at that point, and you won't know which one it is until after you've produced the power step. So settle power and switch off.

Ian: And that is it my pet peeve bitchy turn to tell all you bastards to slow down, settle, give each other a chance to do the right steps, and then have a much more relaxed enjoyable dance. Of course it's over to you now to take that on board and just to take a chill pill. The most, the most enjoyable dance you can do has proper technique and a certain amount of relaxation. Relaxing while you're dancing and trying to think about all your steps is hard and some of us just don't like doing technique. If those two things are a bit above you, then your steps in this case will always be a bit rubbish; you might just have to accept that. For those who are willing to swallow their pride and say "how can I improve?" just take a chill pill. Do the steps that you are required to do in the figure and don't do any more. Don't do your partner steps, let them do their steps for you, and you both as a unit will reap the benefits. Throw that into your Quickstep and your Waltz and your Foxtrot all your dancing let us know if this bitchy pet peeve has helped; if it hasn't, maybe we'll still do some more who knows. But if it has and you'd like our opinion on some other common areas where you think people could improve let us know in the comments, and until we do see you, again keep dancing, stay safe, have fun, watch all the rest of the blitzes, and throw us a like and a comment so we know what else you would like. See you then.

Ballroom Blitz #042

Deplacement in Paso Doble - Jun 19, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Hello dancers, welcome back. On today's Blitz we're going to be dancing the Paso Doble and we're looking at a figure called the Deplacement (French). The word Deplacement (French) means displacement in French and that's essentially explaining what we're trying to do. We start in a closed position with our partner and we're trying to end a few steps later in a closed position but somewhere else on the floor and sometimes a different alignment. So, let's have a closer look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So as you could see, the base form of this movement is just three steps and then a close taking up four beats in all. [The] leader, because its Paso, starts on the right foot, [the] follower on the left. And you just saw Ian come forward for two steps before he took a sideways step turning a quarter to his left before he closed his feet, and I did the natural opposite. Now there's a bit of fun shaping that we can put in around step three, with a bit of a drag action. Even if we do that though we need to make sure that we are nice and inline with each other at the end.

So we're starting nice and square with each other, we're not offset like we are in our modern dances, so our shoulders are nice and square with each other. Ian takes his two steps forward I go backwards and on step three Ian can extend his right side to put us into a drag and then close on four. But you can see we're still nice and square with each other.

So the Deplacement (French) is a nice easy figure, it's a useful one as well not only does it get us shifting around the floor but it also can turn us to a new alignment. Now that latter point though doesn't have to be the case, we can do different amounts of turn including no turn at all, and if we ditch that first step, that first moving step for an Appel instead, we've done a blitz on the Appel so we'll put a link down the bottom; so, if we do an Appel on one and then start moving on two we have what's called an Attack!

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: So, there you have it the Deplacement (French), a nice easy move. Always make sure you add that dramatic Paso Doble flavor, but have fun, try it out.

Ballroom Blitz #043

Progressive Link in Tango - Jun 22, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome back blitzers. Today once again we are going into the realm of Tango with a super quick, super easy and incredibly useful move the Progressive Link. Let's get into it.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: As you can see there, a super easy figure and really really useful as it takes us from our Closed Position to a Promenade Position. As Tango, out of all the ballroom dances, really loves moving through Promenade and Fallaway much earlier and much more frequently than our other ballroom dances, this one will be super useful and probably the first one you learn to exchange those two positions.

As we have said, it's only two Quicks to perform, and really all the action happens in the second step. So, the first step is going to be all about basically letting the follow know, with our frame, and our direction of travel, and our speed of travel, that something different is coming. Then all the action and rolling around into that Promenade Position, we're going to do that in the second quick; so, let's split this figure in half and get it going.

If we have arrived in our Closed Position ready to do the Progressive Link I will have all my weight as the lead on the right foot and my follow will have all their weight on the left. I'm going to step across and into their space in our classic Tango way, taking a contra body step, moving thusly. With a quick step but, as you'll note I haven't changed my position. I haven't started to put us into Promenade just yet. But if we were to compare that to a slow walk or a different figure with some turn, we will have indicated to the follow that something different is coming. That's step one.

Lindsey: So followers, as you could see I was taking a backward step on my right, it will be very much across myself, but really I am trying to wait and see where the leader is putting it. Because our Tango hold is so close we will feel a lot of physical contact, which is brilliant it takes all the guesswork out and means that we're in a nice stable position, still nice and balanced together at the end of that first step.

[Demonstration of step one]

Ian: So that is step one. We've done all the things we need to to let the follow know that we're not going to do more of whatever we've just done and we haven't yet taken the plunge and actually started to shift into Promenade Position. Now leads this is where your frame and your control surfaces come in. If we have a good strong Tango frame, as Lindsey said just a moment ago, this will take all the guesswork out for the follower. That's up to you to make sure that we can maintain that in a comfortable way, and then you're going to mix the lead with your left hand, your right hand, and your right hip, to roll the follower around into that Promenade Position. Here really the key is you, in your mind, you really need a clear idea of where you want to Promenade. If you have a little bit of indecision about exactly where you're going to be pointing, that will flow through your frame and infect your follower, and if they are not certain and can't rely on your frame, you won't get the desired results. So be bold, go where you're going to go; and even then if you stuff it up entirely you'll stuff it up together and you'll probably have the best chance of a quick recovery.

So we're going to be in a closed position, I have been dancing this way or I've ended up facing this way, and I'm going to Promenade to you in the camera. We take our first step one or quick, now all the action happens. I move my left hand, I apply tension. I move my right hand I apply the same tension to roll the follow around my right hip. I get on the inside of their left leg, quick, and we are now in a Promenade Position; very definitely going that way.

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: You will notice here in our Promenade Position two very important things, and we've removed our arms so that you get a good view. First of all our feet are not daintily pointing, they're not like a Spanish line or something like that in a Paso, It's not the toe that's pressing on the ground it's side of foot. It's low and it's strong. And then you will also note that profile from that direction you will see three legs not four. This is because I have rolled the follow around the back of my right hip, and so as we Promenade forward her inside leg her left leg will stay behind mine. This enables us to keep to our Tango frame and be a lot more compact but not uncomfortable.

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it. It's as simple as that. Two Quicks for your Progressive Link. A stupidly stupidly useful and really really easy figure. Nail it down, use it to get into all your Promenade figures, be balanced and strong, and that will make all your subsequent promenading figures have the best start that they can. Use it in your Tango, let us know if it has been useful, let us know if you would like to know anything about the rest of these Tango figures and what should come next, let us know what you like about our blitzes. Throw that all in the comments and we will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #044

The Three Step in Foxtrot - Jun 26, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Welcome back dancers we are going to smooth it out with some lovely Foxtrot today and we're going to be looking at a classic figure it's the Three Step. Just like it says on the tin, this figure is exactly three steps long. Now you may think that it is following the classic Foxtrot rhythm of slow-quick-quick, it's not! It's going quick-quick-slow, just to be cheeky. So let's have a look at it.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: Now, unless we're doing the backward version of this, it is forward for three steps for the leader and backwards for the follower. The leader is starting on their right foot and they have a rhythm of quick-quick-slow and some rather important footwork. The first step is a heel second step is a toe and then comes back to a heel again. I'm just going to switch myself to a leader for a second. Starting on my right foot I have got a heel and I rise up to the toe. Now, I say rise we don't actually want a rise in Foxtrot so it is being absorbed by my bent knee here. That means that my second step is toe to a heel, that then means that I am ready for another heel step.

Now, that final step is probably going to be the drive into your next figure probably a turning figure to the right, some kind of natural figure; but, that is where our Three Step ends. So we've got a heel toe heel. Now, if you are not only a Foxtrotter but you dance New Vogue as well, you'll find that Three Steps come up all over the place for both the leader and the follower. And whenever we're going forward we will find that timing usually that quick-quick-slow if we're in a Foxtrot or a March Rhythm, slightly different if we're in the Waltz, but it will always have that heel-toe-heel footwork.

Followers we're going backwards. The leader is starting on their Right, we have to start on our left and we, because we are going backwards, and we want a nice smooth action we're going to roll through the foot. So toe first, as is always the case when we're going backwards, but we're going to roll through the heel as we go, and that keeps us nice and smooth as the leader comes forward.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that is the Three Step in the Foxtrot. You'll find that it is one of your base moves to use, nice and smooth, nice and easy. So, keep it beautiful, let us know if you want any extra information. There's so much to talk about, particularly with the Foxtrot shaping and what have you; so, leave a comment down below and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #045

Link in Jive - Jun 29, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey 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 again Ballroom Blitzers, welcome back to the channel. Today we are going to be doing some Jive. A really easy and very useful figure known as the Link. Let's take a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, hopefully from that demonstration you can see how easy this figure is. Following our regular back replace chasse chasse type pattern, and really really useful because the real whole purpose of it is to get us from our open position back to a closed position. So let's "link" those two positions together and get Jivin'.

So commencing in our open frame, so our closed frame is not quite there, it's an open frame. But, we want to get into a closed frame ready to do a figure that commences in closed frame. So, we're going to follow our Back-Replace-Chasse-Chasse pattern, as we've mentioned. And the beautiful thing about this figure is follows you're going to do the exact natural opposite and leads as long as your lead is reasonably strong and consistent then nothing really can go wrong. We're going to apply our regular Jive tension through our arms. We're not arm wrestling but we're going to make sure that our wall is presented here and we push off with our Back-Replace. Doing all the usual things to make sure we don't go skyrocketing backwards and throwing our weight around all those sorts of things. So we have our nice upright Back-Replace I'm going to invite the follow to Chasse forward slightly. I'm going to Chasse forward to them slightly, and as I do that I'm going to essentially put my hand in a closed position position. Chasse One. Achieve a closed position with the other hands as well, but now we can't just Chasse forward towards each other because will bash into each other, because we're in a closed position. But we've got another Chasse to burn so I'm going to Chasse to my right, the follows left, and we take a Chasse, and now we're ready on the regular starting foot for say a Fallaway Rock Fallaway Throwaway, all those fantastic things in closed. Link done.

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: As with all of our Jive figures keep it nice and small keep it nice and light. Don't bounce up in the knees too much just keep it nice and compact.

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: Really that is all there is to the Link in Jive. It has a very singular purpose of linking a figure that has ended in the open position to a figure that should commence in the closed position. You will get variations later on where you can do different things with the Back-Replace portion, but we'll leave that for later and for you to explore. Really the guts of it is, don't try and make it more than it should be, get your arms into that position, close up the position, and do remember to put in that second Chasse. Sometimes we can get a little bit overwhelmed we do the back replace the first Chasse, yes we've hit closed position, and just forget to do the rest. Keep it calm, keep it simple, the same amount of steps as all our other basic type figures, and then go off into your closed position after that. Give it a try.

Ballroom Blitz #046

Progressive Chasse in Quickstep - Jul 03, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Hello again ballroom blitzers, and welcome back to the channel. Today we are going into the wonderful world of Quickstep. We're going to be having a look at a terribly useful and very easy move, it's called the Progressive Chasse.

Now, a lot of the moves that we learn first up in the Quickstep follow a pattern of a drive step followed by a Chasse, this one is the same. What I like about it is that the drive step comes from the follower not the leader. Let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So you can see that first forward drive is by the follower, we then perform the Chasse by the end of it the leader is ready to do a drive step of their own and that drive step is always outside partner.

Ian: Okay leaders as Lindsey just said we have arrived at a position where we are backing Diagonal Center we have put the power step in their hands. We've asked them to drive forward on their left, which means we have to absorb power back on our right; that's what we do on step one. We then perform the Chasse turning around about a quarter with a Toe. Toe. Toe-Lower. on the last part of the Chasse and as Lindsey said the next step, the final step, the fifth step, of this figure must travel outside of partner; it's a heel, it will always be step one of whatever figure you put in next but that step one must proceed outside of partner. So a slow for the drive from the follower, a quick-quick-slow for the Chasse, and a slow step outside partner into whatever comes next.

Lindsey: So followers our first step is our major drive step, so that's on our left foot at our partner and out into the floor. We then rise up on our toes quick-quick-slow. We can expect to feel that tern that the leader is feeling, we need to go with it because it might be a little bit different each time, head to the left this is all in closed position, and we'll feel them drive past us on that final step, we've lowered we're ready for their drive backwards on the left.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: This is a really useful figure, it's following along with our sort of bass rhythm of the Quickstep, it moves really nicely, it gives the followers a good go forward so we get a nice drive step in, and it comes after a bunch of different figures so it's a very useful one to have in your back pocket.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: So there you have it the Progressive Chasse a smooth cruisy move, very useful, can follow with the natural turn of the leader's choice so a great one to have. Try it out, keep commenting, remember to subscribe and we shall see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #047

Whisks in Samba - Jul 06, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey random dancer on the internet. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and this is a Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Hello ballroom blitzers and welcome back to the channel. We are in the Latin world today, we are dancing Samba and a super excellent and really easy move called the Whisk is up on the table today. So let's have a look at it!

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: As you can see it's a sideways move with the cheeky tuck behind. You can do it on either foot, we were just demonstrating four times so twice each way, but you can do as many as you like or need to.

Now, if that's looking a little familiar we have done a blitz on the basic movement in the Samba where we had a sideways movement. There is a bit of a crucial difference between the two so we will have a look at that first. So if I'm doing the basic movement that goes to the side I'll be ready on one foot or another here I'm ready on my left so I'll shift to the left, and then in the basic movement the bounce happened by placing my foot to the side of my other foot. In the Whisk what happens is we do that sideways movement and then we tuck that foot behind and get that, it's a similar bounce action, but it will feel quite different with that foot tucked behind. Now we don't want to overdo this tucked position. We're not trying to get it into to a locked position like we would in a lock in a Quickstep or even in a Cha Cha. It is just behind and it's just the ball of the foot. If you can see that my heel is off the ground just enough so I can shift my weight and replace on that same foot that I started the movement on. So the footwork if I go one way and then the other would be

[Demonstration with footwork]

Lindsey: or if I do it with the count it's a classic Samba count of

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: We have found this to be an incredibly useful move. For starters you can do as many as you like and it tends to go nicely in between your other figures that might be a little bit more difficult, it's a nice stabilizing one. It's also a great move that often the leaders will do when they're guiding their followers into something a bit more complex like a Solo Spot Volta.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And there you have it, the Whisk in the Samba. [A] nice easy one it's a great one to practice your Samba bounce to, feels great, very useful. Give it a go.

Ballroom Blitz #048

Closed Changes in Modern Waltz - Jul 10, 2023

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.

Lindsey: Hello dancers and welcome to today's Blitz, we are in the wonderful world of Waltzing and we're going to look at Closed Changes. Closed Changes are about the most basic way that we can do our Modern Waltz. So, it has the leaders going forward, the followers going backward. There's no turn to these ones, but what they do is prepare you to turn in the opposite direction to what you had been just before. So, very useful nice and easy let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So you can see it's following our classic Waltz pattern of a drive step followed by a side step and then a close. There is a weight change for each of those, so they're all nice slow steps matching in with the three slow beats of the music. We change weight on the last one and that prepares us to go on the opposite foot. So, if the leader has just gone: drive on the left, side on the right, and close, they'll be ready then to do the next figure on their right foot.

So, say Ian wants to do a natural figure, which means that he wants to drive forward on his right foot, but say he's ready to go instead on his left foot. All he needs to do is to do a change step, forward-side-close, that changes his feet, he's now ready on the right foot and he can drive on his right into a natural figure. And it will be the opposite if he wants to do a reverse figure but he's ready on his right foot he then comes forward on his right foot side and close that means that he is now ready to go on his left foot and he can go into some kind of reverse turn.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: So, unlike the Outside Change or the Hesitation Change the Closed Changes don't turn making them a very versatile useful figure to be able to get between your other more complex figures.

[Demonstration with music]

And that's all there is to it. Nice and simple. A classic very useful Modern Waltz figure. So, give it a go I'm sure you will make good use of it, be graceful and beautiful out there.

Ballroom Blitz #049

Closed & Open Basics in Rumba & Cha Cha - Jul 13, 2023

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, and welcome back to the channel. Today we are going into the world of Cha and Rumba, and we're going to be going right back to basics. We're going to be looking at Closed Basics and Open Basics; what's similar about them, what's different. So we can get you Cha-ing and Rumba-ing between all the fancier figures that we've done on the channel.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So as you can see from that demonstration, we were demonstrating Rumba steps, but if you add the Chasse at the appropriate portion over the four-and-one you get exactly the same effect in your Cha Cha. Now, generally speaking Closed Basics are danced in closed position and Open Basics are danced in open position. Another definition is doing the rounds where a closed basic moves to the side and an open basic moves forward and backward. So, there are a few schools of thought out there that say you can dance Open Basics in Closed Position and vice-versa. We're not going to get into that, we're going to keep it nice and simple; Closed Basics in Closed Position, Open Basics in Open Position, and this will cover you for 90% of the time.

Now, in your Cha and Rumba, particularly in the basic sort of steps that we're covering in these blitzes, the first two steps the Step and the Rock, are pretty much interchangeable between Cha and Rumba, and we just add or remove the Chasse. Same-same for the basics and in all of these cases we are going to have a Step and a Rock, that's going to be steps one and two danced on beats two and three, and then we're just going to move to the side or forward and backward as appropriate.

Now when you're dancing your basics in Cha and Rumba, if you're going forward you should be going forward on your left foot, and then after you do half a basic you will have changed feet, because there's only three steps or five if you dance Cha, and then your partner will be dancing forward on the left foot, like so. I step forward on the left, I rock back, and step to the side. I'm now due to go back on my right my follow comes forward left, we rock back, to the side, and we have now returned to our starting position so if I wanted to do another basic I would be ready on my left foot to go forward again. Now in the Closed Basic a lot of people will dance it without any turn, and that's completely fine as well. However, you can dance up to a quarter of a turn over a basic, so that's six steps [ten in Cha], a forward and a backward half for both parties. You can turn up to a quarter in both your Cha and your Rumba if you wish.

The open versions of these basics are pretty much the same for the first two steps you have the Step and the Rock, it's just that it's in an open position. The major difference is after that we're instead of moving to the side we're going to move forwards and backwards

Now, 95% of the time if you are in open position you will be dancing forwards and backwards on that final step, and if you're in close position you will be dancing to the side in those final steps. There is nothing to say that you couldn't change that up and in open position move to the side or in close position move forward and backward if you need to, that's completely legit, we just see it far less on the floor.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it for basics in Cha and Rumba of course demonstrated in Rumba but completely transferable to Cha as well, just putting in those Chasses. Don't make them too big. Smash these in between all the other things that we have been blitzing so that you can get the most out of your dancing. Have fun on the Cha and the Rumba floor, and we will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #050

50th Special Episode - Jul 17, 2023

A Short Modern Waltz Sequence & A Short Cha Cha/Rumba Sequence

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: Welcome blitzers, welcome to the channel for what is the 50th Episode Special. Less than six months ago we kicked off The Ballroom Blitz and I can't believe we've actually pumped out 50 different episodes. If you've been watching anything from the channel you'll know that, because it's a blitz series, we're keeping them nice and short, we're keeping everything just quite digestible with little hits, one figure at a time, or one idea at a time; and that's really what we're going to keep doing. But, if you've watched enough of our blitzes you'll actually start to wonder; what can I do with all these different individual figures? Well in the 50th episode special today we're going to do something slightly different, it's going to be a little bit longer, but we're actually going to chain together some of the blitzes that we've already done into short mini routines that you can dance on the floor. Of course, the Ballroom Blitzes have never been about replacing your studio learning, or taking it over in any fashion. So, this should always be something, that a little bit extra, to help you with your classroom learning or your private tuition or wherever you usually go to dance. But, if you're only entry into dancing so far has been Ballroom Blitz put these ones together. You can jump out with all your friends and get dancing up on the floor and maybe that will inspire you to hit up your studio in your local area. So, that's what the 50th Special is today. You'll see both Lindsey and I doing some Modern Waltz and some Cha slash Rumba from all the blitzes, well not all the blitzes, from some of the blitzes we have already done, and then by the end of it you'll have a mini Waltz routine and a mini Cha-Cha slash Rumba routine just from what we've done. Let's get into it!

Ian: So let's take a look at the Modern Waltz. We're going to be combining three of our previous blitzes: number 14, The Natural Turn, number 37 The Reverse Turn, and a recent one number 48 Closed Changes. All the links [are] in the description so you can go back and review them if you wish. But we're going to put them all together and show you a nice easy does it basic Waltz pattern out of just those three blitzes. Now what we're going to show you basically makes up what a lot of people consider to be the basic Waltz; the most basic pattern that you can put together and get back to the same position to just rinse and repeat. It's six groups of three, we're going to use two change steps or two closed changes of three steps each, and then two turns one to the left one to the right, one reverse one natural, and they have six steps each. To make it a little bit easier to digest, and before we have to change camera position to give you a wider angle of us going around the floor, we're going to do one half with one of your closed changes followed by one turn, and then the second half followed by the next closed change, and the next turn, and then you'll see it in action going around the floor.

Ian: So, we're going to start with what you could define as a Left Foot Forward Change, basically it's the leader's left foot that we're going to start with and it's a closed change step, then we'll be ready to go forward on the lead is right which means they would turn to the right making it a natural turn coming afterwards. So, we have, three two and left foot change turn right (natural) turn right (natural). And when we arrive here, because we've had an even number of steps through our natural turn, I'm once again ready to use my right foot and that will get us into the right foot close change. So, if we continue on leads you're now ready to use the right foot, your angle has changed because your natural turn has taken you three quarters of a turn so you're now facing diagonally into the floor. We're going to do our right foot change, ready then to follow with a left foot figure (a reverse figure), then it will be the reverse turn getting us back to our same starting angle and our same starting foot just to simply go again. So we have three two and right foot change turn left (reverse turn) turn left (reverse turn) and you can see here the similar starting angle or the same starting angle, ready to use the left foot, hit the repeat button and away you go. Now, as we have probably already mentioned in the blitzes that make up this little sequence, everything happens in a closed hold, there's no need to move in and out of promenade with this little sequence, which means we should have our heads to the left, we should have nice hip contact, keep some nice soft knees, don't rise too high, or too fast. Keep it nice and easy going and just have fun on the floor.

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it for squashing three blitzes together to give you a nice easy repeatable basic Modern Waltz sequence. Of course there is plenty more that we will do, have done, and you can do in your Modern Waltz, but that will get you going round the floor. You can play with the amounts of turn, that you need to, if you need to change it on the social floor, it's adaptable to your surroundings and it's not too complicated. Just try not to, with those simple steps, make it more than it is. Have a great time with with your basic steps, there's plenty of time to add more complex ones that we will do in future blitzes and let you have a go at on the floor.

Lindsey: Okay Blitzers, let's jump into the Latin world and you're going to get a two for one because this, the figures that we have put together for you in this mini routine will work for both your Cha Cha and your Rumba. Now we will put links below but the blitzes that we are going to make good use of to put this mini routine together are blitz's number 25, 36, 49, and then we're going to cycle all the way back to Blitz number 2, to tie the whole thing together so that you can rinse and repeat. So the figures you'll see us put together are the Fan, which gets us into Fan Position. We're going to follow that with our option to do the Hockey Stick after that. A bit of a basic, and then a turn to finish. So to show you this initially we're going to be doing the Rumba version so you won't see any of the Chasse Cha Cha Cha actions, we'll put those in afterwards to show you how to translate it into the Cha Cha. So we start in a closed position, a bit of a gap between us because it's Latin dancing. We're ready to rock over on that first beat, and then we've got Two. Three. Four-One. Two. Three. Four-One. so that was our Fan. We are now in Fan Position, Ian's going to lead me into the Hockey Stick. Two. Three. Four-One. Two. Three. Four-One. We're now in an open position, so we're going to do our Open Basic. Two. Three. Four-One. And we're going to put a turn on the end and we are back to our start again.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: Now if we want to turn it into a Cha Cha all we need to do is add in that Chasse action. All the rest of it's the same, the arm positions, the amounts of turn. So, all we need to do then is we rock Two. Three. Four-and-One. Two. Three. Four-and-One. Two. Three. Four-and-One. Two. Three. Four-and-One. Two. Three. Four-and-One. Two. Three. Four-and-One. And we're back to the start again.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And there you go, a two for one for both your Cha Cha and your Rumba, a short repeatable pattern that you can try out on that social floor.

Ian: And that is it for the 50th special episode putting together a small section of the previous 49 blitzes. To bring you some mini sequences to get you going on the floor. To prove to you that you have done probably more than you realized with these 49 previous episodes. There is much more to be done, we will go through them figure by figure, we will bring you all the tips all the tricks. Keep commenting, let us know what you want to do so that we can do that first or sooner rather than later. We've got a few suggestions that will be coming out soon, that people have commented on and requested. So, we will have those coming out for you. But, keep them coming. If we can do what you want earlier, then why not why, not do that for you. So, keep smashing that like button keep, sending us comments, keep letting us know what you find helpful, and what you don't. Keep an eye out for some more Pet Peeves and some more I guess philosophical type blitzes on things that aren't just straight up figures, and who knows maybe when we get to the 100th special episode we'll have longer and different routines for you. Who knows, there's another 50 episodes to go before then, but all being well, that should come out before the end of the year. So stay tuned thank you all for our new subscribers who have come along to the channel. We've nearly doubled our subscriptions in the last six months so thank you for that. Share all these videos with your friends so they can enjoy it too. Keep getting up onto that social dance floor keep loving your dancing and we will see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #051

Rock Turn in Tango - Jul 20, 2023

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.

Lindsey: Welcome back dancers. Today we are going all dramatic and doing some Tango. There's this fantastic move that we'd like to show you called The Rock turn; let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So, there's a few steps to this particular figure, and we turn first one way, and then the other. We're actually going to end up pretty much on the same angle as we started, but a little bit further down the floor. It stays in a closed position, so we don't have to worry about any turns to promenade, and then recovering it back to closed again. We get to keep our heads nicely to the left, but get a really nice strong sort of flavorful action in there.

Ian: Leaders, we're going to commence this figure on our right foot, and we're going to step in line with our partner turning roughly a quarter to the right. So we have a nice strong slow step.

