Ballroom Blitz #069

Natural Turn in Slow Foxtrot - Sep 21, 2023

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!

Ian: Howdy blitzers and welcome back to the channel, to another Ballroom Blitz. Today we are going into the realm of Slow Foxtrot, we're going to be checking out the Natural Turn. Let's get into it.

[Demonstration without Music]

Ian: Now, we have already covered the Natural Turn for the Quickstep, and a few variants thereof. We've covered the Natural Turn for Modern Waltz and recently we have covered the Hesitation Change in Modern Waltz. All of these factors will come in to help today, so we'll leave the links in the description so you can go back and get a more in-depth description and more in-depth Blitz on some of the portions of today. But, we're going to steal from those and fit them together and see how they are similar across different dances and what traits in each of the figures and each of the dances we can use to help us with our Natural Turn in the Slow Foxtrot.

Now the Natural Turn in Slow Foxtrot, just like the Reverse Turn (incorporating feather finish) has six steps in total. The first three steps can only really be described as a Natural Heel Turn and the last three steps are described as a Heel Pull. Now we have already blitzed Heel Turns by themselves, so we'll leave a link in the description for you to go back and check those out, we'll do a brief overview here, and we have used the Heel Pull in the Natural Turn for the Quickstep and indeed the natural turn with hesitation otherwise known as Hesitation Change in the Modern Waltz, so you can recap those there and we'll go over them again in this blitz for you, but maybe a little bit briefer.

So, leaders I'm dancing this way, I'm ready to drive forward on my right foot, because I am going to be turning clockwise or to the right for a natural heel turn. And I follow all the principles, having the follow on my hip, I drive either in line or outside as appropriate for the preceding figure, making sure that we put them on their spot to turn around the first quick, settling with back to line of dance, and then the second quick, settling allowing the follow to step out of their heel turn. Lindsey will revise those steps in a moment. So the first three steps is a slow quick quick in a standard heel turn fashion. We now have our weight on our right foot so we're ready to go back on our left. The follow is driving forward on the right. We've set that up, we've backed line of dance, they're facing line of dance. We absorb that power and perform the Heel Pull, walking out at the end. Now this should be three slows but you can dance slow quick-quick if you wish and that is situational; I'll leave that up to you. But, certainly this first one has to be a slow, the follow is driving forward, we go back; slow. We're going to perform the heel pulling the heel back to the point where we can't leave the heel on the floor. At that point in time commence to turn turnover both heels, and then walk out on step six with a slow. So, six steps in all slow quick-quick slow slow slow or slow quick-quick slow quick-quick as you would like. With a

[Demonstrtaion of Leaders Steps]

Lindsey: Followers I'll also be following the same line of dance so it's going down that way which means I'm going to go backwards to begin with. The leader will be either driving at or past, as Ian said, on their right foot which means I'm going to match it with a back step on my left foot. So, I go backwards. Where my heel hits that's where I'm going to perform my Heel Turn, so I lift my toe up and I will be turning, on my heel alone, of my left foot. I actually won't be performing the turning action though, you'll see me do it here because I don't have Ian dancing with me in this this particular demonstration, but it's the leader steps who actually bring me around. So, I've got back on the left, turn on the heel of that foot, transfer my weight to my right foot on the first quick, that's our second step, so it should be right underneath us and we step out forward down the line of dance quick, on that left foot. It's not a very big step that one, it's just a toe step, we're really sort of just settling and confirming that yes we are going in that direction. This sets up my drive step on my right foot, this will help Ian keep on turning to the right with this figure. So I drive on the right, I'll feel that step take it to the side, that's Ian doing his Heel Pull, and then he will walk forwards and I will walk backwards out of it. I am back on my right foot there so with the timing we have

[Demonstration of Followers Steps]

[Demonstration with Counts]

[Demonstration with Music]

Ian: And there you have it that is the Natural Turn in your Slow Foxtrot. If you need to revise your Heel Turns check out the link for the Heel Turns in the Blitz. If you need to revise your Heel Pulls, check out the other figures there as well for more details. But if we remember it is as simple as that you walk the follow into a Heel Turn, you allow them to walk you through a Heel Pull, we don't over complicate it. Pick your timings three slows at the end or slow quick-quick as appropriate as you wish and have some fun. Smash it into your Slow Foxtrot, get out there on the floor, have some fun, let us know what you like about our blitzes and what you'd like us to do next, and we'll see you soon.