Ballroom Blitz #120

Turning Into Shadow in New Vogue & Sequence - Jun 27, 2024

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls from the inter-webs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and welcome to Ballroom Blitz.

Lindsey: Hello again, beautiful ballroom dancers, and welcome back to Ballroom Blitz. We're going to be having a look at something that is much more likely to come up in your New Vogue dances than your Modern or Latin today. We are looking at Rotary Chasses with the turn out to Shadow Position.

Now, the challenge of this move is that Rotary Chasses need to be performed in a closed hold with your partner. But then there is often in your New Vogue dances and other Sequence dances the need to turn it to Shadow Position at the end. So that's what we'll be looking at today. We have had a look at Rotary Chasses before, so we'll put a link down below. But let's first have a look and see what we have to do.

[Demonstration without music]

Lindsey: So let's have a look first at the leaders steps.

Ian: Leaders, if you need to revise the Rotary Chasse itself, again link in the description, I will let you do that. Here we're just going to be focusing on that final Chasse and what we have to do, what we have to modify, what we're trying to achieve to get our follower to a nice Shadow Position for a nice, clean, easy restart in our New Vogue. Now, of course, the good thing is, if you have a little bit of trouble while practicing this, if it takes you a few goes to get it, because it is a New Vogue or Sequence dance, you can of course just pick up the sequence after you recover from whatever's happening at the end. But once we nail it, you get a nice smooth restart and it's much, much better.

We’re going to do basically two and a half Rotary Chasses basically because of where the drive step is. Then we're going to take the following final drive step change what would be the final Chasse, and then turn the follow up to Shadow Position. So if we quickly count through those, we would have One-and. Two. Three-and. Four. Five-and. We're going to drive here, or be driven here, Six, and if we just did more Rotary Chasse it would be Six, Seven[-and], Eight, and we would continue on our merry way. But, of course, that's what we have to change. So we've done our One-and. Two. Three-and. Four. Five-and. Six is our drive, I'm going to now slow down the followers power. We accept their drive. We can't do much with it before that. But afterwards I'm going to do basically a heel pull type action where I slow down. I break by dragging this foot under, allowing the follower to keep coming around and turn an extra half compared to us, to go from Closed Position facing us to Shadow Position facing down the floor, and then pull under without doing any extra changes of weight so that I'm ready to start the new sequence on my left foot.

Ian: Standard convention of pretty much all of your sequence dances is you will start on the left foot, and then the follower starts on whichever foot matches the position they are in. In this case, shadow, they are on the left foot as well. So once more we have our Rotary Chasse One [1]. Rotary Chasse Two [2]. Rotary Chasse Three [3]. After this drive step breaking the power, pulling back, taking one slow to bring the follow around holding position here allowing them to turn the extra half, and then closing without weight ready to go on the left foot. That's what your feet are doing. How can your arms help? Well, in a perfect world, if the followers were standing in a Closed Position like in that Rotary Chasse and they simply did a 180 turn, they would be in a Shadow Position. So without throwing them down the floor or around us or basically distorting our frame, we have to help the follow turn their 180 degrees.

Now the followers will know how to do this, so we need to help and control where they go, not actually physically turn them a half. But essentially what we're going to do is a polite push with my left hand in the follow ah, standard closed frame, I'm going to push it down towards the hip. That helps rotate the follow. If you push it sort of too straight, it just pushes them away, so make sure it goes down the line. And I'm going to hold them in place with my right, that's obviously on their shoulder blade. So as they turn I'm going to, this is a bit of an “Ian-ism”, flick them round so that I can rotate them in place, but hold them steady. So I'm going to do this with my arms as we do all of that with our feet and that holds the following place, allows them to do what they know they need to do, which is turn 180 degrees, and use their power to do it. But still it enough with that braking action so they don't fly down the floor uncontrollably.

Lindsey: Now followers, let's have a look at our footwork first. We're going to start our Rotary Chasses on our right foot, so we're going to have essentially three Rotary Chasses, so a Right-a-Right, Left-a-Left, Right-a-Right. But it's that final step on the right that is going to start to change things about for us. So we're in a closed hold with our partner ready on our right foot, we have: Chasse One [1], Chasse Two [2], Chasse Three [3], at the end of that, that's my drive forward through the leaders steps. If I know the sequence, I know what's coming up. But what I should feel is the leaders Heel Pull at that point that will bring me round. I actually still want to be in a closed position here, so I'm trying to keep my position, keep my contact on the right foot.

I've taken one step to match theirs as they do their Heel Pull, that puts me on my left foot. But I'm still not quite far enough around yet, I want to be facing along Line of Dance at the end here, and I'm going to use another foot fall just underneath me as I turn around, I'll describe the arms in a moment, but if I let that foot fall underneath me, it is help me turn, it's helped me brake and it's put my weight on the correct foot to go off of my left foot into whatever we're doing next. Usually the start of the next, repetition of the dance.

Lindsey: Now, I just wanted to describe with Ian here what I was doing with my hands there, because it might have looked a little bit strange. When we are doing our final turn out, we had still been in a closed hold for our Rotary Chasses, so it's very important to have a beautiful Closed Position with your partner while you're going round. But at the end here, my right hand, I will feel pressed down as Ian is helping me to turn, so that's matching in with what the leaders are doing with that push down with their left hand. So I'll feel my right hand go down towards my hip. I can't keep my left hand where it is. My fingers around the back of Ian's arm and if I just leave them there, pulls through my shoulder, I can't actually turn. But, nor do I want to put it up half heartedly, because I could collect Ian in the jaw, and have done so, with my elbow. So, the safest place for it, if you're able to, is actually to put your left hand right up near your ear.

That helps to pull you up, it will help your balance, and it gets that arm out of the way so that it is not interfering with either one of us, I can turn freely to that shadow position. So as I take the final couple of steps, I allow that hand to come up nice and time out of the way. And here I am. You will find your not probably in the perfect position for your shadow work up to that, but you can nice and gently let your arms float down, or up, to wherever they need to be, for the continuation of that. It's actually much more important to have your body position correct with your partner and make sure that you haven't taken them out as you've gone.

[Demonstration with counts]

[Demonstration with music]

Lindsey: And there you go, the Rotary Chasse, turning out to Shadow Position at the end. It's quite a tricky one, but it is a useful one to get a hold of because it comes up surprisingly often. So give it a go. Let us know how you go. Let us know what else you'd like us to go over, and we'll see you next time.

Ian: Well, that's it for this blitz boys and girls. Don't forget to like,

Lindsey: comment,

Ian: share,

Lindsey: and subscribe.

Ian: See you next time.