We're going to get onto that, and then it's not quite pivot, but certainly move around after our weight is over the step, and this sets up our position to rock. If you don't quite get there you can get there with the rock steps, but if possible you want the rocks to be as straight as you can make them. That was a slow step, we're now going to rock.

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps 2-4]

Ian: And now we're going to do a standard closed finish, stepping back on the right foot.

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps 5-7]

Lindsey: I'm going to go in the same direction as Ian, so followers apologies for my back. But you might be able to tell better which foot I am on. So, if Ian started on the right foot I'm going to start on my left. He's coming forward, so I'm going to be sent backwards, and I'll feel that turn on that first step; that's my first indication that this is in fact my rock step or my rock turn. Now, followers we have the first forward movement into the rocks themselves so it's a Quick-Quick-Slow, we're already on our right foot and we come forward through our partner's feet.

[Demonstration of Followers Steps 2-4]

Lindsey: Feel free to give a smidge of a push on that last one, because we're going to follow that up with a

[Demonstration of Followers Steps 5-7]

Lindsey: Another Quick-Quick-Slow, and we are back to our starting angle again.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: Now, we're making good use of our lowered position. So our knees are bent, our stabilizing muscles are engaged. So even though we're sort of nice and cozy in that frame and moving in harmony with each other, we get to move quite dynamically, so some sort of faster movements some nice angles that give it a nice Tango-y dramaticism.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And there it is the Rock Turn in the Tango. A really useful one, it gets you round corners, stick a left foot walk in there in between and you can piggyback them if you can't think what else to do, and a really good fun one that looks great on the floor. So, try it out see how you go hit us up with any questions and have fun out there.

Ballroom Blitz #052

Change of Place Left to Right in Jive - Jul 24, 2023

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 again blitzers and welcome back to the channel. Today we are going into the wonderful world of Jive; a bit more a back replace action! We're going to do another change of place, we have done one of these previously, we've done the change of place right to left, and today we're going to be doing change of place left to right; the other way you can change places I guess, so let's take a look!

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, unlike the change of place from right to left, link in the description, this one is open-ended. What do I mean by that? I mean you finish in the same position you start. So, quite often we piggyback them and do more than one at a time. Starting in the open position we move through our general Back-Replace Chasse Chasse type construction, returning to open position in just eight steps.

So let's take a look at the leaders steps first. We're in an open position to start so we have a very straight Back-Replace, remember not too big and not too fancy. Nice and wall presenting here, pushing off Back-Replace; pretty much just like all our other open moves. Now what I want to do is reel the follower in towards me, contracting our position slightly. I often tell leaders imagine you're going to ricochet them off your hip and ping them in another direction. We're only going to make about 3/8s of a turn over this figure, we don't want to exchange sides directly, so we're not trying to get exactly where each other is. So on the first Chasse what I want to do is bring my left hand across almost to my right shoulder. I'm going to do a compact Chasse. Lindsey's going to talk about her steps in a moment, so follows don't worry about that. I'm going to do a compact Chasse as I bring my arm up, inspiring the follow in front, that's our first Chasse, after the first Chasse I am going to drop my arm, and we've now you can see we've achieved a bit more of an angle here, so roughly 3/8s of a turn. The second Chasse after I can see the whites of my follows eyes, I'm going to Chasse towards them, they're going to Chasse back. And this is how we get back to our open position ready to do another Back-Replace on my left and follows right.

Lindsey: So follow us at this point we can be pretty sure we're going to do a Back-Replace, but other than the fact that it's a figure that starts in this open position we're not quite sure what this is. Our key is that we're going to follow the hand, so we feel that pressure encouraging us to do our Back, and then Replace on the spot, so that was onto my right foot then my left foot. I'm now free of my right foot for my first Chasse and Ian's going to bring my hand across, that's going to encourage me to take a bit of a turning sideways Chasse, and I'm going to end up in front of him. So, I've got my way to my right I've just done my right-a-right Chasse, the hand drops that encourages me to turn. So again I'm kind of following where the hand is going, and then I'm pushed backwards to go left-a-left for my final Chasse.

Ian: So, as you can see from the explanation of the leaders portion and the followers portion the figure does follow our standard Back-Replace-Chasse-Chasse pattern. However, we really do want to take a moment to just examine those arms and make sure that we understand exactly when we're trying to do things. The Back-Replace has to be quite straight, so we don't want to start flinging our arms off and leading this too early. But, we also don't want to hang around leads, so after the Back-Replace as soon as you're stepping into your Chasse, coordinate your left hand. Bring it up towards the right so that the follow has no option but to turn under that arm and turn into that direction, and there's really no hesitation there. So, there's no time for her to wonder whether it's anything else, or accidentally go into a different sort of step. But then we want to make sure that we get the first Chasse done so the first Quick-a-Quick, we get the follow onto their foot, and then we drop the arm to finish the turn. You don't want to halo the head and turn it too quickly. You also don't want to yank it down. We really want to get the follow onto their foot, and then before commencing the second Chasse, drop the hand. If we can get command of this sort of timing nuance, you'll not only be able to turn in a really correct easy fashion, where the follow gets a lot of help and the leader gets the opportunity to maintain timing, but you'll also then set up the best opportunity for you to get a nice forward and backward Chasse in that second Chasse.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it for your Change of Places from a Left to Right in Jive. As you can see from that final musical demonstration you can just piggyback these so you can do two, three, don't do more than three, the you know, it gets a bit much. But, you can just do one, and then the other. So, give it a go, remember to stay calm, get a nice small Back-Replace, do both Chasses, work on coordinating that arm, and have some fun with your Jive. Keep it nice and small, enjoy yourself on the floor, we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #053

Weave Endings in Foxtrot - Jul 27, 2023

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.

Ballroom Blitz #054

Separation in Paso Doble - Jul 31, 2023

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.

Lindsey: Welcome back blitzes we've got a beauty for you today we're being all arrogant and awesome with the Paso Doble, and the move is the Separation. Now the separation is a great move, partly because there are several different variations that sort of lengthen it out make it look even more snazzy, we're just going to be looking at the base move. It's only eight steps long, and it's got a good story to it as well which is perfect for our Paso Doble bull fighting. So let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: Now I love this move in Paso Doble because there are some things that keep it nice and simple. We start in a closed position, we end in a closed position, there's no turn, it's not terribly long, but it also has a great deal of flair. So the idea behind the movement is that the bullfighter, who is the leader, tosses their Cape, the follower, away from them, and then drags it back towards them.

Now the steps for the leader and the follower are quite different from each other, so let's have a look at the leaders steps first.

Ian: Alrighty leaders, a lot of the footwork for this movement is actually quite simple, you're going to be doing a lot of Surplus a lot of the penguin march in place. We're going to start however though with an Appel, our call to action, link to Appel in the description. We always Appel on the right foot on one, so we want the Appel. We want it to be strong and we want to allow our compression to continue. Pro tip: don't continue your compression forward because you just headbutt your partner and take it from me it f@#king hurts! So, we want to go down we are throwing our cape back we compress down, and imagine you have something on your head it has to come forward but you don't want to bend your whole body forward. So as long as you do that we have a Appel with a strong compression. Once we have compressed we've now loaded our leg we're going to take a strong step forward on our left, that's step two. We start to rise, here we're going to talk about the arm work in a moment, but we start to rise here close our feet three. Surplus four, and then four Surplus on the spot five six seven eight, ready to do whatever you want to do next.

Now if we run over the arms and what sort of complements that strong posture, the follow steps are different, as Lindsey said and I'll let her cover those in a moment, we want to imagine extending or pushing or throwing our Cape out on about step three, really. When we've started to close our feet the cape keeps going. So we Appel on one with that strong compression, we've contracted our frame we hold our frame nice and steady no noodle arms, we take our strong step forward. As we close our feet and start to rise, we extend our arm, we're flinging the cape, that's on three. Don't extend it so much that you have to bend forward, doesn't really look so good and you your weight's in the wrong spot. But we have gone to near full extension without losing our balance, and then as you do your surpluses, you have your fourth one is in place, as you get to five six seven eight you're going to bring the follow back in as the cape and achieve a closed position ready to go again.

Lindsey: Alright followers every time we Appel we're going to Appel on our left foot to match the leaders Appeling on their right. So we will feel that rise up ready, and then we will come down, making sure that we land our weight primarily on our left foot, because we want to be able to move our right foot next. Now, as the leaders take their strong step forward, we will be pushed backwards in a strong step backwards, so that's on our right foot. But, as the leaders close their feet on three they're still extending their arm and that forces us to take a secondary step backwards on our left. So, while the leaders have only taken one step forward we've taken two steps back, and that's what achieves the separation, that extension away from each other. But, as Ian said only two arms length. So, we don't want to feel like we've taken giant steps backwards and we end up being pulled forward. So, that was steps one is the Appel, two is backwards, three is backwards, and then four is a close of the feet. Now, make sure that's not just a tap that you do change weight, and now we are going to do a basic movement just our small steps forwards on our toes. As the leader draws us back towards them we have, five six seven eight, and achieving that closed hold again as we draw near to them.

So each of these movements has its own weight change for both parties and it's eight even beats so we have.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that is the separation. So it's a great move in and of itself and it can then be developed into things like Separation with Ladies Caping Walks, Separation with Fallaway Ending, all sorts of fun stuff that sort of gives it a lift. So try it out, have some fun, let us know in the comments if you need any more clarification, or if you want to see one of those other variations, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #055

Natural Pivot Turn in Quickstep - Aug 03, 2023

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 again blitzers, welcome back to the channel. We're doing some Quickstep today, we are going to be looking at the Natural Pivot Turn.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: I really like the Natural Pivot Turn because it keeps the same rhythmic construction of Slow-Quick-Quick-Slow as we get in our Quarter Turn to Right, Progressive Chasse, Forward Lock, often the basic steps that we begin with, and then it gives you a very definite corner figure with that same rhythm of Slow-Quick-Quick-Slow. And it gets you to the same position, the same ending point, as your Natural Turn but with a few slows less.

I also like the natural pivot turn because when you get a good mastery of the pivot it makes your Natural Spin turn, the focus of our impatience pet peeve and a blitz in the future that will be coming, it makes the Natural Spin Turn far easier when we get that pivoting action on step four.

Now really and truly the first three steps of this figure we have already blitzed we have blitzed them in the Natural Turn they are for all intents and purposes exactly the same. We will go over them again here but a bit more quickly. If you need to review them with a little bit more detail go back to Blitz #023, again link in the description, but it is the pivoting step that really makes the Pivot Turn or Natural Pivot Turn, as I should say, the actual Natural Pivot Turn, so it makes sense to give most of today towards that actual pivot step; step number four.

So as we have said for a more detailed revision of these first three steps link in the description Natural Turn Blitz #023. But as a brief overview we are in a closed position. Leader[s] you are ready to come forward on a slow heel on your right foot, you're dancing in line with your partner, although you can step outside as well, you are going to drive, then between steps two and three take about a 3/8s of a turn, close your feet on three, and lower preparing for the followers drive step on their right foot forward and at this point you should be backing line of dance.

[Demonstration of Steps 1-3}

Ian: So leads we've arrived at this critical position with the follower about to drive forward on their right foot. We've done all the usual good things, we've waited for them, we've settled, we've bent our knees, we're not being impatient - pet peeve go back look at that one if you are. But we are settling and ready to absorb their power, and at this point all things being equal the follow should have no idea what's coming. It could be one of upward of about eight to a dozen different figures that sort of branch off at this point, so they are trying to provide the best drive forward that they can. What we need to do to prepare our pivot is as we step back to absorb that power, we need to start to turn our toe inward. This creates tension across our hips and in our body, and so as we absorb that power, that power is coming very straight, we have tensioned our body turning our toe inwards as we go to perform a pivot. And at this point I'm holding my legs in the same position. I'm basically, if I'm pivoting this well, and you'll do this pretty much without having to think about it too much, you're going to dance a heel-toe-heel; beg your pardon, you're going to dance a toe-heel-toe, because you're going backwards. The follower will do that coming forwards. So you're going to dance a toe first, settle on a heel, back on a toe to pivot holding the other leg in place. Toe-Heel-Toe, and I have, as you can see, held my legs in place. I haven't put any weight on my right foot. I haven't accidentally fallen forward and taken the next step. I've held into position. I'm still low because of my pivoting action, ready to take a heel step forward into the next figure.

Lindsey: So followers, after those first three steps which were, backwards on the left, side on the right, and close our feet, as Ian said we don't actually know at this point what the leaders are planning. But, we can be pretty sure that they want us to go on our right foot, because we've felt that change of weight at this point, and we're the ones with eyes on line of dance here. So, they lower, they invite the drive, and all I want to do is take that drive forward, and then react to what the leader is doing next. And what they are doing is turning on that foot so we will feel that we're still in a closed position so we go forwards on the right, we'll feel them turn on the spot and we want to keep that left foot backwards as we turn around.

Ian: Now leaders, there is one very important thing that we need to clarify with this backward step toe turned in. You are still taking a straight step back, turning your toe in to tension across your hips and in your frame. You are not stepping off the line and stepping yourself away from your follow. So, just to clarify, I am stepping back turning my toe in for tension, but if I was to close my legs here you can see that they are still closed. I have not stepped back and yanked, and then have to bring my top half through that, all that achieves is pulling basically the the follower off of their, off of their line, off of their step, and it's the basis of the impatience pet peeve. So, if you want to have a look at the effects of that go back and watch that one and to avoid that keep your step nice and straight tension your hips with the toe turned in and that'll get you a good pivoting outcome.

Now, unlike the Natural Turn, which is pretty much in the Quickstep a purely corner figure, the Natural Pivot Turn should be able to go down the side of the room. And once you have a good mastery of what you can follow it with, then you can basically point your pivot wherever you like to get the desired effect. So, don't hamstring yourself and think of this only as a corner figure, it's not. You should be able to point your toe in your pivot down line of dance or even a little bit further to get the desired effect.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it, the Natural Pivot Turn in the Quickstep. Upgrading it from your Natural Turn, cutting out a few of the slows at the end but getting you to exactly the same ending position. So, whatever you're following your Natural Turn with, you can follow your Natural Pivot Turn with. Later on in future blitzes we will be exploring the Natural Spin Turn, and we will upgrade our pivot into that spin and show you how to get the most out of your spin turn as well. That is for a future Blitz for now try the Pivot Turn, it's a fantastic one for corners, try it down the side of a room so you don't get into that hamstrung "only in a corner" situation, have fun with your Quickstep and we will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #056

Pet Peeve: Impetus Turns - Aug 07, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Alright chaps, this has been brewing for a while. We are doing a Pet Peeve. Ian got the last one, mine is this one, we are going to talk about Impetus Turns. Okay,leaders,this one is directed mainly at you, we will have our gripes with the followers another time. The impetus turn is about physics and the physics of this particular move is that you've got two objects traveling together this one going backwards, that's the leader, this one going forwards that's the follower. Always go backwards into an Impetus Turn leaders. So if you're going backwards and you're both moving, you're both moving, and then suddenly you stop moving and are just on the spot, the momentum of the follower, still moving, is the thing that spins you around. And that is the "turn" part of the Impetus Turn.

Now that doesn't work, if you keep on moving with your partner, The footwork, and I'm going to back it up a little bit here, is that leaders you're going backwards on your left foot and your next move, the followers will continue on with the second step that travels but, your move is to put your feet together and perform a heel turn. We will go into this in more detail in another Blitz. But, if you don't do that if you don't put your feet together and stop as your partner is still moving then you f@$ked up the physics of it. It does not work if you take a secondary step that actually travels. Your partner cannot get around you. You have absolutely no chance of choosing between an Open Impetus or a Closed. You've got no control. You've got no rotation. You've got no balance. You've come away from your partner and you've f@$ked it.

Now I have heard leaders say "oh but it's really hard to sort of just stop on this spot there and put your feet together when you're moving", no, garbage. There are two reasons why you would do an Impetus Turn. One is that it's part of the sequence in which case you know it's coming up, and the other one is that you've decided to lead it in which case you know it's coming up. And what you're saying to me if you say "oh it's really hard" is that you are incapable of doing, this. You're not. If you're on the dance floor and upright at all you are capable of putting your feet together.

Now I have been a little bit glib there of course, I've been a little bit mean, I've sort of said to the leaders you are capable of this and I believe that. It doesn't mean that it is easy peasy you do need to engage your core, your muscles, your balance, make sure your heads up, make sure your frame is engaged so that you're guiding your partner around, even though they are still moving you want to stay nice and close with them in that frame, so there is work to do! But, you are leaders you are strong and you can do it.

That's really it from me on this particular peeve. The reason that I get a little bit het up about this one is that I actually love this move. It is absolutely superb when you can pull it off. So, keep on working at it. We will do a Ballroom Blitz on the Impetus Turn so if you're sitting there going Lindsey what on earth are you talking about, I don't even know what move this is. It is coming up very soon. But, for those of you who know it already, do your job, do your work, leaders get those feet together.

Ballroom Blitz #057

Impetus Turns in Slow Foxtrot - Aug 10, 2023

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 and welcome back to the channel. Today we are going to be doing Impetus Turns. We're going to have a focus on Foxtrot, but it is of course the same figure in Quickstep and Modern Waltz as well. If you did have the pleasure of our last Ballroom Blitz it was one of Lindsey's pet peeves; her first pet peeve the second one for the channel, where she did express some quite strong opinions on the incorrectness that we sometimes witness with the Impetus Turns. Leaders if you did walk away with that like John Wayne feeling like your balls had been put in a vice this hopefully will put a little bit of a soothing patch across those so that you can be performing your Impetus Turns a little bit better. So, without further ado let's get into Impetus Turns.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, your impetus turn has three main steps and two major exits. Basically you have an Open Impetus and a Closed Impetus. Usually if you're dancing a Closed Impetus you don't have to say "Closed", we just call it an Impetus Turn. But, if you're dancing and Open Impetus, you should precede it with that "Open" term, and in this context that means you're going to end the figure in Promenade Position. So your standard Impetus turn or Closed Impetus turn maintains Closed Position, and you're going to stay in closed throughout the whole figure, and your Open Impetus ends in Promenade Position ready to do a prominent figure. Both of them have three main steps and it essentially is a heel turn for the leader. Now when leaders do Heel Turns, they are slightly different to a followers Heel Turn, and really for all intents and purposes and the focus of today, this is because you know when you are going to do a heel turn. You are leading the figure, you've chosen the figure, so you know ahead of time that you're going to step back and perform a heel turn. If you turn that around and you put the follow into a heel turn, all else being equal, they don't know that in that moment you are going to be leading a heel turn until they're basically in it. We're going to focus on this is the major point of difference and show you what a leader should be doing in their heel turn, as opposed to what a follower will be doing so you can get the best out of your Impetus Turns.

Ian: Pretty exclusively your impetus turn is always going to be a Natural figure a rightward turning or a clockwise turning figure. This means that the person going back, and in this case the leader will always be stepping for-, beg your pardon, stepping backward on their left foot, because the person stepping forward will be going forward on the right foot. So if we take a Foxtrot style setup where the preceding figure has ended us with open feet, leads you're going to be ready to be driven backwards commence backwards on your left and you're going to step into a heel turn. We take the drive portion, we absorb the power, we say thank you very much from our follower, as we commence to turn over this heel we close our feet together to turn on a spot. Now here's where the major difference comes between a leader's Heel Turn in an Impetus and a follows Heel Turn, is that generally speaking you're not going to get all the way around to where you need to just on your heel alone. Which means when you take the second step, the actual close and changing weight, you've got to transfer weight to the ball of your right foot to continue the turn before stepping out in step three; like so. We have one turn on the heel swap to the ball of the foot and then step out. This doesn't work if the feet aren't close together because you get a very Neil Armstrong on the Moon type weight shift because your feet are too far apart. That was really the crux of Lindsey's pet peeve and the easiest way to fix it is basically to bring your feet together and just know about that little weight transfer trick.

[Demonstration of leaders steps with counts]

Ian: So, that in a nutshell is the leader's portion of an impetus turn. There's a school of thought that you can take them the other way and the mechanics would be exactly the same. But pretty much all of them are going to turn to the right, so let's just keep the focus there for a moment. If you need to revise your Heel Turns in general we have already blitzed those we'll put a link in the description, and so with the exception of that transfer onto the ball of the foot to get you that little bit of extra turn. You're basically lead stepping back, doing a heel turn, and [then] leading the follow out. Retaining a Closed Position in the demonstrations before, but if you take that last step to a Promenade Position it will be an Open Impetus.

Lindsey: So, followers just before our Impetus Turn the leaders would have turned their back to line of dance, meaning that we have the forward step down the floor. So if this is my line of dance, my leader has turned around me we're still in a nice closed hold and I am stepping forward at them on my right foot. And because of the nature of the rhythm, or what my leader is guiding me to do, I know that that is a drive step. So I am driving forward on my right, now at this point I don't necessarily know that it is an Impetus Turn, this does not matter, what the leader does with their frame will soon make it clear to me and I'll have no choice but to sort of go round. So I drive, what I'll feel next is that I've got some "impetus" if you will, some momentum to keep on going, but I'll feel my leader stop on the spot and that will sort of turn me around. So my second step lands, but we've got some turn that just naturally occurs there as I'm sort of being brought around by my leader. Still nice and close on the hip, the right foot brushes underneath me as the turn continues and we step slightly forward and out, as our leader guides us to at the end there. If I do it the other way, forwards on the right, I drive on a slow, and then I've got a quick brush-quick.

[Demonstration of followers steps with counts]

Lindsey: Now, Ian's mentioned several times that you can have a Closed Impetus or an Open Impetus, it's really important followers that you don't guess which one it is and turn yourself to Promenade. You need to wait for the guidance of the leader's frame to let you know that it's an Open Impetus. If you feel nothing, but just a nice sort of sturdy supportive frame that isn't shifting you about; stay in closed keep your head to the left.

Ian: So, if we arrange ourselves with our open feet for our Foxtrot, Lindsey gives me a good power step, slow, I stop on the spot walk her around. And you notice we now keep that momentum going keep that impetus going down the floor but instead of a straight line two closed bodies, we are orbiting around each other in that heel turn for the lead. So once more with counts we have

[Demonstration of with counts]

[Demonstration of with music]

Ian: And that is it blitzing the Impetus Turns. demonstrated in [Slow] Foxtrot but basically the same for your Waltz and Quickstep, though we will do those at some stage in the future. Smash them in, make sure you bring your feet together, do those heel turns leaders, use that weight change ball of foot trick to stay on the spot and get around, put them into whatever dances you choose, and have fun on the floor. We will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #058

Reverse Vs. Natural Waltz in New Vogue & Sequence - Aug 14, 2023

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 again Blitzers and welcome back to the channel. Today we are far overdue to answer a special request that came in via some of our Facebook channels. Today we are comparing, in New Vogue and Sequence, the difference between the Reverse Waltz and the Natural Waltz. Let's take a look.

Before we get down and dirty with the details of Natural and Reverse, if you are one of our YouTube viewers and you've not yet subscribed, then please do that. If you would like to join the community, even though you are not in the local Hobart area, do feel free to join the Facebook groups and check us out on the Facebook page. Feel free to leave comments there as well regarding our Ballroom Blitzes; that's totally fine as well. All the links are in the description, just go down to the bottom you'll get all the direct links, everything you need to know. So, we will see you there. But, right now let's get into some Waltz.

Ian: It is an age-old pastime to end a sequence Viennese style rhythm dance with a waltz of some description. I can't think, off the top of my head, of any Waltz that does not end with one of these. So then it becomes a question of: are you turning to the left, or are you turning to the right? Are you doing a Reverse Waltz, are you doing a Natural Waltz? And there's really two things that we're going to look at today: one, how to identify which one it is, and how does that affect the setup; and then two, what is the actual difference between them so that you get a good feel. We did this for what's the difference between a Rotary Chasse and a Natural Waltz. That's slightly different because they have different rhythms. This one has the same rhythm so it's a little bit trickier to discern which one is which, sometimes you just have to remember. But certainly there are stark differences between what you need to do if you're doing a Reverse Waltz compared to a Natural Waltz, so we'll make sure we clear those up throughout the session.

Following along from our general ballroom idea of: if you are turning left then the person going forward travels on the left foot, drives on the left foot; and if you're turning right the person going forward travels on the right foot; the Viennese Waltz and indeed the Waltzes at the end of your New Vogue and Sequence follows those same rules. So, we can start to work out some of the differences just by the language. If you are dancing a Reverse Waltz you must be turning: reverse, anti-clockwise, to the left, which means when it's your turn to go forward you will drive on the left foot. If you are doing a Natural Waltz you are turning: naturally, you are turning to the right, you are turning clockwise, which means the person going forward with the drive step must drive forward on the right foot.

Let's start with the Natural Waltz. We're coming forward on the Right foot, we are turning to the right, we're turning in the natural direction. We have drive, turn to the right close your feet, be driven keep turning to the right close your feet.

In a nutshell, the difference between the Reverse Waltz and the Natural Waltz and the "cross step" that you're going to see in a moment, that comes about because of the position of yourself and your partner. We are offset with our partner to one side, and because of that offset you are turning more around your partner in one direction of these turns, and more through your partner when you turn in the other direction. Because of this you need to account for that and close your feet in a different fashion.

So, if we look at the Reverse Waltz, coming forward on the left, turning to the left, with this different step on the forward portion. I'm going to drive with my nice heel step, that's fairly simple fairly usual. I'm going to turn to the left as I take my side step, that's fairly usual fairly simple. But here instead of just closing my feet in a waltz fashion, or continuing to turn and close them side by side, I am going to retract this foot in a sliding type fashion; I often say forward-side-slide is a bit of a working reminder, if that works for you use that, if not don't worry. But we're going to slide this under and as we close our feet. We are closing one behind the other. I have definitely closed my left foot in front of my right and all of my weight is on my left foot so that I can go back side together. So we haven't bent or broken any of those rules. But I haven't closed like this, I have closed like this.

Ian: So let's have a look at that from a different angle. Turning reverse we have.

[Demonstration of Reverse Waltz]

Ian: So let's have a look at these side by side.

