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.