Ballroom Blitz #025

Video

youtu.be/4jUKBcFBlN8

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.