[Demonstration of Natural Waltz]

[Demonstration of Reverse Waltz]

Ian: So that's a comparison between the two. What's the difference between turning left or reverse in your reverse waltz, with this side slide and your natural Waltz, which is almost a simple Waltz forward side together for both the forward and the backward half. But how do you know which one you're going to do? Well most of these you just kind of have to learn it as part of the dance, but there are a few indicators and then a few key things to remember so you don't accidentally be doing the wrong waltz and turning the wrong way. Now in most of the New Vogues there really is this left-foot fetish where at every major point in the dance, and certainly at the start of the dance, the leader commences on the left foot; and therefore the follow has to change whether they're using the left or the right depending on the position they're in. So, if we apply this to our waltzes: if the leader is always on the left foot, and I say always there are a few exceptions but it's a pretty solid rule of thumb for most of your sequence dances in the New Vogue set. If the leader needs to dance a Reverse Waltz at the end they must be facing forward because they're going to go forward on their left to turn to the left or if you think of it the other way if you end up facing forward you're probably going to turn reverse nine times out of ten. If we flip that around if we have a Natural Waltz at the end of a sequence like this, if it's following that rule of thumb, then leaders are actually facing against line of dance or their backing line of dance so that when they step on their left foot they're actually going on the backward half first because the person going forward, in order to turn right, must be using their right foot which is therefore the follower. So good examples of this Swing Waltz, it has a reverse Waltz at the end the leader is facing forward; Lucille Waltz, it has a Natural Waltz at the end the leader is backing line of dance. This is a fairly decent rule of thumb but as we say there are exceptions. But, it will do you nine times out of ten unlike the is it a Waltz is it a Chasse, the rhythm is exactly the same so this all comes down to who is pointing forward. And the one guarantee, the one guarantee I can assure you is that if no one is pointing forward, if you are pointing to the wall, you won't Waltz you'll probably Chasse. So it is better to turn the wrong way but be Waltzing than turn the correct way and be Chasse-ing.

Ian: And that is it, I hope that this comparison between Reverse Waltz and Natural Waltz in your New Vogue and Sequences has been helpful. Do hit us up, whether it is commenting on the videos, or Facebook, in the group, or on the page. Please let us know how you're liking our blitzes, if you would like us to Blitz anything specifically for you, and if you would like to see more of one style of dance, whatever it is let us know your thoughts and we will catch you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #059

Alemana in Rumba - Aug 17, 2023

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.

Lindsey: Hello lovely people on the internet. Welcome to another Ballroom Blitz. Today we are in the Latin world we are going to be dancing some Rumba and the figure of choice is the Alemana from fan position.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So the Alemana is two bars long and of course we are keeping with our regular Rumba rhythm of three steps during each bar; so we've got six steps in all. The leader is staying largely where they are, Ian will take you through those steps in a moment, and the followers steps, apart from that very first one that you saw which is our sort of default when we are in our fan position, they are all actually forward steps. So, let's have a closer look.

Now this particular Alemana is taken from fan position. We have looked at a Fan in other blitzes so we'll put a link below. It's worth noting that you can also do this move from an open position, but for today's Blitz we are just going to be focusing on that one starting in fan.

Now, just like there are a couple of options for starting this particular figure there are also a bunch of different ways that we can end it; a number of positions with our partner that we could end up in. It's what makes this figure so versatile, it's a really really useful one for sort of connecting our different figures. It's always up to the leader as to which one they are going to choose; for today's purpose we are just bringing it back into a closed position.

Ian: Leaders let's start with your steps. The footwork is really really simple with this figure, it's more the arm work and the leading and the nuances therein that becomes a little bit trickier as we go. Let's start with the feet, we have arrived in Fan Position, again links in the description to Fan Figure and Demystifying Fan if you need to recap that, but the most important thing is your feet are apart, your follow will be off to your left and you will have them in your left hand. You're going to inspire them to close, as always the first two steps out into any fan figure, or any figure that comes from fan. You're going to step forward on Two extending your left arm encouraging the follow to close their feet and then rocking back onto your right, [the] classic Step-Rock in your Rumba and Cha, and now we need to synchronize that lead of the arm. So those two steps are a gimme and here all we're going to do in the simple version is close our feet, change weight over the Four-One and arrange your left hand into a very old-fashioned policeman stop type placement. You will have a flat palm, that is very important, don't cook or hook your fingers or try and pull the following any way. You are flattening your palm, you're creating a nice wall, and they will walk into that, I will let Lindsey cover that in a moment. It should be in a nice neutral position as you see here. It shouldn't be in the danger zone where it gets almost like a Hockey Stick and it shouldn't be left out holding the follow literally at arm's length, we don't want that at all. So a nice neutral bend in the elbow, nice and high, not straight up, but certainly not down low either, nice and neutral about eye height, flat palm; that happens on the Four-One of the first bar. So we have

And we're now in position, we've now led the actual Alemana from fan, that gets us to the crux of the next bit. We're going to move our arm to encourage the follow to walk forward. They're going to walk forward that direction, and then walk forward that direction, and again I'll let Lindsey cover the follows steps. As that's happening we're going to take a very Rumba-esque step back, nice and small if we take it too big this collapses, that's bad, stepping back on your right foot. Two. All the way over it as we bring this arm back leading the first walk, we're going to rock onto our next step as we bring that forward, and then closing the feet in this case, because we want to bring the follow back to us in a closed position. If you choose to go to one of the other exits of your Alemana, this is the step that will change. For now, we're just doing the simple Two Three and close the feet.

Lindsey: If the leader has been facing you there, I'm going to set myself up so Ian is there, you can imagine him, and he has just led me to Fan Position, so again check the link if you need to. But, we would have just previously gone backwards on our left foot all of our weight there. Like Ian said, once we're there our next two moves are kind of stock standard. We don't really have to worry about what they are, we'll know. It's what happens after that that we need to pay attention to. So we have been led by our leader to close our feet and we want to change weight, so I want to bring my right foot in underneath me, and get my weight on it. That means I'm now ready on my left foot to do my second step which is forward. The leader should be guiding me in that way, and then I'll feel his hand come up into that Alemana position. I want to take another forward walk here, but because it's been brought up, the hand, and I'm sort of following that hand, I'm following the tension, I will have taken another forward walk but it will have started to turn. We don't actually want to stay absolutely straight on that line, we'll have too far to go for the second half. Now, after that first half, I'll do it again in a second, we do have quite a way to turn. We're sort of turning all the way around so that we are facing our leader by the end of that second bar, so we want to be ready for it. But there's a very particular way that we are going to do it. An Alemana, for the follower, is nearly all forward steps. So that means that if I want to curve it around, if I didn't sort of set them up I'd sort of be walking around in a sort of curved action and it's not quite what we want. So we want to set up our new angle after each step, I'll show you what I mean, so we're starting in fan, we've got our close, walk, ah! it's an Alemana. What I'm going to do for my next three steps is before I take this step I'm going to bring my back foot underneath me and swivel on the spot. That means I can get a nice straight step, I swivel take a straight step, I swivel and I take a straight step back to my partner. And in that way we are really controlling our movements, we're getting those lovely long lines in our legs, it will look both elegant but also very defined.

Ian: So we're going to put these two halves together and talk a little bit about what the leaders need to be doing with their hands throughout the walking steps of the figure, and how then the follows will handle that so that we can get the best out of it, and so that when you develop the different exits you won't have any confusion of which one is actually coming up. If we get through our initial two three four-one, you can see here Lindsey's commenced to turn about an eighth (1/8), we have our policeman stop, and she's now really walking into the wall that I've created here. If we follow the idea that the follow is walking forward, as Lindsey has just mentioned, I need to using the power of my left hand, direct where and how big those steps will go. So Lindsey is going to walk forward, and if I just leave my and there she can't go anywhere; in fact she headbutts me; so we don't want that. If Lindsey starts to walk and I go wei-hey, and just do that, she can't reach. So we have to work together in that moment where we maintain the tension. Follows you are following the tension in the hand, walking forward all the way. Leaders you are creating the tension in a space that the follow can actually follow. So we get much more of a

Lindsey: Now as Ian has just said, having that tension to follow in the hand can be really really useful for directing the steps. It makes it much easier for the leader then to direct that step at the end somewhere else, if they choose to. But, of course, we can't be relying entirely on that to do our own work. So we always want to be sort of pulled up. Work on your sort of step and swivel action to make sure that you are keeping your own balance. The leader doesn't want the job of trying to sort of help us to keep our balance, as well as directing, as well as doing their own steps. So we do want to practice that movement by ourselves, practice our walks, practice our swivels, and then that makes the leader's job much easier to sort of direct us around.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that leaders and followers is your Alamana in Rumba. you'll be unsurprised to learn that there is a version of it in Cha Cha as well, so we should cover that in our blitzes at some point I imagine. But in the meantime try it out. Keep nice and upright, it follows that classic Rumba pattern and it's an absolute beauty for when you find yourself in Fan Position bringing you back to a neutral position where you can start again. So, try it out, have some fun with it, we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #060

Bota Fogos to Promenade & Counter Promenade in Samba - Aug 21, 2023

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.

Lindsey: Hello lovely dancers, welcome back to Ballroom Blitz. Today we are in the world of Samba and the figure is Boga Fogos to Promenade and Counter Promenade. It actually won't take you as long to do the figure as to say the name of the figure. Let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So as advertised this figure is using the Bota Fogo action. We have blitzed Bota Fogos in the past, so we'll put that in the description down the bottom for you to have a look at. The figure takes up three bars and you'll notice at the start we're starting in a closed position. That first bar will get us to Promenade the second one will get us to Counter Promenade and then the third one will end Us in Promenade once more. Now, that's for the entirety of this figure, but you are able to sort of chop these up. So you can do bars two and three just by themselves, as long as you're starting in a Promenade position, you can repeat those as well if you really love that action, and you can use that first bar as a way of getting from Promenade, sorry, from a Closed Position to Promenade and then continue on doing a different move entirely. To start with let's have a look at the leader's steps, I'm going to throw it over to Ian.

Ian: Alrighty leaders, all of these as advertised are Bota Fogo actions, so to recap that recap the Bota Fogo Blitz. The first Bota Fogo is going to get us from Closed Position to Promenade Position. I'm going to be stepping forward on my left foot with a one. I'm going to take a side step for the "a" really aligning myself to prepare to get into Promenade, and then without moving that first foot in the very Bota Fogo type fashion, realigning without sliding or moving the foot into Promenade, two. So that would be

And as Lindsay said earlier we're now in Promenade Position. What I'm going to do is repeat that action where we take a walk, we plant the foot, we don't move it from forever more for this bar. I'm now going to align myself down the floor for the "a" and change the position of this foot without moving it on the floor to Counter Promenade, and that completes bar two. If I repeat that process, I walk-a two, and in that fashion we have moved from Promenade to Counter Promenade. So a One-a Two to get into Promenade, a Two-a Two to get into Counter Promenade, and a Three-a Two to get back to Promenade.

Now on the surface without a partner it does look like those walking steps in Promenade and Counter Promenade are shifting me down the floor. Once we have a partner we'll have a bit of a talk about that creative tension so that we don't shift as we would be moving towards each other, that helps keep us in check. But, we'll do that as we put them together.

[Demonstration of Leaders steps]

Lindsey: Followers we have the natural opposite of the leaders. So, we'll start in a closed position leaders coming forwards on the left, which means we're going backwards on the right, and then that Bota Fogo action. The left toe is going to, sort of, come out to the side, that allows us to reposition into that Promenade Position you want to land your weight on your right foot again. So, it is a Right-a Right for a bounce rhythm One-a Two. We're now ready to come through on that back foot so it's our left foot stepping through in Promenade, but then the Bota Fogo action will turn us a quarter. We are now ready to go back in Counter Promenade, that's a Left-a Left. Final bar Right-a Right, and we're back to Promenade again. So we have

[Demonstration of Followers steps]

Lindsey: As Ian said, when we're doing it with a partner we're using our frame to sort of keep our position with each other it stops us sort of creeping forward, you don't want to end up head banging each other. So, Ian steps forward, I step backward, and then we shift to Promenade. We step through together, through and switch, and then again through and switch, and we're able to sort of keep that distance away from each other with just that little bit of creative tension through our frame.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: Now, as flashy as, and exciting a dance as the Samba is, the movements that we do are actually a little bit subtler. We don't want to overdo anything, and this figure is a perfect example of it. So we, don't want to think that this figure is going to travel us very far, the steps are actually quite small, we don't shift our weight over the foot that goes out to the side it's just really sort of helping us to realign, we don't want to overdo the turn because that's going to pull us out of joint with our partner and make it hard to stay in that nice helpful frame. So, we kind of want to take this one quite gently and it will feel absolutely amazing.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that is our Bota Fogos to Promenade and Counter Promenade. Try them out, you will of course have to do a figure that starts in Promenade at the end of it. But, you can start in closed, or skip that first bar if you're already in Promenade, just go for it. Have fun, as always get those hips moving in the Samba. We'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #061

Quarter Turns to Right & Left in Slow Rhythm - Aug 24, 2023

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 blitzers welcome back. Today we are doing something nice and easy going, we're going into that very social dance the Slow Rhythm. We're going to just look at the basic steps, the Quarter Turns to Left and Right, but along the way we're going to have a little bit of a chat about how these relate to Quickstep, so you can get a two for one from this simple Blitz. Let's get into it.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So as you can see from the demonstration really, really easy today but incredibly useful. If you've never danced Slow Rhythm before this is a really easy going social dance where if you did nothing but the contents of this blitz today, you'll be able to get around the floor, have a chat, and sort of enjoy your dancing. If you're using this as a stepping stone into your Quickstep, or if you'd like to do some Quickstep and you haven't quite entered that yet, you can simply do these with a little bit more speed, and we'll get into how we can do that a bit later; and you're getting a little bit of a two-for-one. So, let's start with the basic Slow Rhythm rhythm. Really we're going to, for the purpose of today, stick to a pattern of Slow Quick-Quick Slow, but really we're going to use Slow Side-Together Slow, but really we're going to use Walk Side-Together Settle...

So if we continue with that line, we're going to essentially approach everything today with a walk, and then we're going to do a classic chasses; a step closed step. And if we think about that, we don't get too slow, we don't get too quick, we don't worry about anything else other than just politely getting through the steps and not having to worry about anything any more complicated than that. So, let's get into walks and chasses.

So, how does this Walk and Chasse basic rhythm idea work. Well, I'm going to walk in one direction, I'm going to take a side close, and then I'm going to walk in the other direction. Now, if I was to repeat that end to end I would continue to Chasse in the same direction I would: Walk Side-together Walk, Walk Side-together Walk, and you can see I'm moving in one direction down the floor. Now if I had a partner in front of me doing the natural opposite we would move round line of dance but it would feel a bit weird, because the walk steps are sort of going to the wall into the center and we sort of get that Pac-Man feel down the floor. So, we're going to change our Slow Rhythm so that the walks go down the floor, or more down the floor than into the floor, and we're going to be making a bit of a zigzag, a bit of a sawtooth action. So leads, you're going to start facing diagonally forward for one figure, and then we're going to turn around so the followers are going to face diagonally forward for the start of the next figure. So if I put that into action we have: diagonally forward, turn a bit, walk back, diagonally backward, turn a bit, walk forward, and that way we are walking down the floor rather than side stepping down the floor. So let's break that into the two halves, the Quarter Turn to Right [and] the Quarter Turn to Left, and see how that actually works.

Ian: So, leaders let's start with your steps for the Quarter Turn to Right. As advertised through the figure you are going to turn a quarter to your right. So you are going to start with the walking step on the right foot, walk. Over the side-together or the step-close you're going to now think of turning that quarter, step close. You've turned a quarter to the right and line of dance should now mean that you walk backwards. Back, on your left, ready to go into the next figure. So we've obeyed that Walk Step-Close Step type arrangement, but we've walked forward, we've sidestepped to make the turn, and then as we've settled, we've changed direction so we walk backwards.

Lindsey: Now, followers, we are in a closed hold through both of these figures. So, if the leaders are coming forwards on their right foot, that means, unless we want to be trumped all over, we are going to go backwards on our left foot. So that one starts our Quarter Turn to Right, back on the left, and then we are going to go side-together with our right foot. So we've got right-left, change weight there, finish off our chasse by walking forward. So, we too, are following that Step, in this case backwards, and then a Chasse, and we are achieving that Quarter Turn to Right over that Chasse. So we have Back on the left, Right-Together, Right.

[Demonstration of Quarter Turn to Right]

Ian: After the Quarter Turn to Right we are going to do a Quarter Turn to Left, and that will return us to our starting position. So we can simply chain the two Quarter Turns together, and get around the floor. If we follow directly on that means leaders you've just been walked back on your left foot so you're ready to use your right foot again. We're going to follow the same pattern of Walk, but in this case backwards, Side-Close, achieving the angle we want to that we were on at the start that our diagonal angle, stepping forward on the left foot; ready to simply walk with the right foot into another Quarter Turn to Right. So we would have: Walk, Step-Close, Walk. As simple as that.

Lindsey: For the followers, we have the forward work in this Quarter Turn to Left, we are already on our left foot because we've just walked forwards on our right foot for the previous figure. So, we're going to continue in that direction, a nice strong walk forward, we turn around on our side and close, and we will be sent walking backwards by our leaders final step forwards. So starting on my left I have: Forward, Side-Together, Back, and I've achieved that quarter turn, and it has indeed been to the left.

[Demonstration of Quarter Turn to Left]

Ian: The trick with these Quarter Turns in your Slow Rhythm really is not to overdo them. The Slow Rhythm is a nice easy going social dance. We want to get that nice easy going strolling feeling throughout. So you don't necessarily need the same level of hip contact that you would in other dances to get them going, and they are really nice stepping stones so you can have a nice social interaction on the floor. But then use the tools that they give you to upgrade particularly into Quickstep. So how do you do that? Well the Quarter Turn to Left in Quickstep we have already blitzed, and it is slightly different, and all I can say is that as the tempo moves from Slow Rhythm tempo up into Quickstep tempo, you'll need to progress more from the Quarter Turn to Left that you see in this blitz more towards the one that we do in that blitz; and there'll be a tempo range that'll suit you where you can almost get away with either. The quarter Turn to Right is much more similar both in Quickstep and in Slow Rhythm, so because of the way you get to stretch out in Quickstep, basically you can just do do the same sort of thing.

So if you think of what we've done here with the Quarter Turn but faster that will get you going. The thing that you'll notice with Slow Rhythm, because it does have that easy going feel, is that it really doesn't matter as much whether you're doing heels and toes on those slow steps. If you walk all the steps nearly with heels you can sort of do that, it's like don't get too worried about it. Of course, when you get up to Quickstep tempo, we need to be a little bit more cautious about doing that. In fact you really can't because you don't have the time or the stability, so that will be another major difference. But for now if you think of gradually building up the tempo from what you see here into your Quickstep speed, doing the Quarter Turn to Right about the same, and progressing towards that Quarter Turn to Left we've already blitzed, that gets you your two for one. Two figures in two dancers for the one Blitz. So if we put all those together we have

[Demonstration with explanation]

[Demonstration to music]

Ian: And that is it Quarter Turns to Left and Right in Slow Rhythm. What most people know is the Slow Rhythm basic. It'll get you around the floor can be upgraded into Quickstep really, really social really, really useful a load of fun. Try it the next time you're on the floor. It dances to a whole bunch of different 4/4 music it's very, very versatile. Give it a go, let us know how you go, enjoy yourself on the floor, and we will see you on the next Blitz.

Ballroom Blitz #062

Time Steps in Cha Cha - Aug 28, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Hello there beautiful dancers, welcome back to Ballroom Blitz. Today we are in the Latin world we are looking at Cha Cha and the figure is Time Steps. Now this one is a super simple one, it's not going to take any time at all for you to pick it up. It's following our regular Cha Cha rhythm, no turn involved, nice and simple let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So, as you can see nice and simple. Our Step-Rock is still in place, but it's right underneath us. We go into a Cuban cross on the first step, replace our weight, and then ready for our Chasse action to the side. And if the leader is doing it on their left foot to start, followers are on their right; both of them tucking behind though.

Usually when, say I'm a follower and I'm ready on my right foot, usually if I am facing my partner I might be ready to take a backward step, not a huge step but you can see that I have traveled. We don't want to do that in our Time Step, we want it to be right up underneath us. So the move is, there. You can see if I turn this way that I've sort of crossed my feet into a T. Now, when your work is right up underneath you, it can become very easy to not quite transfer your weight; it can sort of turn into a tap, we don't want that. We still want the transfer of weight and you'll really notice your hips start to move in order to make it quite obvious to yourself, and your feet, and your muscles, that you have in fact taken those two steps there. So, with the timing we've got Two Three Four-and-One and then on the other foot I'm now tucking my left Two Three Four-and-One.

[Demonstration with Counts]

[Demonstration with Music]

Lindsey: So the steps are exactly the same for the lead and follow it just depends what foot you're ready on. Now, you may have noticed before when Ian and I were dancing together we didn't have any hold, usually in Cha Cha we've got some kind of a hold, this particular move is what we call a visual led. So, part of it is that we don't need, we don't require any kind of hold at all, I can see what Ian is doing himself and I follow suit.

And that's all there is to Time Steps. So, give them a go, very easy to lead into and have some fun. Get going with the arms they are free to do whatever styling you like. So, dance it up have a great time we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #063

Hesitation Change in Modern Waltz - Aug 31, 2023

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: Welcome back Ballroom Blitzers. Today we are in the world of Modern Waltz, and we are doing the Hesitation Change. Let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: Steps One-to-Three of the Hesitation Change we have already Blitzed because they are exactly the same as the first three steps of the Natural Turn. We'll leave a link in the description if you want a more detailed refresher, just hit that one up and you will get all the information you need to know. We're going to give you a quick demonstration, but then we're going to get to the action steps Four Five and Six.

[Demonstration of Steps 1 to 3 with counts]

Ian: So, steps One Two and Three of the Natural Turn, exactly the same. The leader driving forward on the right foot, ending backing line of dance ready for the follower to drive forward on their right foot. If we were doing a Natural Turn we would basically repeat with halves swapped, if you will, and that would be the Natural Turn. We're now going to change it up and turn it into the Hesitation Change. The first thing to think about though is the follower still needs to drive forward, we can't skip that step, we've set it up, we've invited them to drive forward, because lead is your backing line of dance, and so that is step four of the figure or step one of the hesitation portion. Followers you're going to drive forward on your right foot.

Leaders you are about to perform what's called a Heel Pull. It starts as I've just explained with the follower driving forward. They'll be on their right foot, so you are going backwards down the line of dance on your left. This will be quite straight, we can't turn or do too much with the power step, we want to absorb the power and use it later. What we're going to do now over the next two steps is we're going to drag this heel beside, or pull this heel beside the other foot. So, we're sliding this back, keeping it in contact with the floor, we're going to keep our whole foot in contact with the floor as we go back; so we're not releasing the heel as we would if we were taking another backward step. We're going to keep it nice and flat on the floor, commencing to turn over this step, so as we get to the point where we can no longer keep our heel on the floor, maybe a little bit before that, we're going to start to turn over both heels, so you can see my feet are not moving here and I'm going to settle into my right leg. Now the reason we call it a "Hesitation Change" is even though we have three beats to fill we have Four, Five, and Six, we only have two steps or two weight changes or footfalls. So, we're being driven back on would be Four we perform the Heel Pull, turn over both heels on Five and we "hesitate" for want of a better word on six.

Lindsey: So followers, picking it up from that fourth step, the leaders have already turned us around we should have a nice clear path looking down line of dance. Our leader is here and we are, as Ian said, going to drive at them. It's going to be straight through their feet, don't try and avoid them, on our right foot; drive. Now, the issue is that we don't know at this point, unless it's been pre-arranged, what kind of a natural turn this is; we actually don't know that this is a Hesitation Change at this point. It could be a Natural Turn, it could be a [Natural] Spin Turn, it could be an Impetus, we're not sure. So, all we know is that we have to drive forward on that right, and then sort of wait to see what happens. So we drive forward on the right, we're ready to go on our left, and the move that Ian just did that Heel Pull will, sort of, keep us low there's no rise in this one and it'll sort of swing us around. But it'll be quite a sort of low step, so we'll end up going sort of sideways and around our partner on the left, and then there's that hesitation on that very last beat. Your foot might sort of slide in a little bit underneath for balance. We want to be nice and balanced with our weight still on our left foot, we'll be ready to go backwards on our right after that. So after step three we then have

[Demonstration of Followers Steps 4 to 6 with counts]

[Demonstration of Steps 4 to 6 with counts]

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: So, the really really big difference, the main obvious difference, between a Natural Turn and a Hesitation Change, is that right at the end you are on the opposite foot to what you would be if you were to do the other move. If you do a Natural Turn, you have six steps you have six weight changes, leader commences going into it on the right foot and he would have to move out of it in the next figure using the right foot first. If we put in the Hesitation Change we drop one of those weight changes in the last three steps so as you exit the figure the first step of the figure coming afterwards following on would have to start on the leaders left. Now, this is where the not rising, and the not inspiring you to close your feet must come in. You can't do a Hesitation Change without staying low or getting yourself to a position where it feels somewhat unnatural to close your feet and change weight. That's why we don't worry about bringing the feet up and under us, it's why we stay low, it's sort of all the things that the Heel Pull will give you if you do the Heel Pull properly without trying. So, we don't have to try and stay low if we do our Heel Pull properly. We don't have to try and not close our feet if we're doing the Heel Pull. This brings us to a very important point that I know a lot of social dancers have trouble with, and it comes from looking at people performing these sorts of moves in competition and medals and other things like that in a very inspiring way. Your Hesitation Change is NOT a line shape. You are not trying to get big sway and body shape in this figure. Why? Because it will pull you up onto your feet, it will make you want to close and change weight, it will pull your follower around and onto one foot, and if you've ever been a follower and you've hopped around at the end of a hesitation this is why. We're trying to get too much sway and lift at the end. Just cut it out, it's bollocks. Stay low, don't close your feet, and enjoy the figure coming out of it.

