Open & Chasse Turns in Quickstep

Ballroom Blitz #140

Open & Chasse Turns in Quickstep - Apr 03, 2025

Transcript

Ian: Hey, boys and girls on the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and I'm Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome to...

Ian & Lindsey: Ballroom Blitz.

Ian: Hello again, Blitzers, welcome back to the channel. Today we're going to be diving into the world of Quickstep. We're going to be doing some, not really book or syllabus type figures, but some really easy ones that, once you are aware of, that can really get you out of a jam and keep you dancing on the floor, reducing the amount of times you may have to stop in a social situation when things don't exactly go your way. So stay tuned, we're going to be doing Chasse Turns and we're going to be doing Open Turns. Let's go.

So what is the difference between a Chasse turn and an Open turn? Well, we have to differentiate a few, a few bits of terminology here just to make sure that we know what we're doing. First of all, in this context, the word “open” has nothing to do with promenade. It simply means we're not going to close our feet. So, in a Quickstep, figures like this are often referred to as “Running”, whereas in a Foxtrot they just sort of the standard thing to do. Chasse, basically, we're going to be closing our feet at some point, and in the Quickstep we get those all the time.

We get our Progressive Chasses, we get Forward and Backward Locks and things like that, and when we rotate them, we're basically just going to be turning them in the Natural direction and in the Reverse direction to get us out of a jam. The thing will be, though, whether we want to bring our feet together and have that mini pause, whether that's appropriate for the floor space or the moment, or whether we want to actually get a little bit of distance, a little bit of flow, a little bit of flight and keep moving to maybe get us some, away from some travel happening behind us.

Ian: They start on the same feet. They move through exactly the same amount of rotation. It's simply a matter of whether we close our feet or not. You can indeed cut them in half and just do the first half and the back half, whichever is required, and if you really need to and you've got that presence of mind, you can do the front half of one on the back half of another. I can't even imagine a situation where you might need that, but you need to know that you can just so that you don't panic on the floor. So let's get into Chasse Turns, Reverse and Natural and Open Turns, Reverse and Natural.

I'm going to leave some links below to a whole bunch of Natural and Reverse turns that are relevant because they all turn the same way, and you can always take snippets from each of those. We're just going to do reverse first, because why not? If I'm moving forward on my Reverse turn, I'm going to be driving on my left and turning anti-clockwise, that's sort of the base of what our Reverse Turn is, and if we do a Chasse turn first, this is going to look very, very Waltzy; where I drive on my left, I commence to turn over my left foot and around anti-clockwise as I take a side step, and then I close my feet.

Now, if we did that with three even beats One, Two, Three, it's pretty much a Waltz. If we do it slow, quick, quick, we can do the same thing in a Quickstep, Drive Quick, Quick, and then we've done exactly the same thing that we would normally do. We've transferred the drive to our partner, they would be driving on the left again, we're going backwards on our right so we can continue to turn anti-clockwise. If we did the same, we would have Drive, Quick, Quick, and we have done a Chasse Reverse Turn, or a Reverse Chasse Turn, where we've closed our feet, we've turned in the anti-clockwise direction and once again it has two halves. Now, some of you may know this as a slightly different figure,

Ian: It is a book figure. This first half you may have done a hesitation and then driven out and and done the first three steps, but it does have the last three steps as well, which is useful to know if you need to get yourself out of a jam. So if I have arrived facing diagonal center and my line of dance is this way, [the Natural Turn with] Hesitation is a good example. I can dance Slow, Quick-Quick, Slow, Quick-Quick, stepping forward and usually in line with my partner on the left foot to commence the following figure.

Now, if I do all of that exactly the same, but I turn in the Natural direction I'm going to get a Natural Chasse Turn. Now, if I'm facing, in this case, diagonal wall, so my line of dance is still that way, I'm going to be driving on my right foot, that allows me to turn right. I can dance Slow, Quick-Quick, and you will notice this is the first half of a raft of Natural Turns: Natural Turn, Natural Pivot Turn, all of those. It's the same three steps, so this should feel reasonably common for most of you. But once again, you can put in the drive from the follower, simply chasse out if you can't go into any of those other natural turns. This one you will probably find your use maybe a little bit less, because there are so many options that you have for the second half. But again, it is useful to note that you have that in your arsenal so if something does come up, you can Chasse, close your feet, check your position, check your surroundings and the state of the social floor, and then select a figure to follow with. But it is drive side together, drive side together for the appropriate people cheering in the natural direction.

Ian: So, let's move into the world of Open Turns. I'm going to do exactly the same thing that I just did with my Chasse Turns, but I'm simply not going to close my feet. For some of you, this will feel very Foxtroty, and if you keep nice and low and maybe even slow yourself down a little bit, it will feel potentially more Foxtroty to you than Quickstep. But, Quickstep does have a load of “running” figures where you are going to move through the figure without closing your feet, but we don't want to be bouncing out of the floor like you do see in some of those more traditional Quickstep “running” figures. So with that said, if I do my Open Reverse Turn, it's exactly the same, but you spot the difference in the middle with a Slow, Quick-Quick, Slow, Quick-Quick, and then you would proceed on with your following figure. You can be more outside in this figure sometimes [in] Quickstep. That's very common, but don't be surprised if you retain that inline position and take a walk into a Natural figure or something like that.

This one is really good for getting you down the floor. So if you see a pile of people coming up behind you and you want to get a little bit of distance, it's a good one to get you into the common realm of steps where we're not doing something too extravagant, but it does move you just that little bit faster and should be relatively easy for your follow to follow along with, as long as you take your frame.

If I apply what I've just done in the natural direction, we get something that is a mirror image of what we've just done with the Reverse Turn, but something that's quite a bit different in feel to what we have done with our other Natural Turns in the Quickstep. So we're going to dance Slow, Quick-Quick, Slow, Quick-Quick, and then again follow on with whatever figure we would usually go through after that. A walk out to get your bearings are walking straight into another Natural Turn of some sort will be fine. It's a really good one to scoot you around a corner and make sure that you've just got that little bit of distance on your people coming up behind you.

[Demonstrations with counts]

[Demonstrations with music]

Ian: There you go, guys and girls, the Chass Turns and Open Turns for Quickstep. Based on things that you have already done, but if you know that you can do them, you may be able to get yourself out of a jam, whereas otherwise you might have had to stop on the social floor. You may know some of them under a different name, or you may know half of them. The Chasse Reverse Turn is often used out of a [Natural Turn with] Hesitation. The Open Natural turn is often truncated when it should be given a name like Open Reverse Turn from Promenade to Outside Position etc., etc. and as dance teaches and dancers we’re just a bit lazy with things like that. So, if you know that these variations exist, put them in your Quickstep.

If you don't ever use them but you know they're there, they will come out every once in a while when you need to get out of a jam. I hope it's been helpful. Let us know what your experience on the dance floor is using moves like this; these get out of jail free variations. If it helps, let us know how we can come up with a few more, if not, we'll stick to the book figures for you. But keep dancing. Keep dancing up on the social floor. Enjoy your Quickstep and all the other dances you do, and we will see you in the next Blitz.

Ian: Well, guys and gals, that's it for today's blitz. Don't forget to like,

Lindsey: comment,

Ian: share,

Lindsey: and subscribe!

Ian: Keep dancing.

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