Ballroom Blitz #066

Video

youtu.be/_HPnI5rNvC0

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.