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And there we have it, the Hesitation Change in Modern Waltz. Really, really useful and if we keep low and do that Heel Pull really, really easy. Great for corners if you need to hesitate out of it and come out with a slightly different direction, or you don't have maybe enough room for your spin turn. But, also really, really great down the side of a room and if you need to on a busy social floor a little bit of time to catch your breath and then re-envisage the floor so that you don't have to stop entirely. Very, very useful very, very easy going. Stay nice and flat and have fun with it. We're going to come back and keep going with all our natural type figures between Quickstep and Modern Waltz, there are a few more to go and we're getting to the point where we can now interconnect them and get them all working a lot more easily as we know much more about all of them together. So, stay tuned for many more Blitzes, let us know what you would like us to Blitz in the future, and we will catch you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #064

Fallaway Throwaway in Jive - Sep 04, 2023

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: Alrighty guys, welcome back to Ballroom Blitz. We are in the world of Latin once again, we're going to hit up some Jive. A stupidly easy figure called The Fallaway Throwaway. In previous blitzes we have blitzed the Change of Places both Left to Right and Right to Left. One of those gets you from closed to open and a lot of your Jive moves after we get past some of the very very basic ones will be performed from the open position. Sometimes though you really don't want to put the lady under the arm. Sometimes you just don't want to spin. Sometimes you just forget and, and have to do something a little bit later than you would like. The Fallaway Throwaway is the move for that. Obviously don't lead it too late, we don't encourage that. But, it's a semi-good bailout move when you want to get from closed to open but you've sort of missed the opportunity to go under the arm with your change of places. So let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So as you can see from the demo really, really easy construction it sticks to our back replace chasse-chasse type basic arrangement. But, it doesn't have too many complicated under the arm type turns, and it's really, really easy to cradle the follow out and end up in the open position for what you want to do next.

Leaders we're going to kick off this move as always with a Back-Replace, and as always with our basic Jive, in a closed position as we take our back step we want to be shifting our gaze from our follower to 1/8 to the left into that Fallaway position for that Fallaway Rock. But now as we do the Replace we aren't going to return our position, that's going to form part of the lead. This will mean that in our frame here the follow will feel some of that tension, and now I'm going to double down on that, I'm going to lead into that, and I'm going to do a compact turning chasse on the spot. That's a lot of words for a Quick-a Quick, where I'm going to not really travel that much and start to turn. As I do that I'm not going to do anything fantastic with my frame I'm going to encourage the follow to chasse around in front of me by just basically turning my own body, Quick-a Quick. So you can see I've started to come forward a little bit, but not very much, but I have now turned to face you in the camera. So, I have started here my back replace or my back has taken me 1/8 my replace has not turned me back so I still have a 1/8 and the Compact Chasse turning that final 1/8 but I'm still here in a closed-ish position. That will become more obvious when we show you both halves. Here on the second part of the second chasse, we're going to continue to bring the follow around, change our grip to that open style grip, and I'm going to try and chasse forward nice compact chasse, again not, you know, really stretching the legs and going yee-haw and pushing the follow back. But, we do want to maintain the travel. So all together we have Quick Quick Quick-a Quick Quick-a Quick changing about a quarter over the figure and ending in that open position.

[Demonstration of Leaders steps]

Okay followers, your steps. We're in a closed position, we can be pretty sure that we've got a Back-Replace coming and indeed the frame of the leader will encourage that. So they have turned an eighth we turn a quarter and go Back-Replace and we'll feel through their frame, and how they're staying, that we'll start to sort of be shifting around. So we're ready for a chasse on our right a Quick-a Quick going Right-a Right and their frame will sort of swing us round in front of them. We'll feel the change of the hand and we'll go aha it has been changing into an open hold, they'll let go of us with our right hand, we'll let go of them with our left, and we'll be chassed backwards for that final part. So we have a

[Demonstration of Followers steps]

Ian: So let's talk about how to put these together and get the most out of them. Really it comes down to how we operate within the frame. Leaders you don't want to do anything too bonkers and bend the arms and get too liberal with it. And follows you don't want to find yourself running out of the frame and going anywhere where you're not being led. Really it comes down to the push in the right hand, and when I say push I want us to understand that if I'm just compact chasse on the spot but turn there is a push that is created here. It is pushing on the back of the follow but I'm not pushing the follow. There is actually no elbow or shoulder involved in this, but it's what the follow feels when we do our turning chasses. So we have our Back-Replace and as we get here we have turned the follower quarter, as always happens, leaders you have turned an eighth and not returned so we're in this Promenade slash Fallaway position. If I now turn to face you on the camera and don't do anything else with my arms that is what Lindsey is feeling as she's coming around and naturally she's stayed in that position. So if we didn't change anything here we're actually promenading in that direction; that's the position we're in. But this is where I release let go that gives the follower the lead to release as well. We change our hand position and now we enter that open position and we've turned roughly a quarter, but almost the turn is irrelevant once we get there we have stayed together and if you turn a bit more or less who cares.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: There you have it the Fallaway Throwaway; it's as simple as that. Only the eight steps, it follows your basic Jive timing, very functional [it] gets you from closed out into open and can be a lot of fun when you embellish it after getting a little bit of a mastery of it. Smash it into your Jive, and let us know how you go with it, let us know what else you would like us to Blitz for you, and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #065

Back Corte in Tango - Sep 07, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Hello everyone, welcome back to Ballroom Blitz. We're in the Tango world today, you lucky things, and we are going to be looking at a move called the Back Corte.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: Now, as usual, this figure is named for what the leader is doing. So, the leader heads backwards into this move, that means the follower gets a nice drive step forward. But by the end of it we have turned a quarter and it will be the leader facing more forward round the line of dance.

Let's have a look at the leaders steps first.

Ian: Leaders your steps can really be described as a walk backwards on the left foot, followed by a closed finish. We don't often talk just about the closed finish, we normally talk about open finishes, but it's pretty much exactly the same. So, if you've done any Tango the last three steps of this will feel very very familiar. The follow will be driving forward on their right. We've positioned ourself in a position where it's clear that they are coming forward, we're allowing them to drive. We can talk a little bit about the shapeliness of this figure, but really let's just do the footwork first. You're going to go back on the left, and then after that slow, that power absorption, we're going to do a back side and close the feet. Quick Quick Slow. Which is your traditional "closed" finish. So, as Lindsey described earlier we are turning a quarter over this figure, you will be turning a quarter to the left. So it will be

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps]

Lindsey: Now the followers steps. Now at the moment I'm going to be dancing as if my line of dance is going down that way. So my position here will sort of indicate, if we're going to continue to move largely around our bigger circle, that I'm the one with the forward work because that will take us further down the floor. I'm ready on my right foot and the leader will lead me into a forward step going slow. So, this is taking me sort of diagonally out into the floor. I follow up with another step forward but this is quicker, quick. I'm taking to the side, quick, and then led to close my feet, slow. Now if I do it this way so now my line of dance is there, you'll be able to follow along. Right foot first

[Demonstration of Followers Steps]

Lindsey: Now, there is some shaping and some drama that we can add to this move, but really it doesn't have any tricks. We're in our classic closed hold we can have our Tangoy frame. As Ian mentioned earlier we're staying nice and low nice and proud. But we're not going to come into Promenade or Fallaway we just want to stick nicely together on that hip. Followers giving the sort of driving force into it, but then letting the leaders take over at the end because they might have some different ideas about how much they turn, how far they want to step, what they want to do afterwards.

Ian: So when we're first learning this figure, probably the best way to do it is to think that there's no shaping at all. Just keep it nice and flat, get used to that slow, and then the quarter turn over the closed finish. Quick Quick Close on slow, and that way you will get your footwork working without any interruptions. What we're going to slowly add over time is that as that drive step is absorbed we're going to shape in, and then recoil out to add a little bit of that Tango flair. But as Lindsay said, don't overdo it, you're not changing the nature of your position, you're not moving to Fallaway, you're not moving to Promenade. We're just adding a little bit of inward rotation so that we can have a bit of drama for that outward rotation; a little bit of Tango snap so once more

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And there you have it, the Back Corte in the Tango. A very useful move [that] has some drama and it gets the leader back to a position where they can lead pretty much anything they like; they're ready to go off on their left foot. So, try it out enjoy your Tango floor, such a great dance. We'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #066

Ecart (A.K.A. Fallaway Whist) in Paso Doble - Sep 11, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Welcome back ballroom dances to another Ballroom Blitz. We're taking you into the Latin world today and it is the Paso Doble that has our attention. We are going to be looking at a figure called the Ecart (French) or in other words the Fallaway Whisk. Now, this is a nice short figure but it's a very useful one because it starts us in a closed position but by the end of it, a little bit like other whisks you might have done, we end up in a Promenade Position, so it's a great move in between your other Paso Doble figures. If you need to start one in Promenade this one might be the one for you.

[Demonstration without Music]

Lindsey: And that's it, it is done in a flash. Just four steady beats starting with our classic Appel, and then a movement that gets us into Promenade. Let's have a look at the leaders steps first.

Ian: Alrighty leaders, we're not going to over complicate this. As Lindsey said, four easy beats the first one is an Appel, one. We're going to then take a walk forward, two. We're going to take a side step to the right, three. And over four we are going to achieve Promenade Position whisking the foot behind, putting our weight on that whisked foot, putting our follow into Promenade ready to step forward on our right foot into our Promenade figure. It, it really is as simple as that. If you haven't done much Paso Doble but we have done some Modern Waltz, it's a Modern Waltz whisk, with an Appel at the start for all intents and purposes. We have

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps]

ready to progress out in Promenade on five.

Lindsey: So followers, as for pretty much all of our Paso figures, we are ready on our left foot to begin, and we'll sort of feel that rise and then encouragement down into our Appel. So we should land on our left foot, ready then to move on our right, our leader will come forwards which will send us backwards, but then the frame will take us right to the side. So it's quite a sort of sharp angle there, it's 90 degrees to the side, and then we'll feel their frame encouraging us around in a whisk. So it's really quite a tight whisk there, we don't want it to sort of end into a sort of massive backward step, because chances are we're going to be heading forwards in Promenade next and we don't want all of our weight to go backwards. We want to be nice and secure on our spot ready to push forwards. So, if I show you on a different angle we have our

[Demonstration of Followers Steps]

Lindsey: and we should be ready to step out and Promenade on that left foot next.

[Demonstration with Counts]

[Demonstration with Music]

Lindsey: There you go, a lovely dramatic way to get into Promenade in your Paso Doble. So that was the Ecart (French) or Fallaway Whisk. Try it out, you will find it very useful and not too hard as well. Feel free to flash it up with your Promenade shape, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #067

Running Finish in Quickstep - Sep 14, 2023

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: Welcome back blitzers. Welcome back to the channel, to yet another Blitz. Today we're going into the world of modern, we're going to be focusing a bit on a Quickstep, we're going to have a look at this figure called the Running Finish, what it's all about, what it does, when you dance it as a figure, and when you dance it as a finish.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So let's go over what exactly the running finish is. There's a few things to break down, first of all it's a "running" figure which means that you don't bring your feet together. Now, in a lot of dances almost [all] except Quickstep, we would call that an "open" figure. But, because Quickstep is quicker it's called running. So it's basically an open finish, you don't bring your feet together, and Quickstep call it "running". The "finish" comes from the fact that often this ends something else. You can think of it as a figure in its own right, which it kind of is, but it has a very specific starting point; so it will crop up at the end of particular figures. For example, a Running Right Turn ends with a running finish, and then in brackets you could do something else at a particular point. But the Running Finish itself it's its own figure, you don't bring your feet together, but don't be surprised if you see it "finishing off" something else.

Ian: So the timing we are going to use today is Slow Quick Quick Slow. Now, if you use your Running Finish elsewhere that might change, and we will leave that to the particulars of those particular figures. But we're going to use Slow Quick Quick Slow today. Now it should be noted that the final slow of the figure will pretty much always be the first slow of whatever figure you are following your Running Finish in, so don't count it twice when you're following it along. The reason we're attaching it to the Running Finish is, as you'll see as we go through the steps, it must always be taken outside of the follower; there is no option to put it in line. You would always finish [follow] the Running Finish with a natural turning figure basically meaning the follow, beg your pardon, the leader is going to drive forward on the right foot and continue turning clockwise, if at all.

Ian: So what does the running finish actually do? Well, it basically gets the leader from backing diagonal wall or back to the wall essentially moving rightwards to back into the standard closed position where he would move leftwards. For example, you've just done Hesitation, Chasses to Right, Back Lock, you might then want to get back into your standard closed position with the leader on the inside of the circle progressing leftwards, you could use a running finish. In something like a waltz, where running is not as accessible, you would use an Impetus Turn. You can also do that in Quickstep but Quickstep, because it has access to different tempos and rhythms, you can do the Running Finish, so you won't really find it anywhere else. So, it's it's a nice easy one that you can put into your Quickstep that is not repeated elsewhere, so it gives you a little bit of flair that you won't find in your Waltz or Foxtrot for example.

Ian: So, leaders we're going to start today with the leader backing diagonal wall, I'm dancing this way, and for all intents and purposes if I kept dancing something other than the running finish, I'd be progressing to my right, my follow would always be then going forward. That's okay for certain figures, but let's say we're at the point where we need to swap back and turn it around. I'm going to allow the follow to drive and pretty much they're always going to drive outside of me at this point, which means I'm going to go back and across on my left, and now I'm going to think I need to turn about 180 degrees. I'm going to take this foot and pretty much point it down line of dance, and it will go roughly between my followers feet, this is okay. I'm now going to continue the turn with another quick, noting that I have in no way brought my feet anywhere near together, and I've achieved pretty much my desired goal. I have turned around and this next step this next, slow, it's the drive step, the drive step of whatever we're putting after our running finish. It's going to be a nice right drive heel, again outside partner. And I have run, I haven't brought my feet together, and I have achieved that desired goal of turning from doing backwards or right traveling figures back into a standard position of proceeding forward with a forward lock or forward moving figures. So we would have,

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps

Lindsey: Followers, excuse my back a little bit, because I'm going to go the same direction as Ian went. So that's our line of dance and I've been on the inner portion of the circle, having some fun with a lot of the forward work so far, depending on what we have just been doing. That's where I start, so I've got my forward drive past my leader but even though I have been, in this case the one sort of driving forward providing that momentum, that power, as with any of our drive steps we provide the power, and then we see what the leader wants to do with it. So we want to be ready to be turned, if that's what our leader leads, which they certainly will in this move. So, we drive past them on our right foot, and then we'll feel them start to swing around to swap places with us, we've got a Quick Quick next, and we want to be up on our toes Quick Quick to allow for a nice sort of even turn around. Nothing too heavy, and then we'll feel them sort of encourage us back onto our heel at the end of that second quick, and we'll feel them drive past us, Slow. So, because it's outside partner we can expect that step to sort of go across us, as well as backward, we still want to be nice and close on the hip.

Ian: So let us put these two halves together and just point out the position of that second step. Lindsey drives forward, and this step, now I am going to bring it inside of her right leg, to step down the floor. And at this point we haven't left the hip, but we have retained that closed position, so she's no longer outside of me for this brief moment. We step to the side to continue the turn and I now produce that shape that allows me to step outside without any trouble. If you miss that position of that second step you can accidentally put yourself in a position more like an outside spin, or a much more complex figure. If I step back and try and keep this foot on the outside of Lindsey we won't be able to run around because by the time I take the next step we've kept our follow too far to the outside. This is a bit that sometimes, unfortunately, trips people up, sometimes physically, sometimes just mentally, but we do want to make sure that we get that sneaky step between our follows feet; it doesn't stay outside all of the time.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: There you have it, the Running Finish. Really useful for realigning you and your partner when you need to after Chasses to Right or a Back Lock, and it will crop up at the end of other figures, and now you know the basics of it. Just remember to step through your partner on that middle step, make sure that the last step is always the first step of what you're following with so don't count it twice, throw it into your Quickstep, have some fun, and we will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #068

Natural Top in Rumba - Sep 18, 2023

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 again blitzers, welcome back. Today on Blitz we are going into the land of Rumba. We are going to be dancing a popular move called the Natural Top. Let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: Now, the Natural Top itself is actually really quite simple. However, there are various ways to get into the Natural Top, and there are a raft of ways to get out of the Natural Top. We're not going to concern ourselves today with how to get in and how to get out, we're going to have to Blitz those at future dates. So, we're just going to do the guts of the top itself. Now, the guts of the top really can be broken down into a sequence of only two steps. But, because the leader's steps and the follow's steps are different, and because your Rumba, just like your Cha-Cha, pattern has an odd number in its base, Rumba being three steps per bar, then we have to do these a certain number of times to get onto the correct foot and into the correct position. So a little bit of care is required, but once you nail that down the natural top is really fun and actually really simple.

Leaders we're going to start this figure, on this occasion, with open feet, and we're going to start this from what would be considered step one; so that's a pretty good place to start. If we have arrived with open feet I'm going to have all my weight on my left foot. I'm now going to mix the following two steps; a Cuban cross with my right bringing my right foot behind to make a little bit of a T and putting quite a bit of tension across my hips that commences me to start to turn right in the natural direction; and then I'm going to release my left foot and release that tension that allows me to turn and creates a side step. If I essentially load with a Cuban cross and release, load release, this is my pattern for the Natural Top. Now, of course, that's one part of the pattern, those two steps. We have to remember though that in our Cuban timing for our Rumba we have our two three four-one type arrangement. So, you have a effectively a quick quick slow, which means the Cuban cross and the side step are going to happen in alternate ways. They're going to happen in Quicks and in Slows over the course of several bars. So if we start with a 2, this is going to be a quick, and then this is a quick, but by the time I get to my next Cuban cross this is a 4-1, this is a slow we have to remember not to rush. And now if I keep going this is a quick this is a quick and this side step is a slow, or a four one. So you can see that every bar that we dance this arrangement we are getting to that step in a different part of the bar, this is a bit that sometimes trips people up. If we can manage that and do it with our Cuban timing you're just going to repeat those two steps basically for three bars. So it will be

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps]

Ian: At this point when you're first learning don't worry about how much turn you make, obviously don't go a bit silly, but don't worry about getting exactly a certain amount just let the steps happen, feel that tension and you'll be good to go, then you can start controlling the amount of turn later on with your partner

Lindsey: Followers, if we have a look at our starting position it's quite different from the leaders. The leaders started with a weight on their left foot and they had that foot out to the side, you'll be unsurprised to find we start with our weight on our right foot, but it's not out to the side it is crossed in front. So, as Ian said, we will cover how exactly to set this position up in another Blitz, but this is our starting position. The reason for this is that I too have a rough pattern of a side step and a crossing step that gets repeated, just like the leader, but my side step isn't at the same time as my leader. So when they're sidestepping I'm crossing and when I'm sidestepping their crossing. So I'm starting in a cross position and I'm ready to go to the side for my first step. So my pattern is a side step on my left foot, and then my cross is on my right. But instead of taking it behind as the leader did I'm going to let it draw in front of me. So this is my position when I am doing a cross, my weight on my right foot but my right foot is the one that has come in front of my left, and then I can repeat. So I've got a side step, and a cross, and a side step, and across, and I keep on repeating that pattern. Now, again as Ian said, all I need to do is match in with the timing of my leader and the timing of the Rumba, so if I'm starting here and I have three bars of quick quick slow it will look like this

[Demonstration of Followers Steps]

Lindsey: and if I've done those three bars I should end with a sideways step, my weight on my left foot.

Ian: Now, when you're setting up and executing the Natural Top, I really encourage you to think of what I have termed the "Latin Box". What is this? When you're facing your partner, because we're a lot more square on and nose to nose we don't have that slight right hip to right hip shift like our ballroom, your four shoulders and your four hips create a box. If you maintain this box then we don't get skewed as we move around, and because there's a lot of rotation in a move like the Natural Top, it's very easy for us to get pulled out of position. So, if we maintain that Latin box, what the followers will find is your steps are not as forward as possible, you don't want to trap yourself and end up feeling like you are walking around or trying to walk around your leader; we are turning around each other. So if we are in our commencing position, we're maintaining our box in between us, and we hold that for the whole figure for our

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: This maintains all the tension, it takes all the guesswork out of how big of the steps, how much turn are we making, and it means that your exit point will be nice and crisp.

Now it should be said that your standard, if we can call it that, Natural Top in the Rumba is three bars long, and it starts where we've demonstrated. Of course you can crack in at the alternate bar, what would be step four. You can exit a bit early, what would be step seven. So you can use some of these bars to get part of a Natural Top. But, if we're going from the standard starting spot to the standard ending spot, you're going to do three bars starting and ending where we've done it today. We will leave you to explore different entries and exits but we will Blitz some of them in future blitzes.

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And that is it, the guts of your natural top in your Rumba, very very similar in the Cha Cha, but we will pick up and do the nuances of those in a separate Blitz, and we will cover entries and exits for you in future blitzes as well. Stay tuned, let us know if there's a particular one you would like us to do first for that figure but we will see you in future blitzes.

Ballroom Blitz #069

Natural Turn in Slow Foxtrot - Sep 21, 2023

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: Howdy blitzers and welcome back to the channel, to another Ballroom Blitz. Today we are going into the realm of Slow Foxtrot, we're going to be checking out the Natural Turn. Let's get into it.

[Demonstration without Music]

Ian: Now, we have already covered the Natural Turn for the Quickstep, and a few variants thereof. We've covered the Natural Turn for Modern Waltz and recently we have covered the Hesitation Change in Modern Waltz. All of these factors will come in to help today, so we'll leave the links in the description so you can go back and get a more in-depth description and more in-depth Blitz on some of the portions of today. But, we're going to steal from those and fit them together and see how they are similar across different dances and what traits in each of the figures and each of the dances we can use to help us with our Natural Turn in the Slow Foxtrot.

Now the Natural Turn in Slow Foxtrot, just like the Reverse Turn (incorporating feather finish) has six steps in total. The first three steps can only really be described as a Natural Heel Turn and the last three steps are described as a Heel Pull. Now we have already blitzed Heel Turns by themselves, so we'll leave a link in the description for you to go back and check those out, we'll do a brief overview here, and we have used the Heel Pull in the Natural Turn for the Quickstep and indeed the natural turn with hesitation otherwise known as Hesitation Change in the Modern Waltz, so you can recap those there and we'll go over them again in this blitz for you, but maybe a little bit briefer.

So, leaders I'm dancing this way, I'm ready to drive forward on my right foot, because I am going to be turning clockwise or to the right for a natural heel turn. And I follow all the principles, having the follow on my hip, I drive either in line or outside as appropriate for the preceding figure, making sure that we put them on their spot to turn around the first quick, settling with back to line of dance, and then the second quick, settling allowing the follow to step out of their heel turn. Lindsey will revise those steps in a moment. So the first three steps is a slow quick quick in a standard heel turn fashion. We now have our weight on our right foot so we're ready to go back on our left. The follow is driving forward on the right. We've set that up, we've backed line of dance, they're facing line of dance. We absorb that power and perform the Heel Pull, walking out at the end. Now this should be three slows but you can dance slow quick-quick if you wish and that is situational; I'll leave that up to you. But, certainly this first one has to be a slow, the follow is driving forward, we go back; slow. We're going to perform the heel pulling the heel back to the point where we can't leave the heel on the floor. At that point in time commence to turn turnover both heels, and then walk out on step six with a slow. So, six steps in all slow quick-quick slow slow slow or slow quick-quick slow quick-quick as you would like. With a

[Demonstrtaion of Leaders Steps]

Lindsey: Followers I'll also be following the same line of dance so it's going down that way which means I'm going to go backwards to begin with. The leader will be either driving at or past, as Ian said, on their right foot which means I'm going to match it with a back step on my left foot. So, I go backwards. Where my heel hits that's where I'm going to perform my Heel Turn, so I lift my toe up and I will be turning, on my heel alone, of my left foot. I actually won't be performing the turning action though, you'll see me do it here because I don't have Ian dancing with me in this this particular demonstration, but it's the leader steps who actually bring me around. So, I've got back on the left, turn on the heel of that foot, transfer my weight to my right foot on the first quick, that's our second step, so it should be right underneath us and we step out forward down the line of dance quick, on that left foot. It's not a very big step that one, it's just a toe step, we're really sort of just settling and confirming that yes we are going in that direction. This sets up my drive step on my right foot, this will help Ian keep on turning to the right with this figure. So I drive on the right, I'll feel that step take it to the side, that's Ian doing his Heel Pull, and then he will walk forwards and I will walk backwards out of it. I am back on my right foot there so with the timing we have

[Demonstration of Followers Steps]

[Demonstration with Counts]

[Demonstration with Music]

Ian: And there you have it that is the Natural Turn in your Slow Foxtrot. If you need to revise your Heel Turns check out the link for the Heel Turns in the Blitz. If you need to revise your Heel Pulls, check out the other figures there as well for more details. But if we remember it is as simple as that you walk the follow into a Heel Turn, you allow them to walk you through a Heel Pull, we don't over complicate it. Pick your timings three slows at the end or slow quick-quick as appropriate as you wish and have some fun. Smash it into your Slow Foxtrot, get out there on the floor, have some fun, let us know what you like about our blitzes and what you'd like us to do next, and we'll see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #070

Corta Jaca in Samba - Sep 25, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Hello blitzers, thank you for joining us today. We are in the Samba world today, so we're going to have some fun, and it is a very fun figure we're going to do. It's called the Corta Jaca.

Now the Corta Jaca is a little bit different from our other Samba moves, it doesn't have the Samba bounce, it's got slows and quicks, and the footwork is a little bit different. This does actually make it a lot of fun and it's a nice, sort of, it sticks in the mind and it looks great on the floor. So let's have a look.

[Demonstration without Music]

Lindsey: So, as you can see it is a little bit different. It's a lot of fun though. It starts with the leader's heel step, which is very unusual in the Samba and it's got some unusual taps in there as well, as well as a fun rhythm. We occasionally call this one the "Hokey Pokey" just to give people a reminder of which one we're talking about, because you put your left foot in you put your left foot out. Let's have a look at the leader's steps to sort of get to grips with that idea.

