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.