Ballroom Blitz #077

Video

youtu.be/HC1oTZ6ZPXk

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: Hello again blitzers and welcome back to Ballroom Blitz. Today we have a little bit of a curly one it is called the Open Natural Turn (taken from Promenade Position) and we're dancing it in Quickstep. It'll be over before you can actually name the figure and it's not as hard as all those words make it sound. Let's break it down get into it and get it into your Quickstep so you can fancy it up in a flash.

So, what is this very long-winded and semi-impressive name all about? Well let's break it down. We are doing a Natural Turn, so that means it must turn clockwise or to the right. We are doing an Open Turn, in Quickstep that means that we are not going to close our feet at any stage. And we're taking it from the Promenade Position, so we are going to commence in Promenade Position. So we're going to start in Promenade Position do a clockwise turn and at no point close our feet through the figure; that's what we're doing, let's do it.

(demonstration without music)

Ian: So, as you saw from the demo it does all of those things in three quick easy steps and it is over before you can say it. We started in Promenade, we didn't bring our feet together, and we did turn clockwise. So, let's go over both parts and see how that works and see what you can do out of it and what you might want to do to get into it.

So leaders, you have arrived somehow in the Promenade Position. Now there aren't many what you would call "book figures" that arrive you at Promenade Position in your Quickstep, so probably the most common used is a simple and humble Open Impetus. However, anytime you've come to the Promenade Position, and you're ready to drive through on your right foot, you can commence this figure. I'm going to drive through with my standard walking drive step, and at this point I haven't commenced to turn, I need to get the power there but I'm going to use the power to start to turn clockwise, start to turn in that natural direction, close my position with my partner and backing line of dance, and then settle backwards. So I will end the figure settling backwards on my right, I've given permission to the follow to drive into whatever we're going to follow that with.

(demonstration of leaders steps

Lindsey: Now followers, when you see my steps you'll actually notice it appears that I am turning less than the leaders; that's because it's the leader's job to sort of cut around me as I'm coming forward. So, if I get myself into my Promenade Position I'm ready to drive through on my back foot, my left foot here, so that's my line of dance. I'm coming forward on the left, my leader cuts around me and I go quick quick. So by the time I have reached here I should be ready to drive forward on my right foot in line with them into whatever move they want to go into.

(demonstration with counts)

Ian: So, the astute student eyeballing those steps will kind of notice that we've finished the figure in a bit of an odd position. Now essentially how you can think of exactly these three steps is we're going to replace the first three steps of a Natural Turn, and I'll leave a link in the description for that, we're going to replace those first three steps with these three steps. So you're going to start from your Promenade Position, you're going to end with open feet, but you've been turning the same way and you will have your weight on the same feet ready for the follow to drive forward on the same foot as you would at the end of those three steps. Which kind of means that with some practice anything that you could do after the first three steps of a natural turn, you could do after the three steps we've just demonstrated now. You could finish with your standard Natural Turn, you could do a Pivot Turn, you could enter into a Natural Spin Turn, you could enter into a Natural Turn and Back Lock because we've just entered it from a Promenade Position and not a close-footed position. So there actually is quite a lot of ways that you can get out of this figure, which gives you a lot of creative options. So, we're going to let you explore those ones but just remember even though you've got to an open-footed position from somewhere a little bit different you're pretty much in a standard spot to do moves you already know.

(demonstration with music)

Ian: And that is it the Open Natural Turn (taken from Promenade Position) in Quickstep. Danced faster than you can say it and really really useful for linking something ending in Promenade to an easy going natural figure that gets you back into those familiar type figures. Smash it into your Quickstep, try the Open Impetus to get into it if you haven't done any other Promenade figures yet, and take it out with a humble back end of a Natural Turn just to steady and slow it down and get you to something familiar. Try it out, let us know how you go, give us any of your ideas for how you can dance out of it, or into it if you like, give us your suggestions for future blitzes, keep dancing, have fun, we'll see you soon.