Ian: Okay leaders. So, as Lindsey said this has a heel lead, a little bit peculiar for Latin, but a definite must for this figure. Ae're going to lead into it using our right foot bending the left leg getting a nice strong heel step on the right. Now, all the action happens on the left, and as Lindsey said, you're going to put your left foot in with a heel, and then we're going to take it out with a toe, and then we're going to put it back in with a heel. But, between all of these we're going to have a sneaky very Samba-like slide type action. It's not a bounce and you should try and get some movement through your feet. But, what we're going to do is as we've taken that strong step all of our weight is over our right foot, we're going to put the heel of the left foot in, and then without releasing any weight we're going to just, ever so slightly, slide our right foot towards our left heel; and then we're going to put the left toe out and, ever so slightly, slide our right foot towards our left toe; and then repeat the left heel in sliding towards the left heel; and this fills in the extra beats. So, you've got one slow and then six Quicks with a tap slide sort of pattern we have

[Demonstration of Leaders Steps]

Ian: Now, you must not release your toe, or your heel, when you're doing those slides. As soon as you release weight off a portion of your foot, you will slide much more than you intend. And the easiest way to fall over with this move and not have as much fun is when we take a nice strong step, clunk that heel, and then release and go and slide into your partner. So don't do that, sit all your weight on it, you won't go far but it does burn a beat and it is a lot of fun.

Lindsey: Followers, we have the opposite. So the leaders are coming at us on their right foot. We'll feel the strength of that heel step, it'll be quite unusual in our Samba, so that's our first heads up that this is a Corta Jaca. We take a backward step and again we want to make sure that all of our weight lies quite nicely on that left foot of ours, and then it's the right foot doing all the fancy stuff. So, as the leader taps their heel forwards at us, we're going to tap our toe backwards so they don't stomp on us. So the toe goes back and just like that action that Ian was showing us the foot slides slightly on that flat foot, I haven't changed my weight from it. It's slid slightly towards that toe I then have a tap forward. So it's kind of the natural movement of the foot where when you're tapping forward it will sort of naturally be the heel, very tricky to tap a heel going backwards, you have to end up in this position, so we don't do it. So when we tap backwards it's the toe, tap forwards it's the heel, tap backwards it's the toe. So if I go back a little bit we have taken that slow step then it's

[Demonstration of Followers Steps]

and just that little slide towards your tapping foot each time.

Lindsey: Now you'll be unsurprised to find that as, being a Samba, the movement of what we're doing here is stemming from the hips. This is quite normal, a little bit of a different way of doing it, but certainly the hips are very much involved in this movement; the sliding action. So we shift backwards and we've got step, and a little sort of hitch of the hips. That allows that slide to happen.

Now what we just demonstrated was the leader coming forward on their right foot and tapping with their left. They could also come forward on their left and tap with the right. And the other thing that you can do is, once the leader has done their forward portion, and the follower done the backward portion, is switch it around so it's then the follower coming forward and tapping forward first, and the leader doing the opposite. This doubles the length of this really cool move and gives you a bit of time to get into it.

[Demonstration with Counts]

Lindsey: Now, if you really want to try this move out but you're struggling with that slide action there's kind of a straight version that you can do that doesn't involve it. We still take the steps and the taps and you'll find that they're very even. They're just slow beats then and we just cut out that little slide. So it will be

[Demonstration of Alternate Method with Counts]

[Demonstration with Music]

Lindsey: And that is the Corta Jaca. So it's a great classic move in Samba. It's a lot of fun, [and] a little bit different. Try it out, let us know how you go, let us know what else you would like to see on these blitzes, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #071

Progressive Barn Dance - Sep 28, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Hello blitzers and welcome to a very special Blitz. In the comments of one of our other videos we had a request for this one; Charles asked us to demonstrate the Barn Dance.

Now, first things first, Barn Dances have been around for ages, and you will find that there are lots of different variations of them out there. We're going to show you our version of it, but look out for those regional differences.

Now, we'll do our best with this one. It is actually a progressive dance, which means that you change partners as you go. So, the demonstration with just Ian and I might look a little bit strange, we'll try and explain exactly what's going on as we go.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: You essentially have four different elements in this one and one of them is repeated. So, you're in a Promenade Position with your partner, all the leaders will be on the inside of the circle, the followers on the outside. We take a three step forward and an aerial, or a kick. We take three steps backwards, square up with our partner, and then do Rotary Chasses. Now, we have done a blitz for the Rotary Chasses, I think that's the one that Charles commented in about the Barn Dance; so we'll put a link below so that you can have a look at how the Rotary Chasse works. After the Rotary Chasses we turn back to Promenade and again we repeat those three steps forward and kick, and back, and then we change partners.

So we can assume at this point that we have just met up with our new partner. We're going to start on our outside foot, so Ian is ready on his left foot, I'm ready on my right foot; it's the one sort of furthest forward down the floor. And we take a three steps forward, and if you can do a proper Three Step with a heel-toe-heel, you'll find it's got a nice swoop to it. So we've got one two three, rising up into the aerial, use the swing to go backwards, and it's very important at this point to square up into a closed hold with your partner, so this is our classic ballroom position. Leaders facing the wall they're closest to, followers we're looking into the floor, and we have four Rotary Chasses. So we have chasse one chasse two, chasse three and chasse four.

At the end of your four Rotary Chasses, you want to use your frame to turn back to promenade again. Because we have our three walks again, one two three and kick, back two three square up. But, this can be a little bit loose because we're about to push away from our partner, away two three, we give a clap on that fourth beat, and you're looking for your next partner. So you'll find if you turn a little bit to your right, so for Ian that's looking backwards around the circle, for me it's looking forwards around the circle, you should see your new partner, and you take three more steps to meet up with them, and we're ready for our walks.

Now as we said there are lots of different versions of this dance out there Barn Dances have been around for a long time. One of the versions I know that I've seen is instead of your second lot of walks and kicks they do a Chasse in one direction Chasse another, and then the Rotary Chasses, or maybe they change partners at that point; I can't remember. So you're going to have to check in with your dance community, wherever you are, to find out if there is some variation to what we have just shown you today.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And there you have it, the Progressive Barn Dance Long-Steps Stylez. If you've got a different style, maybe let us know in the comments below. Charles we hope that helps everyone. We'll see you on the dance floor, have fun.

Ballroom Blitz #072

Basic Development (getting into natural top) in Cha Cha - Oct 02, 2023

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.

Ballroom Blitz #073

Chasses From Promenade Position in Modern Waltz - Oct 05, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Welcome back dancers back to another Ballroom Blitz we are going to be doing a modern Waltz figure for you. Today it is called Chasses from Promenade Position.

Now this particular figure is a lovely one and it can be quite a useful one on the ballroom floor as well, because it can give you a little bit of distance to a better spot on the floor. Very versatile but of course, as the name suggests, is from Promenade Position. It does assume that you have done a figure just beforehand that actually brings you to Promenade.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So as you can see, Ian and I started in that Promenade position, ready to come through on our back foot for our drive step, that will be on step one. The Chasse itself takes up the rest of that bar and because there are three footfalls for it we want to speed up the steps a little bit so we have a timing of Two-and Three or a Quick-Quick Slow to complete that Chasse, and then of course we need to have a step after that. The reason that it's included is that it will always pass outside of partner. So you would have seen at the end of that demonstration that Ian stepped past me on his right foot and would have gone into the next figure using that drive, probably some kind of natural turn.

Ian: Alrighty leaders, you are going to commence this figure on your right foot having got to Promenade somehow. It's quite common to get to this with a Whisk, but you'll still be using your right foot. So we're going to take a walk, and then a Chasse, and then as Lindsay described there's a fifth step, a walk outside a partner; so you can think of this as a Chasse sandwich, if you like. We take a walk to get some power we do our Chasse of Step-Close-Step, closing the follow to Closed Position over that; I'll let Lindsey talk more about that. Here from the open footed position, pretty much as with all our open footed ending positions in Waltz it's consistent to take this drive step outside of partner into whatever comes next.

Lindsey: Followers I'm going to change my line of dance, I'm going to say it's down this away. Now, Ian was ready to drive through on his right foot, I'm ready to drive through on my left. Because we are in Promenade position we both get to drive a forward step there. So I am stepping through on one on my left foot, my Chasse will continue me down the floor with a right-together-right. Nice sort of rise up through that, then lowering over that bar, so we get that nice floaty feel for our Waltz. But another important element is that I start in Promenade, the leader then uses their frame to turn me back to Closed as I do that Chasse. So you can see the difference in my head, I was looking forward down the floor, by the time I finish my Chasse I am looking back over to my left, and I am no longer the one who can see which way we're going, that's why the leader has the forward step after that, and I am going backwards for that final step on my left. So if I demonstrate that again I have looking forward closing up and back and there's a fair turn of the head as I go.

Now, we have demonstrated this move with that closing of the frame so we started in Promenade and ended in Closed and that is the base idea with this move. But the leaders do have the choice to use their frame to keep their partner in Promenade, and then go into another figure that starts in Promenade after that, so it is under the leader's control.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: There you go dancers, that was the Chasse from Promenade for the Modern Waltz. So, try it out, it's a beautiful move, it's a nice versatile one you can make it nice and swoopy and make it feel absolutely glorious. So give it a try, leave a comment below as to what else you would like to see in our blitzes, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #074

Stop & Go in Jive - Oct 09, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Welcome back dancers, we have another Blitz for you. Today we're in the Jive world, and the move is Stop and Go.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So, as you can see it starts in an open position ends in an open position as well, and even though there is a bit of turn there for the follower we actually end up right back where we started.

Ian: Leads, we're going to start off with a pretty standard straight Back-Replace, as with any other open type figure. The first two steps of a link, nice and compact. Back-Replace. Now, what we're going to do is take a fairly standard Chasse forward, but as we do we're going to inspire the follow to turn and most of the time catch them before they pass us. There's, there's a lot of variation here, I'll let you explore that. The early one that I like to do is put out your jazz hand, give a bit of a visual signal to the follower, and then it's going to be ready to catch their back as you go. Footwork wise though, we're taking a simple forward-a-forward, but of course with that we're mixing our arm, inspiring up moving it towards our right shoulder to inspire the follow to turn and catching them with our right hand. So it would be more like a Back-Replace Quick-a-Quick, and here we're going to move forward. It's a slightly different type of Step-Replace. It's instead of a Back-Replace it's a Forward-Replace.

As you grow and get better with your Jive you can explore expanding this, I would recommend at the start keeping it nice and small simply a Forward-Replace, the follows are going Back-Replace there, so our frame is going to expand a little bit. But later on you can experiment with letting go and other things and really putting on a bit more of a show. But we're up to Back-Replace, in this case Forward-Replace, still with the right foot, we have Forward-Replace and we're just going to hit the rewind button. We're going back-a-back with the feet and really all we're going to do at that point, we've still got hold of the follow, we've sort of caught them with our right arm, we're still hoping that we've got a little bit of tension and hold through with this arm at least initially, we're going to extend forward a little bit of a rubber band stretch, replace to bring them back a little bit of encouragement with this hand hit the rewind button bring this arm up back-a-back and basically arrive back where you started.

Lindsey: So, as we said before, this one wants to start in an open position with your right hand holding the leaders left. As usual we're going to use our right foot for our Back-Replace and because it's in open it's just going straight back, not very far back, and then replace our weight onto our left. We're now ready for a Chasse to right and the lift of the leader's hand will make us turn about a half so that we're looking back where we came. We'll end up on the leader side, this is where our pattern changes instead of doing another Chasse we have got a Back and Replace, so that was my Left Foot. Right Foot, and then my Chasse on the left comes after that, that turns me back the other way. So a half turn to the left, I am back where we started.

So if we have a look at that from the top I've got Right, Left, Right-a-Right, Left, Right, Left-a-Left, and it's got a nice evenness to it.

So, if we have a look at all of that together, what you'll see from this angle is that sort of rubber band idea. At the far end that kind of slingshots us back to where we were. So we have a Back-Replace Chasse One, and Ian has caught me here. We've still got a step away from each other so I'm going to take a backward step that way Ian's going to take a forward step that way and this is the rubber band tension we're hoping for. Step and, we're sling shotted back.

From this angle you'll be able to see what Ian is doing with his hand. It's going to land sort of comfortably in my middle back there. We've got Back-Replace Chasse One, he catches me and sends me back.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: Now, as Ian said earlier that spare hand out of the leaders right at the beginning is a nice visual lead to let the followers know what's coming up but really the lead is that sort of catching and sending back so it is a physical lead as well as the bonus visual one.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And there you go the Stop and Go in the Jive. So, because it starts exactly where it finishes you can do multiple in a row. It's a nice one to sort of shake it up a little bit, changing that base pattern. But also, yeah, a good fun one to do: it's got some good energy to it. So, try it out on the floor, let us know what else you'd like to see and we'll catch you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #075

Progressive Side Step Reverse Turn in Tango - Oct 12, 2023

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 blitzers, welcome back. We are ballroom blitzing some Tango today, the figure is the Progressive Side Step Reverse Turn, which is more of a mouthful than it should be and it's an easier figure to do than to say. We've done both of the major parts we're going to take you through from start to finish. Let's get into it.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, as you can see from the demonstration, and if you have been following our blitzes for some time, portions of that seem quite familiar. All the way back in Blitz number 009 we did the Progressive Side Step, that pretty much covers the first three steps of this figure. And back in Blitz number 051 we did the Rock Turn in Tango, which pretty much covers the rest of the figure, with a few tweaks. So this figure rather than being called the Progressive Side Step Reverse Turn in practice you can think of it more as the Progressive Side Step Rock Turn and that will get you going. So, we're going to do the step side walk of the Progressive Side Step, we're going to take a sidewards walk into our rock with less turn than in the Rock Turn. A bit more of a sideways throw adds a little bit of drama and flair. We're going to rock to the appropriate angle, and then basically dance a closed finish out of a standard, what many of your Tango figures, particularly the Rock Turn to end up on the correct angle at the end. That's the guts of it, let's break it up and get through it Blitz style.

Ian: Alrighty, we're going to break this up into the three major portions. For a bit more in-depth and analysis on the Progressive Side Step portion hit the link for Blitz number 009 it takes you through that as the actual figure. But, leads you are going to be pointing diagonal center at the beginning and you are going to commence with all your weight on your right foot ready to use your left. You're going to take a Quick Quick Slow, you're going to take a contra body movement step across your body, not too hard, commence to turn to the left by taking a step to the side with the right, and then walk forward in a very Tango walk style with your left foot. Quick Quick Slow.

Lindsey: The followers steps of that those first three steps, our Progressive Side Step, is we're in a closed position we're going to head backwards diagonal center, so our line of dance is going down that way. Ready on my right foot I've got back side back, making sure that I am following my leader steps as to exactly where I land those steps and how far the turn is.

Ian: So leads we've arrived at the bit that's slightly different for this particular figure than if you were just going to dance a Progressive Side Step and follow with a Rock Turn. Here I'm not going to turn to the right, I'm ready on my right foot if I was in a corner or needed to turn right I could certainly do that, and dance a Rock Turn proper. But here, I'm going to lead with my right side a little bit and take a little bit more of a side step and a little bit of a Tango throw action, that's our middle slow, that gets us into that nice figure in the middle. I'm now going to commence my rock and I'm going to allow my left foot to kind of end up pointing down line of dance. So we don't want to stay purely on this angle and sort of do our rocks and we certainly don't want to balloon over our feet we want to keep nice and low. Allow your frame to move as required and we have our Rock Rock Rock and now we're ready to step back into our closed finish.

Lindsey: We have just done our first three steps we are ready for that sort of lungy step that Ian was talking about. I should be ready on my left foot and as Ian sort of leads strongly with his right side I'll feel my left side sort of being turned, almost to a sort of sideways position. So that's our lunge, that's our slow, and we've got the first forward rock so again we're sort of following that turn around, if there's any turn there that's happening and I've got a Rock Rock, and a little bit of a push on that last one.

Ian: To finish off the figure we do have a standard closed finish. The follow has already been encouraged to commence moving forward at us, we're going to encourage them to take a second step at us and we'll have a Quick Quick. Here we want to achieve our desired angle, which should be pointing diagonal wall, so that when we close we are facing diagonal wall in a closed position.

Lindsey: Followers, we've just taken a slow forward on our right. As Ian said, we'll be encouraged to come forward again strongly on our left foot, but with a quick walk. So we have forward at our leader, they take us to the side and we close our feet, and we should be backing diagonal wall.

Ian: Now, as with all your Tango moves, the real thing that polishes this off is your good quality nice and connected Tango frame. The amount of turn, the the exact amount of rock, the exact throwing action, we can talk about that for days, but really it comes down to if you're going to dance this on the floor you need a good solid connection with your partner; and then leaders you lead, follows you can be secure in that lead and follow along and you can get through the figure without much trouble. If you're trying this out and things are a little bit disconnected just go back to the frame before you harp too much on your feet and see how you go.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And there you have it, the Progressive Side Step Reverse Turn, better thought of as the Progressive Side Step Rock Turn; and starting to smash together a lot of the skills you've already learned from earlier blitzes. Check out number 009, check out number 051, put those together and the new skills that you've got here. Try it out on your Tango floor, let us know how you go, enjoy your Tango, it is a lot of fun and it's never as hard as people think it is. So, get out there give it a go, and we will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #076

Promenade Link & Promenade Close in Paso Doble - Oct 16, 2023

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 again ballroom blitzes and welcome back to the channel. Today, we are once again in the realm of Paso Doble, and we are going to be doing a little bit of a two for one in the Promenade Link which includes the Promenade Close.

The Promenade Link as an entire figure is four steps long, but if you do just the last two steps, and we will show you why this is relevant, we call that the Promenade Close. Now, the Promenade Close starts in Promenade and it closes you back up, and it will feature in a range of other figures where at some point in the figure you have hit that Promenade position but at the end you are back in close. So it's a nice one to keep in your back pocket, helps you recognize what you need to do in more complex figures; such as the Grand Circle for example.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, as you can see, it's super easy and short, only four steps long. The first one is of course an Appel, which crops up all over the place in your basic Paso, and we are going to Appel to Promenade position which makes the second step a walk in Promenade. So far so good. So far so similar to a lot of other Paso figures. So those are the two steps you will include if you're doing the full Promenade Link, and as you saw from the demonstration it's actually a good one for turning you a quarter because it does naturally rotate. But the last two steps, those are what we call the Promenade Close, and we're going to talk about those with a little bit more detail so that we know how to get the follower back in front of the leader and closed up nice and crisply ready to head off into the next figure commencing in closed.

So leads, if we knock off these first two steps we have a simple Appel, changing shape so that it's very obvious that we are Appel-ing to a Promenade Position, and step two we walk in Promenade. At this point if you wanted to do a figure that started in Promenade you could choreograph it such that that's how you get into it I'll leave that up to you. So, if we now jump to step three this is where the the sort of action is and where we get into the Promenade Close. We've had our Appel, we shape, we walk in Promenade, I am now going to understand that my follower is here, and I want to get them not just down the floor but back in front of me. So they have to cut across me somewhat. So my step is going to be strong, but small, and I'm going to have a reasonably steady, but not pushy, lead to enable the follow to step in front of me. Once we get that step done, three, it's a simple close of the feet, four, in your closed position ready to continue with either in Appel, or something else on your right foot.

[Demonstration of leaders steps]

Lindsey: Followers, we're starting with an Appel as well of course, and as usual it is landing our weight onto our left foot. So that is beat one. We'll feel the shift in the leaders frame to bring us to Promenade, which means that our second step will be forward in Promenade with them on our right foot that's beat 2. So we're in a nice steady position. Here we'll feel the frame shift again this is where we'll actually feel that frame really bring us around on step three, which is on our left foot again. It will start to close us up, but bring us in front of our leader, and we close on four,

[Demonstration of followers steps]

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And there you have it the full Promenade Link, including the Promenade Close. Incredibly useful for choreographing and fitting into your Paso Doble. The first two steps get you to Promenade, and you can do something else. The last two steps close you up from Promenade at the end of a figure or another piece of choreography, or you can use all four steps to turn you in a corner and just use it straight up like that. Smash it into your Paso. Paso Doble is a lot of fun, it's never as hard as people think, you should get out there, give it a go. Enjoy your dancing, let us know what you would like to see in the blitzes for Paso, or anything else, and we will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #077

Open Natural Turn (Taken from Promenade Position) in quickstep - Oct 19, 2023

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 again blitzers and welcome back to Ballroom Blitz. Today we have a little bit of a curly one it is called the Open Natural Turn (taken from Promenade Position) and we're dancing it in Quickstep. It'll be over before you can actually name the figure and it's not as hard as all those words make it sound. Let's break it down get into it and get it into your Quickstep so you can fancy it up in a flash.

So, what is this very long-winded and semi-impressive name all about? Well let's break it down. We are doing a Natural Turn, so that means it must turn clockwise or to the right. We are doing an Open Turn, in Quickstep that means that we are not going to close our feet at any stage. And we're taking it from the Promenade Position, so we are going to commence in Promenade Position. So we're going to start in Promenade Position do a clockwise turn and at no point close our feet through the figure; that's what we're doing, let's do it.

(demonstration without music)

Ian: So, as you saw from the demo it does all of those things in three quick easy steps and it is over before you can say it. We started in Promenade, we didn't bring our feet together, and we did turn clockwise. So, let's go over both parts and see how that works and see what you can do out of it and what you might want to do to get into it.

So leaders, you have arrived somehow in the Promenade Position. Now there aren't many what you would call "book figures" that arrive you at Promenade Position in your Quickstep, so probably the most common used is a simple and humble Open Impetus. However, anytime you've come to the Promenade Position, and you're ready to drive through on your right foot, you can commence this figure. I'm going to drive through with my standard walking drive step, and at this point I haven't commenced to turn, I need to get the power there but I'm going to use the power to start to turn clockwise, start to turn in that natural direction, close my position with my partner and backing line of dance, and then settle backwards. So I will end the figure settling backwards on my right, I've given permission to the follow to drive into whatever we're going to follow that with.

(demonstration of leaders steps

Lindsey: Now followers, when you see my steps you'll actually notice it appears that I am turning less than the leaders; that's because it's the leader's job to sort of cut around me as I'm coming forward. So, if I get myself into my Promenade Position I'm ready to drive through on my back foot, my left foot here, so that's my line of dance. I'm coming forward on the left, my leader cuts around me and I go quick quick. So by the time I have reached here I should be ready to drive forward on my right foot in line with them into whatever move they want to go into.

(demonstration with counts)

Ian: So, the astute student eyeballing those steps will kind of notice that we've finished the figure in a bit of an odd position. Now essentially how you can think of exactly these three steps is we're going to replace the first three steps of a Natural Turn, and I'll leave a link in the description for that, we're going to replace those first three steps with these three steps. So you're going to start from your Promenade Position, you're going to end with open feet, but you've been turning the same way and you will have your weight on the same feet ready for the follow to drive forward on the same foot as you would at the end of those three steps. Which kind of means that with some practice anything that you could do after the first three steps of a natural turn, you could do after the three steps we've just demonstrated now. You could finish with your standard Natural Turn, you could do a Pivot Turn, you could enter into a Natural Spin Turn, you could enter into a Natural Turn and Back Lock because we've just entered it from a Promenade Position and not a close-footed position. So there actually is quite a lot of ways that you can get out of this figure, which gives you a lot of creative options. So, we're going to let you explore those ones but just remember even though you've got to an open-footed position from somewhere a little bit different you're pretty much in a standard spot to do moves you already know.

(demonstration with music)

Ian: And that is it the Open Natural Turn (taken from Promenade Position) in Quickstep. Danced faster than you can say it and really really useful for linking something ending in Promenade to an easy going natural figure that gets you back into those familiar type figures. Smash it into your Quickstep, try the Open Impetus to get into it if you haven't done any other Promenade figures yet, and take it out with a humble back end of a Natural Turn just to steady and slow it down and get you to something familiar. Try it out, let us know how you go, give us any of your ideas for how you can dance out of it, or into it if you like, give us your suggestions for future blitzes, keep dancing, have fun, we'll see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #078

Cucarachas in Rumba - Oct 23, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Hello dancers and welcome back to another Ballroom Blitz. We're in the Latin world today and we're going to be dancing a move in the Rumba it is called the Cucaracha. Now, you can do Cucarachas on either foot we'll be showing you both today. The idea is that Cucaracha means cockroach, and the idea is that you're squishing cockroaches. So, not a great image, but it actually helps us with the move and it's a much better looking move than the story.

(demonstration without music)

Lindsey: So, you can see here that I've got my feet together, it needn't be the case, but we want our weight definitely on one foot ready to go on the other. So at the moment my weight is on my left, I'm ready to go on my right. I'm going to take the step out to the side. I'm not going to bring all of my weight over it, it's just partial weight, and I'm going to roll my hips around, rock back to that original foot, close my feet, and that will give me an opportunity to do the same thing on my left. So, I take my left to the side, don't quite bring my weight all around it, the hips roll around I settle back onto my right, close my left to right.

(demonstration with counts)

Lindsey: Now, you saw me demonstrate the Cucaracha to the side but it can actually go in different directions depending on what is needed. So I can do that Cucaracha action a little bit forward or a little bit backward, whatever is needed for that particular step.

Now, you can do this move just as a move in and of itself with both parties performing the Cucaracha, but you'll also see it, usually the leader doing a Cucaracha move, as they guide their follower into possibly something a little bit more complex. With a little bit more movement it helps the leader essentially stay on the spot but keep up with that Rumba rhythm, keep their hips moving and look like they are still dancing, even though they're providing a support role for the followers fancier steps.

(demonstration with music)

Lindsey: And that's all there is to the Cucaracha so try it out, it's a great one to keep that lovely Latiny rhythm get the hips moving in a slightly different way. So try it out, have some fun with it, we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #079

Basic Weave in Slow Foxtrot - Oct 26, 2023

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 again blitzers. Welcome back to Ballroom Blitz for another Foxtrot video. Today we are going to be doing the Basic Weave. Now, the basic weave is composed of a few different components that we have already blitzed, so we'll leave all the links in the description for you to go back to it but, we're going to put them all together and smash them out hit those critical positions and get you weaving on the floor as soon as we can.

So we are going to be using an underturned Reverse Turn to get into one of our critical positions for the Basic Weave, then we're going to use a checking action to get into that critical position to hit that Weave Ending. We've already done the Reverse Turn, we will leave that in the description, we've already done the Weave Endings, we'll leave that in the description. So, really it's the three abridging moves, a few fancy words there for three short steps, to get from one to the other to put the whole thing together.

