Natural Turn With Hesitation In Quickstep

Ballroom Blitz #114

Natural Turn With Hesitation In Quickstep - May 16, 2024

Transcript

Ian: Hey guys and girls from the inter-webs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian & Lindsey: and welcome to Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Hello again, dancers. Welcome back to Ballroom Blitz. Today we are in the world of Quickstep. We are going to be doing a figure that we have already blitzed for the Waltz. We're going to be converting it into the Quickstep, picking apart the differences, talking about the similarities, and getting you on the floor. Today we are doing the Natural Turn with Hesitation. Let's go.

[Demonstration without Music]

Ian: The Natural Turn with Hesitation, or as it's known in the Waltz, The Hesitation Change, or for all us lazy teachers and students out there, just the “Hesitation”, is a really beautiful figure when it's danced properly. And I'm going to be a little bit honest, when it's not danced properly, it's a bastard of a figure to dance, to feel, to look at, it's just, it's just BAD. So, today we're a little bit of a mission. We're going to use the base that we set up from the Waltz video, link in the description if you want to go back and have a look at that one. We're going to get you dancing your Hesitation Changes and your Natural Turns with Hesitation properly.

We're going to be fitting your heel pull into your Hesitations, and that will even filter into your Natural Turns in your Foxtrot. So, we're going to be doing a lot today with only three simple steps. Let's go with the leaders steps for the Natural Turn with Hesitation.

Ian: Leads, as with so many of our naturally turning figures, you are going to commence with a drive step on the right; and the first three steps as with your: Natural Spin Turn, Natural Pivot Turn, or even the Natural Turn in your Quickstep, they will all commence on the right and start turning naturally with your drive step, and the first three steps will feel the same.

Drive, block your follow, close your feet, settle, ready for them to drive forward. So, those three we've already done, I'll leave some links in the description if you want to go back, and have a look at those in more detail, but they are essentially the same. But, this does get you turning in the correct direction, it passes you from using your drive step into inviting the follower to commence their drive step, and now this is where the differences from your other turns will occur, and this is where the guts of your hesitation comes in. If you're dancing a solid, Natural Turn in your Quickstep, then your Heel Pull should already be okay, and we're just going to not take the last step. But, if you're one of many social dancers that often dance Hesitation and often dance Spin Turn, and don't even know that other turns exist because you've never been taught them, or you've just learnt them and pitched them because why do them? Well, we might open a few eyes today.

Ian: You are going to accept the drive from your follow. They are driving forward on their right foot. You are accepting that on your left. This is a Slow. I release the toe of my right foot, and I'm now going to perform a Heel Pull. What does that mean? I'm going to pull this heel back. So, pretty much you do what the name suggests. I'm going to pull this heel back. My foot will naturally flatten as it comes under me, and then as it progresses backwards, the heel will want to lift. So, if we were taking a back step, that is the natural way that your foot would move under you. I'm going to resist the urge to lift my heel when it goes backwards, and at the point where I can no longer really do that comfortably, I'm going to actually lift both the balls of my feet and turn over two heels, two points of contact on the floor.

It's a heel pull. I have pulled my heel back and I have turned over two points of contact. This is super, super stable. And what are you doing? Why go to all this trouble? Your follow, you have just got to here and blocked them, and you've said to them, please drive at me, and then you have said, yeah, but I don't want all that power because I'm just going to hesitate over here for a minute I'm going to wait for a bit. So you have to brake, you have to slow down, you and your follow because you can't do anything here to say, “I want you to drive, but not that much”. You are asking them to drive you back, you do that, you now put the brakes on you Heel Pull, you slow down with that foot brake almost, and rotate to siphon off the rest of the power and of course to perform the turn. You're turning about three eights (3/8) of a turn on that last section. So the guts of it, we accept the power, we do the Heel Pull, we turn over our heels on step five and here's the hesitation on step six. You rest.

Ian: We should get here and be able to do not very much on step six. Have a pause. Survey the floor. Do whatever you do. Hesitate. So then when you drive out of the figure you are ready, Leads, to drive out on your left into some sort of reverse figure. And if we compare Natural Turn and Natural Turn with Hesitation in your Quickstep, that's the main difference. In a Natural Turn, you're going to do the Heel Pull, exactly the same, but you are going to walk out on step six, and usually you would use this to turn a corner, so you would progress with a natural figure around [new] line dance. Here we're going to take a chill pill, we're going to stop for a little bit, and you can do this down the side of the room, because your reverse style exits are a lot easier. So, that's the big difference, that's what we're trying to do. You're inviting the foot like to drive forward, then you are braking the follow with that Heel Pull and allowing them to come around.

Lindsey: Followers, let's have a look at our steps. So, we are ready to go backwards on our left foot, leaders are coming at us on the right or past us on the right. So it doesn't really matter whether this figure starts in line and they're sort of stepping through us here, or whether it's starting outside and stepping past us there, will entirely depend on the figure they have just done beforehand, either way it'll work. So we'll feel that drive, we're going backwards on the left for a Slow. We have a Quick to the side and Quick close, so I'm ready to go on my right foot. I should be fairly square with line of dance here, and the leaders should sort of be sort of hovering a little bit.

They're sort of low, they're not moving backwards into the drive, they're inviting us to drive. So, we are ready for the right foot. At this point, though, we know it's some kind of natural turn, we don't necessarily know it's a Hesitation, but all we know is that they have invited the drive, so we're going to give it to them. Straight through the middle, this will be in line, so it'll go straight through their feet on the right foot. That's our drive and we're propelling ourselves forward on a Slow and this is the one where we will suddenly work out what it is because we'll feel the effects of that Heel Pull; it will sort of bring us forward, and then turn us.

Lindsey: So that is on step five, and we have a pause on step six. You might feel the leaders sort of draw that foot in slightly, but we should be fairly low, fairly balanced, and definitely not moving anywhere. That is, the “hesitationy” part of our Hesitation. So if we go over those steps one more time, we have: back left, side right, close left, forward right, forward left, a bit sideways as we are turned, and we'll feel that slight draw in of the right foot. We don't want to put weight on it though, because that is going to be the drive step that sends us backwards out into the floor again for the next figure.

[Demonstration with Counts]

[Demonstration with Music]

Ian: There you go, dancers, the Natural Turn with Hesitation in the Quickstep. As you can see, very, very, similar to the Hesitation Change in your Modern Waltz and uses the same Heel Pull as the Natural Turn in the Quickstep without the hesitation, and the Natural Turn in the Slow Foxtrot; links to all that in the description if you'd like to go back and scour those to see how it works. Please remember that this is not a line shape.

Do keep it nice and small, keep yourself low. If you want to add some sway you can do that, but don't turn it into the anti-oversway. I sometimes see that on the social floor; please don't do that. Do you use it though, It is exceedingly useful. You can put it in a corner, you can put it down the side of room, you can use it to surveil the floor and check out if things are getting busy. It is very, very useful, but it is much, much better when you get that Heel Pull in to make it feel nice and comfortable for you and your follower, or partner if you're a follower yourself. So, do let us know how it goes on the floor, what you want to be blitzed next and anything else you would like dancing related.

There are a few walkthroughs coming out. There will be a few polls coming out to check out what you see, what you what you want to see on the channel. So look out for those and let us know so we can give you the content that you want. Keep dancing. Enjoy your dancing. Get out there on the floor. Give it a go. It's never as hot as it seems and it only gets better with practice. So see ya soon.

Ian: Well, that's it for this blitz boys and girls. Don't forget to like,

Lindsey: comment,

Ian: share,

Lindsey: and subscribe.

Ian: See you next time.

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