(demonstration without music)

Ian: Now, technically speaking the Reverse Turn bit at the start isn't actually part of your Basic Weave, but it's probably going to be the first way you will get into this figure. So we're going to leave you to revise that, but just note that you need to underturn the figure because leaders you want to end up backing diagonal wall around line of dance, to get into that critical position. So let's cover the check, and then we will link it to the Weave Endings and you're good to go.

Leaders, we have done either the underturned Reverse Turn, or some other figure, to get to this position where if I'm dancing that way I am backing diagonal wall, I'm back on my left foot ready to use my right foot on a slow. Preferably on beat one, but you'll get away with beat three as well. We're going to take a slow checking step back, bearing in mind that the follow at this point is expecting to power, so we're going to have to sink into that leg, check it nice and evenly don't make it too abrupt. Heel back with a quick, side step to that critical position mentioned in the Weave Endings video, and then continue with the four quicker steps, one, two, three, hitting that feathered position, and then settling out with a slow step to drive into whatever you're choosing to follow with.

(demonstration of Leaders check)

Lindsey: Now followers, our first indication that a Basic Weave might be coming up is that underturned Reverse Turn. So when the leaders put us into a Heel Turn and we're going backwards on the right, turning on the left, for my heel turn, usually we end up facing straight down line of dance. In this case the leaders will underturn it, and we'll find ourselves facing instead diagonal wall. Now this might still not be a Basic Weave, but it's given us an idea that it might be. So we step out of our heel turn on the right foot, we are now ready to take a heel on the left, but as we take it we should feel the leaders sort of absorb that power and start to push back at us. So we'll have a backward step after that in a quick, we are taken to the side in a way that should indicate that we can step past our leader next, and that is our critical position to do our weave ending. So I've just taken a quick step out of my heel turn I will then have

(demonstration of Follower steps)

(demonstration with counts)

(demonstration with music)

Ian: There you go the Basic Weave. The critical point is using that check, rocking and side action to get into that critical position to have those four Weave Ending steps, and of course you can use that underturned Reverse Turn to get into that position if you choose. It's not the only way to get into it, but it is probably the most straightforward with your basic foxtrot moves. I'm sure you will find many and varied ways of getting to the same position where you can use it. Just remember you have to go back and check on a slow, otherwise it won't quite work, and if you make it work it will just feel possibly a little bit odd. But, smash it into your Foxtrot, have fun, it's never as hard as you think it is. Give it a go, let us know how you go, and we'll catch you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #080

Scary Steps Halloween Special - Oct 30, 2023

Natural Spin Turn in Quickstep & Spiral Actions

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 & Lindsey: Hello again Ballroom blitzers welcome back to the channel. Today we have a Halloween special, we're going to give you a two for one we're going to be doing those steps that make you feel

Argh!

It's Scary steps.

Natural Spin Turn

Ian: The first scary step we're going to be doing today, and we are going to be doing two, the first one is the Natural Spin Turn. Now, we've been sitting on this one for a little while we harked back on it with our very first pet peeve, the impatience pet peeve, with our reenactment during that video. We'll leave it in the description for you to go back and have a look at, and a little bit of a laugh at as well, we're going to be doing that. We've done most of the steps we've covered a range of natural turns including the Natural Pivot Turn in Quickstep, we're going to be leaning on that video quite a lot today, and we're going to be finishing that figure with a spin to create a Natural Spin Turn. It does make a lot of followers in particular go "Oh My God!" and it is the bane of a lot of dancers existence on the social floor. So, we're going to take out the scary of that today. We're going to get you dancing perfect Natural Spin Turns in a flash.

Now, to help us de-scary the Natural Spin Turn in either the Quickstep, which is what we'll be demonstrating it in today, or your Modern Waltz, I'm going to let you in on a kept secret, it's not a very well-kept secret, but you may not have heard of it. If you are going to do a pivot in a modern dance, 99% of the time, someone must exit that pivot walking forward. There are a few shapely examples where we might exit to the side, but it is a fantastic rule of thumb that you must exit walking forward. So what we're going to do is we're actually going to take all the stuff we did in our Natural Pivot Turn, again link in the description, for Quickstep and I'm going to walk my follow out into a toe spin, and that is the Natural Spin Turn. It doesn't actually have as much "spinning" as you might think. We're going to block the follow, pivot them until we want to dance forward, dance forward into a single spin, and then settle ready for the next steps after that that we're going to follow with. If you can take out this spinning notion of going round and round like the animated Tassie devil, you'll take all the scary out of your Natural Spin turn and it will be a lot more pleasurable to follow, and a lot more pleasurable to lead.

So leaders, I'm going to dance the first four steps of a Natural Pivot turn; which is all of them. So let's dance a Natural Pivot turn for Quickstep Slow Quick Quick Pivot I now stay nice and balanced, I've pivoted until basically I can see where I want to dance next, I'm going to walk into a spin. So I'm going to take a heel step forward not a terribly big one, this isn't a driving step, but it is a heel step forward, I'm walking into that I get my weight over the ball of my foot, I spin and then allow the follow to step forward a little bit, I invite them to prepare to drive on the next step, stepping back and to the side and Bob's your uncle Fanny's your aunt I've danced a Natural Spin Turn. Let's see that in action we have

[demonstration of leaders steps]

Ian: and I am ready to be driven back by my follower on my right foot to exit the figure or follow on with the next figure which classically is your Progressive Chasse but obviously not always.

Now even though you don't have a Natural Pivot Turn in Modern Waltz, the action for your Natural Spin Turn is exactly the same. You still want to pivot around and walk into a spin, we simply change the count and the rhythm for the first three steps from a Slow-Quick-Quick to a One-Two-Three, and then of course we have a Four-Five-Six at the end, which is equivalent to three slows in the Quickstep.

Lindsey: So followers, the leaders are driving forward into this figure but, three steps later, it's our turn to drive forward. So our first few steps are backwards on the left, side on the right, and close, for a Slow-Quick-Quick. We're really hoping that we have our balance here, because if we have our balance here the next is a walk in the park, quite literally a walk for me a walk for my leader. So I walk forward at them with a drive, they pivot it around, and then they walk at me. At this point we close our feet, and here's where the spin comes in. So if I do that again they've walked at me, spin on the toes, and then we can step out, hopefully with some gusto, again we're hoping that we have our balance here, that we've stayed nice and close in the frame and on the hip and we have supported each other's moves.

Now the reason the natural spin turn is often very scary or a point of frustration for a lot of dancers is they're trying to do it all themself. It really is a figure where we need to let our partner do their bits, we need to do our bits so that our partner can rest when it is our turn to work, and that way we are building a figure where we do our own work and we don't have to feel like we're doing it all ourself.

In Quickstep we have

[demonstration with counts]

[demonstration with music]

In modern Waltz we have

[demonstration with counts]

[demonstration with music]

Ian: One final note to anti-scary this step of course is to remember for the followers to brush over step five and into step six so that you don't trip up your partner and leaders once you have a command of this step and you have your balance you can close your feet there too to get you some extra twist without actually throwing your follower off balance. But for now, get in that pivot turn section, walk into the spin, step out, do your bits let your partner do theirs, and the Natural Spin Turn is no longer such a scary step.

Spiral Actions

Lindsey: Now the second kind of step that we promised you in our scary step Blitz today was called a Spiral, We often find that the moves where there's a fair amount of turn do tend to freak people out, they end up being a huge amount of fun though with just a couple of tricks to make you feel like you're the one in control, so let's have a look at this move called the Spiral.

So the spiral is an action that helps us, or that happens when we turn in a certain way, and it can be a turn to the right a turn to the left and it can be for either the leader or the follower. Don't be surprised if the followers get a few more of them though and the leader helps support the follower doing these turns.

You will find Spiral turns in some of your Latin dances you'll also find them in the New Vogues, and after a while they become a really lovely controlled way of turning, so it's a good thing to get a handle on.

Lindsey: A lot of the time when we do a turn in our ballroom dancing world if we take a step on the right foot that means that we are going to turn to the right, and if we take a step on the left foot we turn to the left, not so with the spirals. The way a spiral works is that if I take a step on my right foot, I'm not actually going to turn to the right I'm going to turn to the left, so just that notion can take a little bit of getting used to because we're used to going the other way about it. But what happens if I take a step moving my weight onto my right foot, and then I turn to the left it's this curious twist of my legs that happens as I go around. So if I do it this way so you can see what's happening, weight is on the right, turn to the left, and you can see that my free foot, my left leg, is kind of curling around my right now. To begin with, this looks like it is a bit of a twisted position, and that it might not be terribly balanced, not so. This is actually a really balanced position because I've got my legs very close to each other I can tense my thighs towards each other, and that actually gives me a really good base for some great stability.

Now that spiral action of the legs doesn't work if I try to bring my free leg with me and indeed try to sort of stir my myself around with the foot that I don't have my weight on. So say I've just taken a step on my left, if I think I'm going to turn to my right but I try to use my leg to turn me, that's not a spiral. I've turned in the correct direction, but I haven't achieved that spiral action. So, the idea is I want to leave my toe on the floor and roughly where it is. It can start to drag a little bit as I continue to turn, so it depends how far I want to turn, but it won't work if I actually use lift and take that foot with me into the turn. So a little bit of patience and trust that that is actually the position that we want to get into really helps this move.

Now if you're finding that you're losing your balance in your Spiral Turns, or indeed any of your turns, one of the things that you want to make sure of is that the rest of your body isn't knocking you off balance, and one of the best things that we can do is simply stand nice and upright, make sure our heads are over our shoulders, that we're not leaning forward, we're not leaning back, we're not trying to use the head or the shoulders to really wrench us around, that we're actually quite pulled up through the center of us. So, a spiral that I'm pulled up in will be a much more successful spiral than one that I am not doing that in.

Ian: Now leaders, your steps through a spiral are many and varied. If you are actually spiraling yourself, you're going to do everything that Lindsey just said. If you're leading your follower through a Spiral action, the the, basically it's as unique as the step itself. So we're going to have to look at individual spiral figures whether they be in parts of New Vogues or the Latins to actually drill down on that. But there are two sort of things that you can do that will remain constant to help free up the the follower and give them the best experience you can. The first thing, well actually both of them relate to what Lindsey just said about the follows balance or the spiralers balance, and not being wavered off course. The first way that we can do that is if you have hand contact, you can help lift this arm up to create a drawn up type of arrangement, with the body and with a flick of the hand around quite centrally over that shoulder and the leg that's being spiraled, then we don't pull the follow off course and we actually help keep them up. So we don't want to be moving this or having a big pot stirring sort of arm over the head. Of course, the second way to do that is just to, if the move allows, break contact and if the follow is quite good on their feet and you can rely on them doing a spiral not getting off balance out of time all those things, then you can lead the spiral in a particular situation let go let the follow actually do their spiral and collect them at the end, and then really the rest of it is all in the nuances of the individual steps themselves.

Lindsey: And that's how you do a spiral so give it a practice, doesn't take much room to practice and it's a good one to just work out where your weight needs to be, where your balance is, how it feels, how to step out of it, and you'll get the most out of it on your dance floor. So, have some fun with it.

Ian & Lindsey: And there you go two not so scary steps after all. So, practice the pivots and walking into your Spin Turns, stand nice and upright and don't push your partner over during the spirals, put it into your respective dancing and we will see you next time bye.

Ballroom Blitz #081

Whisks (with followers underarm turn) in Samba - Nov 02, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Hello there beautiful Ballroom dancers, thank you for joining us today. We are in the world of Samba so chances are we're going to be shaking our hips and having some fun. We have a Whisk into a lady's underarm turn.

Now, what we're doing here is essentially taking two different moves and smooshing them together to get the best out of both of them. We have already done the Whisks and we've already done a Solo Spot Volta, which is the movement that the follower will be doing as they go under the arm. So, we'll put the links below so you can have a closer look at those two individual figures.

(demonstration without music)

Lindsey: And that's how you put a Whisk in with an underarm turn. Now, you can do them both ways, in this particular one we had the leader whisking to the left, and then leading the follower into their underarm turn as they whisk to the right. So let's have a look at, not just the leader's footwork, but also their arm work first.

Ian: Okay, leaders, so for you the footwork is just whisks. So if you were doing Whisks and you were leading your partner to do Whisks as well, or if you were just soloing it up on the floor and you were choosing to do Whisks, that is the footwork. So we will leave the link in the description for that video. But, as a recap, we're going to take our step to the side, add the appropriate amount of bounce and linger on the other foot for your level, switch, bounce behind and return to our original foot, and on the other side as well. So, this is our footwork for this particular action; there there are no tricks to the feet in this case; it's all happening with the arms. Now, we're going to lead our follow to do one Whisk with us, and then on the return journey we're going to lead them to do this underarm turn. Which being a Samba is composed of the Spot Volta. Theoretically here you can do them in either direction and with either arm. So, they follow the same sort of Latin-esque rules, but if we do the, I guess the bog standard for beginning this figure and giving it a go, as Lindsay mentioned I'm going to Whisk to my left and on my rightward Whisk I'm going to lead the underarm turn on the return journey. I want the follow to initially step that way while I am stepping to the side, so I'm going to the side and leading them to take a forward step. This arm comes up, [it] can't be an underarm turn if it doesn't go up, so we have to make sure that it doesn't stay in its normal position. I'm going to bring it up and across opening that little hand to give it a little bit of maneuverability and almost using a kind of spiral/Queen wave flick. I'm going to step off to the side doing my whisk help the follow along and then twist them round to hold them upright for their Volta. You can do the mirror with the other hand or if you are doing it backwards then you will find the way to do that, it's a very similar idea. You have to not pull the follow over as they're doing their Volta, but that's it. Whisks with the feet, know what you're doing with the arms in terms of what you are asking your follow to do, and that's it.

Lindsey: Now followers we've got a half and half. So we are going to do our Whisk to the right as normal. We might get an indication at this point that it's not going to be just an ordinary Whisk back the other way. One of the telltale signs might be that the leader lets go with their right hand so we no longer have that hold there and the left hand may start to shift upwards and across. So by the time we take this step to the side which could have been a Whisk we should know that actually it's not. We're still going to land that foot there though, but it's going to be more of a forward walk as we are starting to turn to our left. Now here comes the Spot Volta bit, we're going to bring our right foot through and around, and then land back onto our left leg. So we end up in the sort of perfect Volta position at the end, nice and stable. Our timing is about the same for both sides so we're going to have a One-a Two for our whisk, and then a One-a Two for our Volta.

(demonstration with counts)

(demonstration with music)

Lindsey: And there you have it, the Whisks with the followers underarm turn. It's a great way of just spicing up those Whisks. Whisks are a great sort of transition move but we can get a little bit stuck in them, so this is a nice easy Samba-y way of spicing it up. So, give it a go, let us know how you go, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #082

Basic Weave in Modern Waltz - Nov 06, 2023

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 ballroom blitzers, welcome back to the channel. Not so long ago we did this thing called the Basic Weave in Foxtrot. Today we are going to be doing the Basic Weave in Modern Waltz. We're going to have a look at the similarities and the differences so you can an easy two for one out of these same steps.

(demonstration without music)

Ian: So as you can see from that demonstration, and if you have seen the Basic Weave blitz that we did for the Slow Foxtrot, there is a lot of similarities in the steps. Basically because they are almost identical. Where do the differences lie? Well it's basically we're dancing one in Foxtrot, which has some demands of those steps, and today we are dancing them in Modern Waltz, which has a slightly different set of demands on those steps. And this is a good opportunity just to highlight the fact that there is a lot of crossover with steps and ideas in your Modern Ballroom, we see it in the Latin world as well, where dances borrow from each other but then you have to change the execution to suit the style. So probably one of the biggest things that we will work out today is how do you take something that we dance in Foxtrot, which has obviously 4/4 timing with slows and quicks, and how exactly do you put that into a Modern Waltz where you have a One, Two, Three, 3/4 base, where most of the time all of the steps are even. So, let's have a look.

So, we start this figure in the Modern Waltz in exactly the same way as we do the Slow Foxtrot; with that checking action. If you need to recap that, jump back into the Slow Foxtrot video, again link is in the description. But, we are going to check backwards, so we have arrived at the same orientation, or thereabouts, usually with the leader backing diagonal wall, so I would be dancing this way. I'm going to allow the follow to power forward, as they are expecting, I go back on my right foot, check that power, have a nice heel lead forward on step two, this is very unusual for Waltz to take a heel on two but this is one of those exceptions, and now I'm going to step out to the side on three, once again achieving that weave endings critical position; link in the description for Weave Endings. So instead of dancing Slow Quick Quick, as we did in Slow Foxtrot, here we are dancing One, Two, Three, and out of Two and into Three you can start to adopt a little bit more of a Waltz-like rise, rather than keeping it nice and flat for a Foxtrot. So that covers your timing changes and probably the most notable difference between Waltz and Foxtrot, the rise and fall; so that's the first three checking steps.

Once we've hit that critical position, we now have what we have described in the Weave Endings video, and what we saw in the Slow Foxtrot version, four steps to do the actual weave that ends you in sort of a feathered position; that's fairly Foxtrot-ty. So, it might surprise you to know I'm going to do exactly the same four steps, this produces a bit of a dilemma. How do you do the four steps in Modern Waltz timing? We're basically going to take four slows, but appreciate that the very last one, what we would consider a feather type step in our foxtrot, is actually going to be the power step of whatever you choose to follow this with in your Modern Waltz. So if I continue with the same steps we would have One, Two, Three, and now I have to take this step outside. If I was dancing a Foxtrot we would have our toe step, our feather, here, but as I'm dancing a Waltz I'm going to lower at end of three, I'm going to turn this into a heel step, taken outside of partner and into whatever you choose to follow it with. But just noting that you are still dancing four steps, the last step must go out outside of your partner, but it's going to be one of whatever comes next. So if we put all of that together seven steps in total we have One Two Three Four Five Six Seven or if we count it a slightly different way that tracks the bars it will make a bit more sense with a One Two Three One Two Three One of what whatever you're following the figure with.

Lindsey: Followers our experience of the Basic Weave in the Waltz is going to be essentially the natural opposite of what Ian just did for the leader steps. One of the main things that we want to pay attention to though, because this is a Waltz, and we're matching that One, Two, Three, and we've got rise and fall, is that as opposed to our Foxtrot, where we really just had that one drive step, and then it was sort of toe all the way nice and light through, is that we have a second drive step to do on step four. So we had the drive on one, it was checked and brought back against us, but then my step past my partner here that sort of, we've reached the critical position of the Weave, because this is a Waltz Weave, I'm going to have a drive step past. So we want to lower here and take a nice heel, then rise up, and then be ready for our partner to take a drive step past. So that inclusion of the drive steps is one of the big differences that we will feel and we need to be ready for when we take this Foxtrot-ty kind of move and put it into our Waltz.

Ian: So one final thing to note, just about adding those heel steps for the followers, you want to make sure that even though we are dancing Waltz, and definitely you want to get those heel steps, don't fall into the trap of then thinking you must rise really high through the middle. It is a moving figure, you won't have as much time or ability to skyrocket up into high toes, so keep it a little bit flatter, take your heels, take your rising steps, but don't overdo it. So if we put that together and note that you'll see it's flatter than other types of Waltz steps with a heel a heel, and then a heel rising, and a heel here. So there is still rise and fall, we still want to get those heel steps in, because we are doing this in a Waltz, but don't take the "rise" in rise of fall to too much of an extreme.

(demonstration with counts)

(demonstration with music)

Ian: There you have it, the Modern Waltz adaptation of the Basic Weave. Sometimes referred to as Check and Basic Weave, because of course it has those check steps in the front, and really adapted from a Foxtrot figure. But if we bear in in mind those subtle differences and just remember that it has seven steps ending outside following on with a drive step outside partner, it's pretty much at its heart the same figure. So smash it into your Modern Waltz and revise the Foxtrot videos and smash those into your Slow Foxtrot as well. Have fun with your Weaves, let us know if you would like us to blitz anything else and whatever you do, whatever you do, just remember; there are no Weaves in Quickstep. We'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #083

Walks in Jive - Nov 09, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Welcome back dancers to another Ballroom Blitz. We are dancing some Jive today and the move we're going to be showing you is the Walks.

So this figure follows our usual pattern that we often get in our Jive figures which is Back Replace, and then two Chasses, but with one rather important difference. So let's take a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So, we are in a closed position for this one doing our regular Back Replace in that hold, but then our Chasses after that are following along a straight line; so no backwards and forwards, it's quite directional. So to start start off with let us have a look at the leader steps.

Ian: Alrighty leaders, because we are following the classic Back Replace Chasse Chasse pattern, a lot of the lead for this figure is fairly straightforward. We're going to do all our regular things in a closed position, lifting up, turning that 1/8 for the back, and then we're just, as with a lot of these figures, not on the replace returning to closed for the chasse, we're going to retain that Fallaway, soon to be Prominade, position. So, we have Back Replace and now because we have not returned to the Closed Position, we've stayed in Prominade, I'm going to start Chassing in Prominade. And if I think of just Chassing in Prominade, that really is the basic Walks figure. You get a lot more variants that you can add and do with this, but if we just start with the base move we have Back Replace, don't return to Closed position retain that Promenade slash Fallaway type position and Chasse down the line.

Lindsey: So followers, what we will feel is some work through the frame keeping us in that Prominade Position. We're ready to turn to Fallaway as normal with our Back Replace, back on right replace on left, but then we'll feel ourselves kept there. We are ready for our Chasse so our Right-a Right, then we're bringing this foot through for our Left-a Left. So you'll probably find that first Chasse a little bit more comfortable, we do though have the ability to bring that sort of back foot through across us in that Prominade position and we keeping it nice and small and nice and light.

So that is all there is to that particular figure. There are different alternatives, but that's your base. So just a Back Replace Chasse Chasse. But, what you will find at the end of it so we've gone Back Replace Chasse One Through Chasse Two on that inside foot, you will find at this point to go into to your next figure you're not really in the position, and your momentum is not such that you'll want to do a Back Replace after that; you'll find it very sort of unsettling and unbalancing. So your next figure will be changed to cut out that regular Back Replace, you'll probably go straight into a couple more Chasses into your next figure after that.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that's all there is to the walks in Jive, not really though because there are some different things that you can do with the timing, different ways of coming out of it, we will have a look at that on future blitzers. But in the meantime throw this in, it's a great one for shifting you a little bit away, a lot of our Jive moves kind of stay on the spot so this is a nice one to sort of use for floorcraft purposes and just get moving in a different way. So, throw it into your Jive, have some fun, let us know how you go and what you'd like to see next and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #084

Back Lock in Quickstep - Nov 13, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Hello there dancers, [we] hope you're having a splendid dancy day, thank you for joining us. We've got another Ballroom Blitz for you and we are looking at a Quickstep move today, it is the Back Lock.

A lot of our ballroom dance figures are named for what the leader is doing so as advertised, as it says on the tin, the leader is performing a Back Lock, but what the follower is doing is essentially the steps that the leader would do if they were doing a forward lock, so let's have a look at this move.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: Now, even though this figure is a bit flipped on its head, with the follower going forwards and the leader going backwards, it's still following a pretty base Quickstep rhythm with a Slow a Chasse going Quick Quick Slow, and they've added on an extra Slow on the end just to confirm that that step is outside partner.

Now, because the followers have the forward work in this particular figure, let's have a look at their steps first.

Now, I am dancing as if my line of dance is going down this way, just so I can face you. We start with a drive step on our right foot followers, and chances are it's going to be outside our partner because of what just happened beforehand. So we drive across ourselves outside partner with a heel, we rise up onto our toes slightly for a Step-Lock, so the lock happens behind us because we're moving forward, Step Left Lock [on Right, and then Step] Left, we come back down to Earth again ready for a another drive step past, again on our right foot. So, if I was traveling with my line of dance going down this way, stepping across myself Right Left Lock Left Right.

Ian: So leaders, your steps are basically the natural opposite and essentially you're going to dance the follower's half of a Forward Lock. We're going to allow the follower to provide the drive and we're going to go backwards on our left for a Slow. Not rising too much, but rising into the Chasse of our Lock with a Quick, locking in front because now we're going backwards, settling on that second Slow, and Lindsey mentioned earlier, and as you would know from your Forward Lock to commence the first step of what comes next, and to settle us down we're going to drive outside partner, in this case the follow is driving outside of us, so we're going to settle back on a Left into whatever you choose to follow with.

Lindsey: Now it's the follower coming forward and providing the drive, but it is still the leader leading, and as with the Forward Lock that they perform coming forward, one of the big indications to the follower that it is in fact a lock that the leader wants us to do, is the fact that there is no turn. So, the previous figure will set up the angle, and then they will hold steady on that angle as we both perform the lock.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that is the Back Lock in the Quickstep. So, some nice forward work for the followers, leader's big job to set it up, and then guide them through and into the next figure after that. So, see how you go with this one on the social floor, let us know how you go, let us know what else you want to see, and we'll catch you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #085

Natural Opening Out Movement in Rumba - Nov 16, 2023

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 blitzers welcome back to the channel. Today we are going to finish off a bit of a mini series, I guess you could say, a little while ago we did the Natural Top in Rumba, then we did a Blitz on how to get into that, even though we did do that in Cha Cha, but it's very very similar, and now we're going to give you I guess the most basic way to get out of your Natural Top. It's called the Natural Opening Out Movement, it's quite simple, quite easy, and if you have been getting into those Tops this is nice and easy to get you back to a familiar closed position so let's give it a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So you you can see from the demonstration this only takes one bar of music, it is super simple, it opens us out in the natural direction, the clockwise direction, that goes on the end of our Natural Top, returns us to closed and we could do basics or some other simple move from there. [It] doesn't take us through Fan or any more complex positions like other moves that you could use once you get used to your Natural Top, and how to exit, this is just keeping it nice and simple so that you can use the top without too much flash while you're getting started.

Now, what we're showing you today is of course the base model. This is a fairly simple figure so it has been pimped up along the way by a number of different people. You will see different flare added, the steps going in slightly different positions, more twist, and other rotations to get a little bit more out of such a simple figure. That's completely fine once you get the base steps and the base notion, I encourage you to do all the same, but start out nice and simple get it working, then flash it up.

So, leaders you have arrived at the end of the Natural Top which kind of means you will have some rotation, we've made some sort of turnabout after however many bars of the Natural Top you have used. But, you've now decided it's time to come out, we want to stop turning. The first thing we have to realize about this figure is we have to communicate that quite softly to our partner, we don't just want to come to a sudden grinding halt, that's quite jarring, and we have to appreciate that our steps have to mix in with that rotation. So essentially I am going to go to the side on my left foot, as I'm rotating around a little bit, so my torso will rotate. I encourage you to keep eyes on your follow just in case anything goes a little bit ary, but also to allow that torso twist as we're taking this step. So we've come out, we've probably ended [of] course being a Natural Top in a Cuban Cross position, so I'm due to go to the side on my left. I go to the side, that's my 2 Step. I'm now essentially going to, in terms of footwork, rock back onto my right for 3, and I'm now just going to close my feet over the 4-and-1. So if we take the rotation out and just go with the footwork, I'm going from a fairly closed footed position, I'm going out on my left 2 rock back on my right 3 close and change weight 4-1and I will have brought my follow back in front of me. If we add the rotation, we have our Cuban cross, we step out to the side, I want to make my follow turn a half after they have taken their step forward, so my torso rotates. I turn them so that they step back after turning a half, I will let Lindsey explain more about that in a moment, we're going to both rock in position without changing or stepping or rotating anymore, I'm now going to, as I close my feet and change weight, walk the follow forward so that they are in front of me, and then as I'm settling my weight turn them to face me. So if we wanted we could step into step 4 of a basic, that's the backward half for the leader, so you should be ready to move your right foot with all your weight on your left, and in this version basically with your feet both together.

Lindsey: Now followers we're about to take a step on our right foot, which means that we will have just finished our natural turn sorry Natural Top, by taking a sideway step on our left foot. So we should have our balance nicely there and we'll want that because we are essentially pivoting over that foot, so we're swiveling on that foot, following the frame around, so we're hoping to get a nice amount of turn and support from the leader's frame at this point, and as Ian said we will be turning a half before we take the next step, which will be backwards on on my right. So if I'm facing you now my step will go towards you, but it will be going backwards because I'll have turned a half. So I have, turn and step backwards, that is beat 2 rock 3, and then the frame of the leader will take me around, back in front of them, this will actually feel like a forward step on the right foot on 4-1, but by the time they sort of square up their frame and we square up with them you will find that that foot is back to the side again. So we have

[Demonstration of Followers Steps]

Ian: So if we demonstrate this as if we have just finished the Natural Top, I'm in my Cuban cross position, Lindsey has taken her foot to the side, and you will see as I step to the side towards the camera, Lindsey is going to step that way backwards this is step 2. I'm going going to turn my torso my, trunk, to face her, that gets the extra rotation and holds the frame in place. We rock in place 3 and as I close my feet I'm going to walk around 4 settling on 1. I end with my feet together but my weight on my left, Lindsey ends with her feet apart with her weight on her right, ready to step into whatever comes next.

[Demonstration with counts]

Ian: So you can see from putting both of those halves together there is a lot of work in the frame. It does stretch, we need to maintain tension we need to understand where our follow is stepping and the amount of rotation that the leader is putting in. This is the cause of some of the changes and you might find one adaptation is instead of stepping to the side, leaders you might choose to step forward, or a bit more forward to give you some help with that rotation, that's entirely up for grabs. But we can't let the frame go floppy, we can't have noodle arms, we can't sort of let it just relax and expect the follow to do their own work without any lead at all, because there is a lot of rotation there, there's a lot of option for turning a particular amount, when the weight changes, etc. So make sure we keep a nice amount of creative tension through the frame, not too much, but not too little, just right, so that we get the lead and the help without feeling strangled through the step.

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: There you go blitzers, the Natural Opening Out Movement in Rumba, the easiest way to get out of your Natural Top from the standard amount of steps, and if you've last of this long you will have noticed the whole package: getting into it with our redefined Basics, the Natural Top, and then how the Natural Opening Out Movement ends that whole little sequence. Try it out in your Rumba, remember it's basically the same in your Cha you just have to shorten your steps add those little Chasse movements, and then do that repeating pattern, and for the Natural Opening out just add your Cha Chasse at the end as well. Give it a go, try it in your Rumba, try it in your Cha, let us know how you go, and good luck. We will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #086

Natural Weave in Slow Foxtrot - Nov 20, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Hello Ballroom Blitzers, welcome back. We are taking you into the beautiful world of the Foxtrot today and an absolutely stunning figure. It's called the Natural Weave.

Now, with this figure we're going to be taking a few ideas that we have already already blitzed and smooshed them together. Foxtrot loves weaves, and this is a really lovely way of using the Natural Turn that we have blitzed before, and we'll put a link down below, with the weave ending and putting them together. We have also blitzed the Weave Ending, so we'll put that in the description below as well, but today we'll be looking at how we can put those two moves together to create a lovely figure that really sweeps us down the floor.

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: Part of the fun of this move is the switch between turning to the right, which is what we're doing at the start hence the term Natural Weave, but the weave ending still turns to the left, it turns anticlockwise, but so it's a lot of fun but we do want to be ready for it. Now, let's have a closer look at the leader steps first.

Ian: So leads your steps really are just a Natural Heel turn, link in the description, you're not doing much different with the guts of that, and a Weave Ending, you hit the critical position and they're the same steps. So really this is all about your position and the step that abridges those two things. You're still going to drive forward with your right foot to turn to the right in the natural direction, remembering that it is Foxtrot so the lady is dancing a heel turn. The second step has to swing in such a way that you're not pulling them off balance. So those two steps are pretty much already taken care of. Your body position on step three, this is where it really changes, that's the transitional step. You're not going to complete the turn and step backwards, you're actually going to halt the turn a little bit early and start to exit slightly sidewards encouraging the follow to come out to the side, hitting that critical position, just before the weave from the Weave Endings video. Once you're there it's a weave ending, just like in that video. So really let's focus on that final step. If I enter into a Natural Heel Turn, I drive forward on the right as advertised, I put my follow in a heel turn, we come around them as advertised, this step will land basically in the same position but instead of stepping backwards to enter the rest of a Natural Turn, from that I am going to turn my body so that I open this outside style position, and step back and to the right allowing that passage and achieving that critical position. So our heel turn becomes Normal Normal Critical Position follow with your weave ending.

Lindsey: Followers we're hoping that we have good control over our Heel Turn because right out the end of it after, that step two, will be taken into a different direction as the leader leads the weave. So we are going backwards on the left performing a Heel Turn, but usually we would go forwards on the left here if it was just a normal Natural Turn, not so here, we'll feel ourselves taken to the side out into the floor a little bit in a way where we will step past after that into the weave ending. So we still want a little bit of forward momentum, but it's not dead straightforward for with the line of dance, it has a sideways element which will encourage that step past your leader.

[Demonstration of followers steps 1 to 3]

Lindsey: So once the leader has successfully led that step out to that side, that critical position, for any of our weaves, and the followers have picked up on that [it] should be clear sailing with some steps through all the way to the end of the figure.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that is the beautiful Natural Weave in the Slow Foxtrot. Little bit of turn to right, little bit of turn to left, nice and smooth and creamy and a great one for getting that little bit further down the floor. So try it out, let us know how you go, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #087

Hand To Hand in Cha Cha - Nov 23, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Hello dancers, welcome back to another Ballroom Blitz. We're going to be showing you a Cha Cha move today, and that move is Hand-to-Hands.

This move is one of the classic moves, it follows our Step and Replace, and then our signature Chasse Cha Cha Cha move. You can do them either side, and they're a great filler, and a great setup for some other moves later on down the track, so let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So as you can see this move opens us up really nicely for our Step-Rock portion, a little bit like our New Yorks, but unlike our New Yorks this move starts with a backward step rather than a forward step.

The steps for the leaders and the followers are actually the same, it just depends on which foot we are ready on and you could be ready on both [either]. If I've just done a Chasse Left-a-Left, I will be ready to go on my right foot next. I will be turning to my right a quarter to take my backwards step along this new alignment, I rock, then I turn and face my partner again, so turning a quarter to the left ready for my Chasse Side-a-Side, and that will set me up nicely to do one on the other side. So if I'm ready to go on my left foot I'll turn a quarter to the left, that will send my back foot there, rock and Side-a-Side.

Now of course we are going to apply our Cuban timing to this step just like our other Cha Cha steps. So the beat for the music will go

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: So one of the important things to happen when a leader wants to lead into a Hand-to-Hand is to make sure they have got the correct hand. So if you think about the position that you want to end up in, taking a backward step, you want to have hold of the hand that will be side on with your partner. So if Ian's ready to go backwards on his left foot, he actually wants to have a hold of me with his right hand. He then turns his quarter, leaves a bit of creative tension there through his hand, that will encourage me to turn and we both take our backward step there. If we want to do one on the other side he'll switch his hands, and that will set up the same movement, the same lead on the other side.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that's all there is to it the Hand-to-Hands in the Cha Cha. You'll be unsurprised to learn that there is a corresponding move for the Rumba as well just taking out that Chasse and it gives us a great opportunity to have some free hands to try out some styling. So throw it into your Cha Cha, throw it into your Rumba, give it a go, let us know what you'd like to see next, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #088

Open Reverse Turn (Lady Inline) in Tango - Nov 27, 2023

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 again blitzers, welcome back to the channel. Today we're heading back into the Tango world for an Open Reverse Turn with the lady in line. We have already blitzed the Open Reverse Turn (Lady Outside), a very very similar step we'll leave a link for that in the description, and recently in your other modern dances we have done some open natural turns; so, we'll start to see a little bit of crossover with the theory of the steps. But for now let's focus on the Open Reverse Turn (Lady In Line) for Tango.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So you can see from the demonstration this has all the hallmarks of what is advertised in the name. It is a reverse figure, it starts on the left when moving forward, it turns anticlockwise, and it's an open figure; so the feet don't close at any point, until the end which we will touch on in a moment. So this Open Reverse Turn does exactly that, turns anticlockwise, doesn't bring the feet together, just like we have foretold in the name and have gone over in previous blitzers. So what's this inline versus outside section, because these are two of the same turn really that only really crops up in Tango. The Open Reverse Turn (Lady Outside) basically takes the follower to the outside in the middle steps whereas the Open Reverse Turn (Lady In Line) is a little bit more classical you could say, and keeps the lady in line throughout the entire figure. Now what is the impact, it looks different. Why would you use one over the other, it looks different. The actual functional difference there is pretty much F all. You pick one because you like it. You pick one because you think it looks better. But they are actually a little bit functionally different in the middle and one I am guessing will give you a slightly better Tango feel, for you personally, and the other might be just a little bit easier on maybe a busier floor where you don't want to take your partner to the outside a little bit too much. So let's go over the differences, but really you're putting these together they lead in the same they follow the same it's just the middle steps that are different.

So if we check out this idea of we're going to turn anticlockwise, leader again gets the forward steps first but they're basically a mirror image of each other. Leader's going to go forward on the left, we're going to turn anticlockwise with a quick quick, and now here you'll notice I have kept my follow in line so this step here is going under my body as any other inline step would go, and that's what gives you the lady in line of this figure. So we have Quick Quick In Line, and then of course the next step has to go in line as well Quick Quick Close.

We've taken six steps to turn anticlockwise, that's consistent with your Modern Waltz and your Foxtrot. Leaders get the forward step first on the left follows get the forward step in the second half on their left to continue you turning. We haven't brought our feet together in the middle of the figure, but in very Tango style you close your feet at the end. If you want to make this, for the purists among you, a true open figure where you don't bring your feet together at all, you could try the Open Reverse Turn (Lady In Line) with an Open Finish, and that way you don't even get the close at the end; steps though are the same.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: There you have it the Open Reverse Turn (Lady In Line) for your Tango. Functionally exchangeable with all the leads and follows of its "Lady Outside" counterpart with that one difference in the middle. Follows all the same principles of your other reverse turns and your other open turns and we've got all the links below if you need to go back and recap those. Chuck it into your Tango, [it] gets you moving a little bit down the floor, [it] gets you turning a little bit, [it] gets you to stretch your legs out of those walks, and it's just a really really good one for something a little bit different. Try that, try the outside version, let us know how you go see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #089

Don’t Look DOWN! Pet Peeve - Nov 30, 2023

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!

Lindsey: Welcome dancers, one and all, to a very special Ballroom Blitz. We're not going to show you a particular figure today, you get the joy of me ranting at you, it's a pet peeve and this is about heads.

When we're dancing, doesn't really matter what style, our balance is really important, our posture is really important. But, a lot of people when they're dancing, and they're trying to remember what the steps are, they're concentrating really hard, and they do this. They look down at the ground. We don't really know why we do this. When we concentrate we do tend to sort of look down, instead of up. Not many of us sort of go "hm I wonder what step I'm going to do next".

Some of of us have work where we're sort of hunched over a computer all day, and we tend to sort of be looking down rather than looking up and out. So we do get into a tendency to not do this, which is what we're supposed to be doing; but doing this. Now the reason it's really important to try and keep our heads up when we're dancing is because it really mucks us around if we don't, essentially. So, if I stand side on from you all, if I'm looking up, you can see that I'm balanced, the weight of my head is nicely distributed over my shoulders, my shoulders are nicely distributed over my hips, and I can move and do all sorts of fancy things in safety and with balance and control.

As soon as I look down I ruin quite a few things. So, the weight of my head, for instance, is more forward than it is central, that's going to muck around my balance. My shoulders tend to roll, roll forwards if I am looking down and that's going to muck around with my frame and my connection with my partner. And if we're talking Modern Ballroom, we're supposed to be having contact hip-to-hip. If my head comes forward my hips tend to come back and that gap widens the more we do it. So we really want to just check ourselves. I'm having to constantly do it to make, sure that we're not sort of in concentrating mode, or just tired mode, or the position that we're usually in that when we are dancing we have our head up. It's going to help with your balance, it's going to help with your lead and follow, it's going to help with the look of it.

You'd be surprised how, like, just what a difference it makes if I'm dancing around like this, I don't look certain, I don't look like I'm performing or enjoying myself. As soon as I get my head up, everything changes. So try it out, keep on checking yourself. You'll find that you have to do it quite constantly for a while until it becomes a good habit. But it is definitely a habit that you want to be in the habit of doing. It will transform your dancing. So, best of luck, you're doing this for yourself, you're doing this for your partner, and you're doing it for the beauty of dance. So, give it a red hot go.

Ballroom Blitz #090

Grand Circle in Paso Doble - Dec 04, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Ian: Hello again Ballroom Blitzers. Welcome back to the channel today we are going back into the world of the bull fight we're going back to Paso Doble. We're going to be looking at this very grandiose sounding figure the Grand Circle, easier to pull off than it sounds. Let's not waste time let's get into it.

Demonstration (without music)

Ian: Alrighty, that is it the Grand Circle. That's what it looks like, but how do you do it? The leaders part and the follows part are quite different, but the follows part is reasonably straightforward, and as long as the leader can count their part is reasonably straightforward as well. So let's break it down into both parts, get it together and get you Grand Circling.

Okay leaders, for you to pull off this figure you need to 1) be able to count, 2) hold a frame. If you can do that, this is easy as pie. You are going to start in Promenade Position, that means there is no Appel. So we're counting from one with a moving step, that moving step will of course be on the right foot; which is consistent with all of our Paso figures with the exception of Left Foot Variation. We're going to walk forward with a strong heel step on one, the follow will follow, funnily enough; and then over two and three we're going to hold position with our feet and allow the follow to walk around in their circle, I'll let Lindsey talk more about that in a moment; and then over beats four, five, and six, so for a count of three, you are going to keep walking them around you, although this will largely be driven by the follows steps forward; except our frame will keep them in position. But, what you are trying to do is evenly rock your weight from one foot back to the other.

So, you are going to swivel from this forward position, that has come from Promenade, around into a Promenade Position facing the other way, over three beats, and you're going to get to a position where you have an open figure and, beg pardon an open position, but facing in Promenade ready to do a Closed Promenade from our Promenade Link and Promenade Close tutorial. It's the last two steps, this is our first example of using those two steps from the Promenade Link figure as a Promenade Close. So if we count that out we have: move on one, hold position two-three while the upper body is walking the follow around, rock between your feet over four, five and six, and then Promenade Close on seven and eight. You will end in a Closed Position, so you're moving from Promenade to Closed, and as you can see if I'm facing you in the camera I switch all the way around, so in a closed position I have turned 180° which means usually I'm going to Appel and head somewhat in a different direction. But that's entirely up to you.

Demonstration (of Leaders Steps)

Lindsey: Followers, we don't have to worry too much about stopping and counting and rocking our weight, we have a step for each of these eight beats. We're going to start in Promenade Position with our partner stepping through with a heel step on our left foot, that matches the heel step of the leaders on their right. After that though, we're going to rise up onto our toes and do a base basic movement around our partner, all pretty much going forward but because of the leader's frame it will take us around in a circle. So we had our heel step on one, then rising up onto our toes two, three, four, five, and six, we want to drop onto our heel on six because we're about to take a pretty beefy step on our left foot again, seven, close eight. And we're really hoping for a little bit of frame help from our leader to get us whipped around on that last two steps

Demonstration (of Followers Steps)

Ian: So if we put both of those halves together we have

Demonstration (with Description)

Ian: Or thinking of it more from the leader perspective we have

Demonstration (with Description)

Demonstration (with Counts)

Demonstration (with Music)

Ian: And there you have it boys and girls the Grand Circle. Not so grandiose as long as you keep your frame and keep the count. Of course there is a lot more that you can do with it to spice it up if you want to add it to your Paso Doble routines. But, this will get you started with the basic Blitz version. Thank you for watching we will see you next time let us know what you would like to see we are approaching the 100th Episode Special if you want to see something special in that you better let us know quickmart see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #091

Feather Position in Foxtrot - Dec 07, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Ian: Why hello there Ballroom Blitzers welcome back to the channel. Today we've got a nice, easy, short, sharp one that will set up a few future blitzers and clarify maybe a few that we have already done. We're going to talk briefly about Feather Positions in Slow Foxtrot; let's go.

Now, way back when when we did the Feather Step, link in the description, we alluded to the fact that depending on who you talk to there are either, eight different feathers, or one feather danced eight different ways. Really I don't care which way you fall on that, but there are lots of options for getting into this fabled Slow Foxtrot thing called "The Feather". But, what do they all have in common? Well, it's what I call the Feather Position and I think this is a really handy thing to know that if you know where you're going in your feather position, both forward and backward, where the follow's going, where the lead's going; then how you get there is somewhat irrelevant because at least you know what you're aiming for. So whether it's a Feather Step, Feather Finish, Feather Ending, Hover Feather, any other feather you are going to dance, you know where you're going it makes getting there far easier.

Ian: So, what is this feather position? What is the guts of the feather? Where are we going? Well it's the two Quicks of a Feather Step. So if we think of slow-quick-quick-slow or slow-slow-and-slow, it's the middle portion. It's the prepare to step outside partner step, usually on the leader's left, and then the step outside of partner step. This is the feather position, this cross-legged position where I'm slightly twisted, my knees are much more together, I am not stepping dead forward, I am not stepping, strafing, to the side, but kind of halfway in between. So that so I have stepped outside of my partner. If we reverse that either in a Back Feather or for the follows portion, then they have been taken preparing to have the lead step outside, and then the natural opposite stepping underneath and across and again, it's not straight back, but it's not strafing with too strong a contra to the side. That position that you get to, that is what we call the "Feather Position", and it's going to be the same no matter which feather you are dancing. In a Back Feather roles are reversed, but it's the same position. But you also get there at the end of other figures which is really really handy to know so that you know how to end the figure. A great example of that are the Weave Endings that we've blitzed recently. All of those move through the Feather Position at the end before driving into the next step. So, Feather Position is, here.

And there you have it, a nice brief one on what the Feather Position is. Hopefully this will clear up some of the things we have already done, so Feather Positions at the end of Weaves and Top Spins and other things like that, but also will form the guts of all the feathers to come. We have already blitzed the Feather Step, we've already alluded to the Feather Finish at the end of Impetus Turns and the Reverse Turn in particular, but there are many more to come; six in fact. So, this will set you up for all of those. You will start to see that position in the middle of your Foxtrot. Don't be afraid of it, embrace it, drive through it, and go after it; and it will start to make your Foxtrot feel nice and free flowing and give you a little bit more energy as we move through our straighter figures in between our turns. Try it out, watch out for future blitzers where this is going to come up and we will see you soon.

Ballroom Blitz #092

Opening Out Right And Left in Rumba - Dec 11, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Lindsey: Welcome dancers to another Ballroom Blitz. Today we are dancing the beautiful Rumba and we have a beautiful move for you; it is Opening Out to Right & Left.

Now this one is a really lovely one, the steps aren't complicated and it's nice and even on both sides, but there's a couple of things to it. Firstly the leader and the follower roles are quite different here, and it's also one of these moves that won't translate into your cha so this is just a Rumba special.

Demonstration (without music)

Lindsey: Now the leader's footwork for this one is a move that we have done before in a blitz so we'll put the link below to that one; it's a Cucaracha. They're starting on the left foot and partial weight out to the side to the left, we change and go partial weight out to the right. It's got our classic Rumba timing of Two Three Four-One Two Three Four-One

Demonstration (of Leaders Steps)

Lindsey: Now, because we don't want the follower to do a Cucaracha with us, the lead for this comes not through the footwork but through the arms; so there's some framework to be done here. We want to have our follower slightly off to the side on this one, with some energy, sort of, going off to the side so it's a great one to do after your Natural Top. Which is another move that we have blitzed before so we'll put the link for that one down below as well. You want to extend your right arm out to give your follower room to go to the side, and you want to give a little bit of pressure through the left hand to encourage that movement out. That will help them with their steps, but then we want to release that left hand so as we're catching to the left, they are going to move moving to the right so our frame is going to help them do that. We're going to bring them back in front of us as we close our feet, and then send them off to the other side. So there's a little bit of arm extension at work here.

Now followers, imagine that your leader is in front of me here facing me, I will show you our steps. The first thing that we want to do, and we're going to get some help through the leader's frame to do this, is turn a quarter. Because our first step is going to go off to the side we're now at 90° from our partner. They're still facing forward, and we're facing past them. So our first step is backwards on the right, we rock and then take a step forward, but because we are turned to face our partner ends up being a bit more of a sideways step. We do the same thing on the other side, so hoping to get a little bit of help through the frame but we've got a bit of momentum here. We're going to turn a quarter again so 90°. Backwards on the left, we rock, and then forward, and it will end up being a side way step again, as we face our partner. So those steps with the count we have

Demonstration (of Followers Steps)

Lindsey: and you can keep your hands high and sort of operating around the leader shoulders that will help keep you nicely in place with them and give you a bit more stability as well.

Demonstration (with counts)

Demonstration (with music)

Lindsey: And that's all there is to it, so that was the Opening Out to Right & Left in the Rumba. A really pretty move, gives you some options for arm styling, and you can throw it in whenever great after an Alemana great after a Natural Top. So, give it a go, let us know how you go. If you want to see any particular blitzes give us a comment, give us a like, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #093

Natural Turn and Back Lock in Quickstep- Dec 14, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Ian: Hello again blitzers, welcome back to the channel, to another Ballroom Blitz. Today we are moving into the world of Quickstep, we have a figure for you called the Natural Turn & Back Lock, let's take a look

Demonstration without music

Ian: Now, all the way back in Blitz #023, and more recently in Blitz #084, we actually covered the Natural Turn, and then the Back Lock, as two separate figures; and along the way we've done quite a few different types of natural turns like like the Natural Spin Turn, Natural Pivot Turn etc. The Natural Turn & Back Lock kind of fits into that category as well. We are going to do the first three steps of a Natural Turn, they're exactly the same pretty much, link in the description to Blitz #023 for that, and then we're going to do a Back Lock, very very similar basically the same as what we did in Blitz #084, again link in the description. So we're just going to take these two moves and just conjoin them together, and there's a little bit of tweaking so that you can go from what would be step four of a Natural Turn into your Back Lock, and get to your Back Lock from something other than Chasses to Right, or however else you're getting into it. So, that's basically what we're doing today, a little bit of a compilation video of sorts in in that respect a little bit of a compilation figure, which kind of just makes it really really easy to execute and gives you a little bit more variety for not much more at all. So, let's go over the lead steps, follow steps, whack it together and get you dancing Natural Turn & Back Lock.

Ian: Okay, leaders. So, as with all other natural type turns that we have been blitzing, you are going to be starting with your drive step on the right foot, ready to turn to the right, in the natural direction. Tou can commence this figure either in line or outside of your partner, which is entirely consistent with all your other Quickstep type natural turns. You're going to dance a drive step, commencing to turn right over that drive step, swiveling at the end to then take two steps of a chasse, a side-close, and that will be the first three steps of your Natural Turn; the Drive Side and Close. At this point you have closed your feet, you've dropped your heels, you're in a position that allows the follow to drive forward, and at this point the follows they might be thinking "uh it's a natural turn of some sort, I really don't know what it's going to be". The one thing they know that they need to do, is drive on their right foot to continue to commence right. Instead of continuing to turn too much we give just enough body-side lead to allow for a very comfortable lock, we allow them to drive quite straight, we accept that power going back on our left and continue with a step crossing in front, and then stepping back and taking one more just to settle it out. So, essentially completing a Back Lock. You don't want to overturn and keep turning that will come in the following figure. So, we have steps one to three of Natural Turns Slow-Quick-Quick, driving into a Back Lock Slow-Quick-Quick-Slow, allowing this body side lead to make that lock more comfortable and that's it your Natural Turn & Backlock.

Lindsey: Followers, as often happens in a Quickstep, the leader is driving on their right foot and turning us to the right, that means we're going backwards on the left. As Ian said sometimes that step comes through our feet in line, sometimes it comes past us, doesn't matter either way we're going backwards on the left with a Slow-Quick-Quick and we have been turned so that we are facing line of dance. The leaders should drop slightly at this point, that allows us to give a nice steady drive step on our right, so that is our slow drive step, but as Ian said we're not quite sure at this point what kind of Natural Turn it is. We should feel that slight continuation of turn from the leader but then they hold steady, and that encourages us to take a Forward Lock, that matches the leader's Back Lock. So by the time I'm ready to drive I will have a slow on the right, continuing forward but up on my toes for a left lock behind left, and then settling out with one more step past our partner. So from the beginning we have

Demonstration of Followers Steps

Demonstration with Description

Demonstration with Counts

Demonstration with Music

Ian: And there you have it. First part of a Natural Turn, a Back Lock makes Natural Turn & Back Lock. A figure in its own right, but really two halves of figures that we have already blitzed. Finish it off with a Running Finish or Impetus Turn something like that, and you can plop it straight into your Quickstep. [It] works really well at corners, like most other natural turns, so give it a go, try it out, let us know how you go, and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #094

Closed Hip Twist in Cha Cha - Dec 18, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Ian: Hello Ballroom Blitzers, welcome back to the channel. Today we are going into Latin American, we're going to be doing some Cha Cha. A very popular move the Closed Hip Twist, let's take a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: So, you can see from the demonstration that there is quite a bit to this figure. But, it is really lovely to dance when you get a few things straightened out. It starts in a slightly a skewed closed position, and we'll go over that in a moment, and ends in the fan position. This is one of those examples where you end in fan position but you haven't actually danced the Fan Figure, and if you need some revision on that I will leave links in the description to Demystifying Fan, and the Fan Figure itself. [The] steps are quite different for the lead and the follow, and what you saw there was just the basic version. There's a lot of pimping up that you can do with various chasses and things like that. We will talk you through the basics, get those down, then you can add the flare a little bit later. So let's kick off by talking about the leader steps and the initial position for this figure.

So leaders, your steps in the feet are actually pretty simple, but it's the arm work and the tone and the tension and where you're going to guide your follow, that's where this move gets kind of tricky. We're going to start with the most basic version, basically with your feet together, and you will have led your partner in the end of the previous figure towards your right side. The easiest way to get here is from an Alemana, and we have scheduled in one of our future blitzers, not too far away, an Alemana video with alternate endings, of which this will be one of them. You can also do it from a Natural Top video link in the description for that, but however you get there you've led your follow towards your right side. So they will be stepping forward out in this direction, our feet for the moment are together. The first step we're going to do is step to the side, and we're going to allow our torso to twist as we turn the follow because they're about to turn a half and take a back step, but I'll let Lindsay talk you through that in a moment. So our two step moves out to the side that is a side step. It's not a Cucaracha, this is full weight. We are now going to have a rock step and like any other rock steps, we are not moving our feet, we're not twisting, we're not doing anything, we're not doing anything strange, we are just rocking back and holding position, holding tone. Now, in the most basic version we are now just going to do a compact chasse, so all that is, is just closing on the spot in your Cha rhythm. Later on you can upgrade this but just for now, to get you started, the first bar of music is Two Three On-The-Spot.

Now at this point we have held our follow outside of us, and at this point they have their hips twisted, which is where the name Hip Twist comes from. We are then going to walk them across ourself, turn them, and send them backwards into a Cha Cha, beg pardon, into a fan position, with a Cha chasse. So we are now going to step back and allow them some space, we're now on our right foot, back, the follow walks across us, we rock forward in place, and this can't be a massive back step because we sort of fall over and make everything a bit too stretched, so a small back step, rock forward, and then we're going to Cha out to the side in our fan position. Don't get trapped and go on the spot again, then it won't feel like Fan Position, we have to take a small chasse to the right side-and-side. Leave a little bit more for the last step, don't go too big too early, then you get your stretched Fan position, it doesn't feel quite right. So we're going to go small together, and then big enough to make it feel like we're in fan position and have achieved a Cha Cha. So feet wise we are going

[Demonstration of leaders steps]

Lindsey: Followers, let's have a look at your steps. We have the same number of steps as the leader and once again we're going to have two steps and then our Cha Cha chasse two steps and a Cha Cha chasse. But, unlike the leader, we've got quite a bit of twisting and turning to do. You may have noticed that Ian was ultimately kind of always facing the same way through his steps, we're going to end up looking at pretty much every wall around us. So, we have started by being guided to the leader's right side, as Ian said. We're ready to go on our right foot, but the tension through the leaders hands will make us swivel a half before we take that step. So my first step will go backwards, this way, on the right foot. We replace to the left and we're still held in this position through the frame, then the frame releases a little bit and we swivel back the other way to do our Cha Cha Cha, forward on the right, together, right past our leader. So if I do all that with my swivels we've got Back Rock Cha-Cha-Cha and this is our hip twist position. You should feel some tension around here, that gets released a moment later when we go into our next step. We'll feel a switch again before we take our next walk, this will be past our leader, left foot first, then right foot, then we'll be guided to switch again on the spot, before doing a left-a-left backwards into our fan position.

Ian: So, if we have a look at how all that works together, just for now focusing on the feet, you will see as the lead moves to the left, we swivel the follow around they step back. We now have no weight on our inner feet the ones closest together, we rock back without turning our frame just yet, but now I'm going to encourage the follow to stay outside of me as we do our chasse portion Four-and-One. At this point I'm going to step back and encourage the follow to turn and walk across, two. I rock, my follow keeps walking, three. We allow that three step to happen, then encourage them to turn before taking Four-and-One.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Ian: And there you have it, the Closed Hip Twist in Cha Cha. The Rumba version is very similar, but of course does not have the Cha chasse, we will cover that in a later Blitz, and do watch out for that upcoming Alemana alternative endings video to give you a little bit more, more of an option of how to get into that position. Keep it nice and calm, don't rush through it, don't wrench through it, just take every step. Don't forget to dance all the steps, but put them in their right place, don't dance them too late or too soon. Once you get the basics down we can cover all sorts of other exciting things like Twist Chasses, and Ronde Chasses, and timing nuances, to make it look a little bit more spicy. But for now, get those basics down, try it out on the floor, let us know how you go, and we will see you in the next one.

Ballroom Blitz #095

Whisk in Modern Waltz - Dec 21, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Lindsey: Hello beautiful ballroom dancers, welcome back to another Ballroom Blitz. We are in the modern world today, it's the beautiful Modern Waltz that we're having a look at, and a very classic and lovely move; it is the Whisk.

So, the Whisk is quite a short figure, it only takes up three steps. Which matches in with our three beats for the bar, so it's only a bar long. But it is a classic way to get from our closed position into Promenade and that sets up a whole world of opportunity for all of your promenade figures. So, let's have a look at the Whisk.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: Let's have a look at the leader steps first.

Ian: Okay leaders, three simple steps in the Whisk figure, but like a lot of your Modern Waltz figures; how hard can we make three simple steps? Well, there's a few things you want to make sure of. Firstly you are going to be driving forward on your left foot. Don't wimp out of this drive, make sure that it's nice and straight, in line with your partner, heel down, let's go. After we have done we that want to move to the side, but not too abruptly. So, you've just got a nice power step forward, you want to move more to the side than a left foot change but not suddenly like you've put it in second gear going down the highway. So we want to move forward driving on the left a little bit more to the side, we can do that by just bending a little bit more in the left knee, across to the side but it will still go slightly forward, and it's on this step where you want to say I want to end in Promenade. So, it's where we want to start to move our position into Promenade, and then once we do that we just want to tuck our foot around, you can start to rise through that step, you can start to Ronde as you go along, that's completely fine. The base version is basically forward, to the side, tuck the foot, end in Promenade, and over the end of that second step that sideward step and tucking the foot, that's where we want to transition from the Closed Position to the Promenade Position.

Lindsey: Now followers, when this figure starts we may not know at the beginning that it is a Whisk, as Ian said. It's through that second step where they shift slightly differently to the side, and start to use their frame, and changing their position that we will go aha! I know what this one is. So to begin with, all we'll feel is that they are driving forward on their left foot, that means we go backwards on our right foot. We'll feel that shift to the side then, so that was my right foot I took the backward step on, I'll go to the left and feel a rise through it on my left foot, and then the frame work there will encourage me to tuck my foot for my third step so it is back right side left tuck right. And it's really quite important that you do get your weight on that third step. In a Samba when we Whisk, the foot tucks but we don't actually put terribly much weight on it, here we want to put all of our weight on it. Every step after a Whisk will be forward on the right foot for the leader, and forward on the left foot for the follower, sort of using that back foot to drive through into whatever you're doing next. So do make sure that when you tuck that foot, so if I do the follower steps, Right, Left, that you do get your weight on your right right foot. So, drop that heel, allow it to come back down, you'll be nice and balanced, and then get a nice drive into your next figure.

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: There you have it, the Whisk in the Modern Waltz. Try it out, like we said it is a beautiful way of getting from your Closed Position to your Promenade Position. Leaders you'll find that you can be a little bit creative with how you turn it. You can put a little bit of turn onto it to set up different lines for what you want to dance next. So, try it out, let us know how you go, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #096

Closed Rocks in Samba - Jan 08, 2024

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Lindsey: Hello lovely dancers, welcome back to another Ballroom Blitz. We are looking at a Samba move today; it's Closed Rocks.

The Samba has a number of figures that involve rocks, this is one of your simplest ones and as the name suggests it is done in a closed position. Let's have a look.

[Demonstration without music]

Ian: Okay leaders, so for this figure we have a rhythm of Slow-Quick-Quick. So that means we don't have any bounce action, we're not trying to get too many hip movements going, we want to track nice and forward. We have a repeating pattern of ball-flat, ball-flat, ball-of-foot, and that will just keep repeating no, no matter how many times you want to do this. It goes on both feet so you can start on the right or the left, we're going to start on the right because you got to start somewhere. But, if you want to cut in on the left and you just happen to get to that position first as long as you're good to go you can start it on the left side; it really doesn't make a difference. We're going to take a ball-flat step forward, slow. We're going to keep moving forward on the alternate foot ball-flat, quick. And now the rock comes in we're going to rock back onto the other foot, ball. Making most of the weight go back onto that foot because you're going to have to take that, that uh, foot that you've rocked away from into the next figure somehow. If we do the other half of the Rocks this is going to be a slightly smaller step because it's already ahead of us. But it's still a ball-flat, slow. Keep moving forward ball-flat, quick. Rock back, ball, and you can either Rock again or rock on into something else.

Lindsey: For the follower steps I'm going to match in what Ian was doing; if the leaders is starting on the right foot, the followers will start on the left, and we have almost the opposite to what the leaders were doing. So, we are going to take two backwards steps, and then rock forwards on that final step, ready to take two more backwards steps, rock forward. So it will look like

[Demonstration of followers steps]

Lindsey: My footwork going backwards is slightly different from the leaders going forwards. So, I settle onto a ball-flat on that first one; so nice and stable on that one. But this next step, while the leaders are taking a ball-flat and end up on a sort of flat foot, I'm just going to let the ball of my foot sort of dig in there my toe is slightly turned out, for my quick-quick and on my second quick I get to sort of lower the heel again. So going backwards on the other foot I'll have ball-flat ball ball-flat

So looked at together you can see we are indeed in a closed frame and moving down the floor with a

[Demonstration with counts]

Lindsey: So there you have it, the Closed Rocks in the Samba. [It] can start on either foot, you can do as many as you like, so try slipping it into your Samba on the social floor. It's a nice gentle movement but that keeps you going around the floor. You can get the hips involved. It's a good fun one but nice and stabilizing in that closed frame. So, give it a go let us know how you go and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #097

Open Finishes in Tango - Jan 11, 2024

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Ian: Hello Ballroom Blitzers, welcome back to the channel. We're going back into the world of Ballroom Tango today we're going to have a look at this thing called the Open Finish; let's go.

Ian: To understand why we would use an Open Finish, and not a standard Closed Finish, which is pretty much what you're going to do anytime you bring your feet together; so, any figure you've got that you end with your feet together, pretty much you've done a closed finish to get there. An open finish as the name suggests, and following our Ballroom naming rules, you're going to finish the figure with, instead of closed feet, open feet. So, the leader has taken a step past the follow in a very contra body type style, [a] very Tango type style, to end the figure with their feet open; so, that part is kind of easy to understand. Why would you want to do this? Well, it gives you different follows for one, it also gives you a different appearance, if you want a particular look, and it does give you a different feel. So there's a number of different options. So, when we get used to where our closed finishes, are which are going to be pretty easy to identify because it's when you finish a figure with feet together. So, when we identify those and have a few tricks we're just going to modify the last two steps to get to this open finish it will start to transform your Tango world. You get different looks, different feel, different figures, to do afterwards. So, you get a lot of bang for those extra two steps.

Ian: To have a look at how this works in practice we're going to have a look at two figures. We're going to have a look at the Closed Promenade and the Open Promenade. Now from now on you can think of the Open Promenade as a "Closed Promenade, with an Open Finish" and for all intents and purposes the Open Prominade is the only figure that inherently finishes with an Open Finish; and it has all the regular options for look and appearance and follows out of it. So if you need a little bit more help to try and understand when and how and why you would use this, you could use that as a tool to go towards, you could compare your Open Finish and your, sorry your uh Open Promenade and your Closed Promenade to get a feel for that Open Finish and Closed Finish option. So, let's have a look at both of those figures and we'll see how the last two steps change to get you your Open Finishes.

Ian: So our Closed Promenade and our Open Promenade both start in Promenade, funnily enough. They have a Slow Quick-Quick Slow type rhythm. We're going to take a promenade walk, a quicker promenade walk, close position, and in the closed finish version, we are going to close our feet, change weight ready to go into the next figure; so that's your Closed Promenade. Your Open Promenade or your "Closed Promenade, with an Open Finish" has a promenade walk, and the second quicker promenade walk is the same, but on this one I'm going to step slightly more forward and prepare to step outside of partner, and now I take my last slow in a very contra body fashion outside of partner and you can see here our feet are in no way describable as closed; we have made an open finish. If we have a look at those from the other direction you'll see what we mean with a slow quick side close, for the Closed Promenade, and for the Open Promenade a slow quick slightly forward and walk past.

Ian: And that's really it, the Open Finish. In a lot of ways it has a lot of similarity to what you want to do in a Foxtrot Feather Step. In the preceding step you want to think of how to step outside of your partner and rather than mucking around with a lot of complex descriptions and things like that, basically get out there and try it in your Tango and say "okay well rather than me bringing my feet together at the end, how can I prepare myself to step past my partner? You've got to take them with you, you can't leave them behind, we don't want to twist or do anything strange like that; but, that will guide you in that second to last step. So, the Open Finish is just a modification of the last two steps, usually one's a quick, and then a slow, and in a very feather fashion you prepare to step outside leaders, and then step outside. But, we're going to do that in a very Tango fashion. So, use that as a guiding light for any modification, and then you'll be able to put it into your favorite figures. Use the Open and Closed Promenades as a good practice point to start, but once you get the feel for it it goes anywhere, anywhere you would normally close your feet at the end you can modify it and do an open finish. Once you get there and you get confident with that you can walk forward out into all the same follows as I mentioned before. You can swivel and you can go into Promenade figures, that looks kind of cool particularly with a smoother type tango music. And you can also go backwards into back rocks and other things like that, which is a nice cheeky way of going deep into a corner taking an Open Finish, almost like a check step, and then going backwards so you get a big transformation in your Tango when we can learn to mix closed finishes and open finishes. I highly recommend putting some effort into those two steps, you get so much value for two steps. So, give it a go, try it out on the social floor, let us know how you go. Let us know your favorite one to put it into, and if you're having any trouble converting your Closed to your Open Finishes let us know that too, and if we need to we can do a bit of a deeper dive next year. For now though, that's it on the Open Finish for Tango try it out and we will see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #098

Alemana: Alternative Finishing Positions in Rumba - Jan 15, 2024

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Lindsey: Hello dancers welcome back to another Ballroom Blitz we've got an interesting one for you today we are talking about both Cha Cha and Rumba because the move that we want to talk about is the Alemana.

Lindsey: Now, the Alemana is a a beautiful move. You can do it in the Cha Cha you can do it from, uh in the Rumba. You can do it from an Open Position, it's a classic to do if you find yourself in Fan Position, so it's very versatile. But what makes it even more versatile is the fact that it can end in different positions. We have done the Alemana in a Ballroom Blitz and we'll put the link for that below, but we would have just brought it back to a sort of stock-standard Closed Position, and that isn't your only option.

Lindsey: So if we have a very quick look at the start of the Alemana, and we're going to do this in our Cha Cha, we're going to have a Step Step Cha Cha Cha, and then after our Step and Step, this is where it happens. The leader can guide us into a Closed Position, into a Closed Position but leading their follower slightly to their right side, they can open it up ready for a New York, they can take this final Chasse wherever they like. So, if Ian picks one Cha Cha Cha, he's taking it to the side and offered his other hand, so that will lead nicely into a Hand-to-Hand. So it doesn't necessarily need to come back to that Closed Position the leader can guide that final Chasse to almost wherever they like.

Ian: So we're going to demonstrate, just once, each of the major four options that will get most people started. We're going to rehash the one from the Alemana video, just for comparison, then we're going to lead to the side in preparation for a Hand-to-Hand, to the side in Open Counter Prominade in preparation for a New York or similar, and then one that we'll think you'll find very useful for our recent Closed Hip Twist video, towards the leader right side in preparation for hip twist and other similar figures.

So, standard to closed is.

(Demonstration of Standard Alemana - Ending in Closed Position)

Ian: To the side in preparation for Hand-To-Hand and the like.

(Demonstration of Alternate Position 1 - To The Side)

Ian: To the side in Open Counter Prominade for New Yorks and the like.

(Demonstration of Alternate Position 2 - To Open Counter Promenade)

Ian: And towards the leader's ight side for Hip Twist and the like.

(Demonstration of Alternate Position 3 - To The Leaders Right Side)

Ian: So a quick special note for the leaders when you're giving this a go. Your confidence and your lead through the frame really really is important for letting the follow know early and where you want them to go. So, for you, think about where you want to go and kind of go there and take your follow with you. Don't think about anything too complicated or waving or moving your arms or doing anything too special like that, go to where you want the final position to be and take your follow with you. That's the best way to try all of those different alternatives.

Lindsey: So there you go a massive opening out for all of the possibilities at the end of the Alemana. It makes it a truly versatile move and just gives you a whole lot of options to go into some simple moves, some fancy moves, whatever you like. So, try it out let, us know what else you would like to see in the videos coming up, and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #099

Change of Direction in Foxtrot - Jan 18, 2024

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Lindsey: Hello lovely dancers, welcome back to a Ballroom Blitz. This is our 99th Ballroom Blitz video so we're this close to our Century. Today we are going to be having a look at the Slow Foxtrot. It's a very simple but very useful move called the Change of Direction.

So the Change of Direction is only three steps long, they are all slow steps, and funnily enough as the name suggests it's going to change direction on us. So, the leader starts with a left foot walk and by the time they get to their next left foot step, two steps later, they will be going in a different direction. So let's have a closer look at the Change of Direction.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: Let's have a look at the leader steps first.

Ian: Alrighty leaders, this one is super simple and it only really goes wrong when you try and get more out of it than it really deserves. You have two left foot walks, and they are basically walks, the first one is kind of a drive step the second one is more of a walking non-driving heel, and between them we're going to take a side step on our right and that helps us achieve that up to about a quarter of a turn. Later on when you get this moving you can turn a little bit more or less, or sort of use it as required. But, when you're first learning aim for a quarter and use it to either change direction back out into the floor, if you're moving down a straight, or as Lindsey just mentioned to help you turn a corner and follow up with pretty much a feather step. So, if I align myself diagonal wall, dancing this direction, I'm going to take a left foot drive like so. I'm now going to, still with a slow step so three slows in a row, I'm not going to increase speed, I'm going to turn a quarter, almost swiveling on my left foot, to take my side step, taking my partner with me. This would be nice and low and slow, keeping the knees bent, and now I'm going to have my left foot walk out, which is very Foxtroty. You don't want to close your feet or hesitate in any way, because that's not really what Foxtrot wants to do, we want to keep walking. So it is drive, turn a quarter to the side, take a cruisy walk out.

Lindsey will do the follower steps.

Lindsey: And now the follower steps which are the natural opposite of the leader. So we stay in a closed position all through this, so if the leaders are coming forwards on the left followers we're going backwards on the right. So we will feel this step and then the leaders will guide us through that turn. We're hoping that by the time we have landed this second step we've achieved the amount of turn that the leader wants. So, our final step, again backwards on the right, should be nice and straight and balanced. So if I do that from the other side I've got, back right, side left, back right, and I to have turned about a quarter to the left.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And that's all there is to that one so nice and easy good for getting around corners good for changing to a different Alignment good for just slowing things down if you feel things are getting a little bit away from you so try it out let us know how you go and we'll see you next time.

Ballroom Blitz #100

100 Episodes & 1 Year of Ballroom Blitz - Jan 22, 2024

Bronze Bar Slow Foxtrot Routine & Bronze Bar Rumba Routine

Transcript

Ian: Why hello there random dancer from the interwebs, my name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome to

Ian & Lindsey: the 100th Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Welcome along Ballroom Blitzers to the 100th Ballroom Blitz. Just under 12 months ago we launched the very first Ballroom Blitz, all the way back on January 23rd 2023. It was a little bit exciting we didn't know where the series was going to go. But, 12 months later we've had 100 episodes at nearly a rate of 2 a week, with a short Christmas break. We've done a whole range of dances. We've hit all the standards, we've done some sequences, we've tripled our subscribers along the way, and we've had a lot of fun. Thank you all for joining us this far, we hope that you continue to enjoy the videos, comment, ask very intelligent questions, and request different videos like some of you have been doing, so keep doing all of that. But for now what do we have in store for the 100th episode?

Lindsey: Well we thought we'd do something a little bit special because it is the 100th episode. So today we have a little bit more than we would usually give you. We have been looking at individual figures now we're going to put some of those together. So what we're going to show you today is a little bit of Rumba and we'll be showing you our Bronze Bar routine that we have come up for our medalists. This is going to include the different figures that we have already had a look at on the channel. We're also going to be doing the same thing for the Slow Foxtrot. So you'll get quite a few figures all in a row, figures we have had a look at but you'll get to see them in action one after the other.

Ian: That's exactly right we're going to leave all the links in the description so you can go back and check out all the individual Blitzes. Some of them will be in Cha Cha, but at this level we can easily cross them from Rumba to Cha Cha, so you are getting a little bit of a 2 for 1 with the routine. So, we hope that you can smash out this routine wherever you go social dancing, or take parts of it, or maybe just get some ideas to help spice up your dancing, however you use it. Enjoy the blitz, for now let's start with Rumba.

Ian: Let's start with Rumba. As we've said this is the Bronze Bar routine, at the time of recording. They don't stay the same so it is a routine that you can put together from all the Blitzes that we've already done. Links in the description you're going to get a walk through explaining which ones will come up and then you're going to get a dance through to music to see how it all fits together. The routine is designed to be sequenced with music so the music will help you dance it if that is something that you need at this stage, and it also loops back on itself so you can just simply rinse and repeat if that's what you choose to do on the social floor. We hope you enjoy, it try it out, and I'll see you for the wrap up after the walkthroughs.

Lindsey: Starting with a closed hold

  • we have a prep-step

  • and half a Closed Basic (Blitz #049)

  • Underarm Turn (Blitz #003)

  • New York (Blitz #015)

  • and Spot Turn (Blitz #003)

  • back to a Closed Hold

  • a Basic to set up a Natural Top (Blitz #072)

  • Opening Out to Right and Left (Blitz #092)

  • Closed Hip Twist (Blitz #094)

  • Alemana (Blitz #059)

  • and 2 Hand-To-Hands (Blitz #087)

Ian: There you go. How did you go? Did you pick all of those figures? Ban you remember watching the Blitzes, or will you have to go back and do a little bit of a brush up? No worries, as we've said links in the description, put them together give them a go, fill the gaps, use what you like or use the entire routine, it's entirely up to to you. [The] main thing is, get out there on the social floor try it out. Try it in Cha Cha if you like, but do beware the Opening Out to Right and Left does not transfer over to Cha Cha, so you might have to modify the routine there; but, that's for you to decide. We hope you enjoyed itn and now let's go to the Foxtrot.

Lindsey: Alright we are now going to switch from the Latin world to the modern world, we still want it smooth and beautiful though, we are going to have a look at the Slow Foxtrot. So again this is our Bronze Bar routine, so it's not the most simplest way of doing a Foxtrot, it is a little bit of a bump up. But, they are figures that we have had a look at in the channel before, so again you should find the links to those individual figures down below. But first, let us have a look at what we're doing, we're going to be doing a Walkthrough of this Slow Fox routine, and then a Dancethrough.

Lindsey: Prep Steps

  • Feather Step (Blitz #005)

  • Reverse Turn [incorporating further finish] (Blitz #030)

  • Three Step (Blitz #044)

  • [Steps] 1-3 of a Natural Turn (Blitz #069)

  • Closed Impetus Turn [incorporating further finish] (Blitz #058)

  • Three Step (Blitz #044)

  • Natural Weave (Blitz #086)

  • Three Step (Blitz #044)

  • Feather Step (Blitz #005)

  • Change of Direction (Blitz #099)

  • Natural Turn (Blitz #069)

Lindsey: And there you go, an example of a Slow Foxtrot routine. Just like in the Rumba this is designed to sort of loop back on itself. So you can go right back to the start again, and go again, and again it is sequenced to about 16 bars of music. So, it should fit in quite nicely with most of your Slow Foxtrot tracks. So, try it out, you will find because it travels around the floor that you might have to adjust it a little bit depending on where the corners of your room are, so see how you go with that. Luckily the Foxtrot is quite versatile with how you can overturn or underturn to get yourself round those corners. So, let us know how you go, you can snitch little bits or you can try the whole thing, either way give it a go keep things smooth and beautiful, and we'll see you next time.

Ian: And there you have it boys and girls, dances of all sorts, the 100th episode of Ballroom Blitz. How did you go with the Rumba and the Foxtrot? Did you pick all the moves? Are there some Blitzes that you're going to have to go and and refresh? They're all in the description so don't hesitate. Keep commenting, keep liking, sharing those videos. We really do enjoy it when you pick the content that you want. Stay tuned so that we can tell you all about what we have planned for 2024 and beyond, and let us know if there's anything that you would like us to be doing in the coming year. For now, though thank you very much once again, don't forget to like, comment, share, and subscribe, and we will see you in the 101st Ballroom Blitz coming out soon.