Mechanics of Ballroom Dancing

By Stephen Arthur Nystrom

This book is designed to take the questions out of ballroom dancing. This book is designed for anyone who is interested in taking the mystery out of ballroom dancing. It explains many of the questions that arise while learning ballroom dance that your instructor may or may not be able to address appropriately. Many dance instructors dance great; however, they are unable to help you adjust your dancing by explaining what they are doing. Those instructors generally show you a figure and continue to show you the figure until you get it. This is very time-consuming and expensive to the student. The goal of this book is to simplify some of these intricate movements as well as explain the dance connection in dance. This book also helps give new students a better understanding of how dancing works, which will help them improve their dancing a lot more rapidly. The book also gives some examples of bad dancing habits versus good dancing habits. There are specific exercises in the book to help improve connection, body movement, and self-control with specific steps. The book points out the kind of qualities you are looking for in an instructor, which include excellent dance knowledge, professionalism, enthusiasm, etc. There are many typical questions that every new ballroom dancer has while learning the dance. There are questions provided that, if asked, will provide you (the student) with some insight about your instructor's knowledge of ballroom dancing. This is critical because an instructor cannot correct your dancing if they do not understand how to do it correctly themselves. Finally, the book has been written in an effort to raise awareness of good ballroom dancing. It is open to interpretation and vulnerable to criticism as well as other dancers' opinions. Keep in mind, every ballroom-dance organization has dissenters in their organization about how things should be done. This, in part, is what creates different styles of dance. The end result is improved dancing knowledge for all concerned. Always keep one thing in mind: If what you are doing hurts, stop doing it. Dancing correctly will not hurt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Apr 13, 2017
• ISBN: 9781635752748

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Mechanics of Ballroom Dancing

(American Style)

Ballroom Dancing

(From a Farm Boy’s Perspective)

Stephen Arthur Nystrom

ISBN 978-1-63575-273-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63575-274-8 (Digital)

Copyright © 2017 by Stephen Arthur Nystrom

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

The Heart of Ballroom Dancing

The art of ballroom dancing is a joint effort by two people to dance as a unit, not as two different people dancing together. The connection between these two individuals is the very heart of ballroom dancing. If a person does a ballet, tap, or jazz routine, it is as an individual much of the time. Even when there are two or more people working together, most of the time they have their own space and work with each other in an effort to complement each other. Ballroom dancing is a contact-type dance that requires both partners to be fully aware of each other and what they are doing while dancing to a specific piece of music. If the two partners are not connected both physically and mentally, it will be very obvious in their dance. There is an emotional attachment between the two partners as well as an intuitive connection.

Goal of Writing This Book

The goal of writing this book is to help new students become more aware of many of the intricacies in ballroom dancing. A more informed student of ballroom dancing helps to ensure they are getting the quality instruction that they have paid for. As a student of ballroom dancing, I have found that many instructors lack the basic dance knowledge necessary to provide good instruction to the student even though the student is paying a lot of money for that instruction.

When a student starts to understand why certain things are done in a certain way and can ask questions about why this is occurring, they will be in a better position to decide on the kind of instruction they are receiving. It will also accelerate their ability to learn the new skill sets. It will excite them into learning new steps and improving their own dance skills. We can correct our partner all day long on their little (or big) errors; however, if we do not improve our own dance technique, we will never progress to where we want to be in our dancing. Be nice to your partner, and work to improve your own dancing.

As you read through this book, you many not fully understand all the intricacies with each chapter; however, each chapter is designed to give you a fuller understanding of the mechanics of ballroom dancing. It will also help you in creating your own question list when you take your dance lessons from a qualified instructor. Always remember that a great student is an excellent source of information and learning for the ballroom-dance teacher. The more attentive a student is with understanding the dance and how it relates to them is the exact recipe all instructors need to become a great ballroom-dance instructor. Simply stated, instructors can learn as much or more than the students they are teaching if they are willing to identify areas that are difficult to the student and then explain where the issue is and how to overcome the issue.

For example, one question may be in a basic waltz box, why use rise and fall? Why not just move to the side without it? The simple answer would be that rise and fall makes the waltz box look nicer. Another short answer may be when you lower (flex your knees) as you are preparing to move forward onto your first step, the lead is less abrasive than just moving forward without lowering (flexing your knees). A typical term used in dance is called bend and send. Your partner feels the lead without it being a harsh forward movement.

Lowering at the end of your first half of the (three-step) basic waltz box helps finish the step and prevent you from rushing into the next step. It helps control your forward or backward movement. Commencing to rise at the end of the first step in waltz, then continuing to rise on the second and third step of the waltz, and lowering at the end of the third step in waltz completes the basic movement in the first half of the waltz box step. It allows much more control in the foot movement than if there were no rise and fall between the three steps. It has a much more pleasing look to the steps.

There is also a physical aspect about lowering through the knees. If you started to lose your balance and fall to one side or the other, lowering of the knees pulls your body back toward your center. In many cases, you can recover from the potential fall just by lowering your body through flexing of your knees. As a dancer, rising and falling helps direct the energy upward or downward based on flexing or straightening the knees. A dancer straightening their legs creates a force going upward. When a dancer flexes their knees, the force of gravity pulls the body toward that direction, which is downward.

Another question may be, why do we need rise and fall in the open right turn other than to look good? The quick answer would be that rise and fall helps in the control of the forward and backward progression with both the leader and follower. One specific (typical) situation in the open right turn would be just prior to the man doing his heel turn (impetus). If the man does not lower on the sixth step of the open right turn, the following things typically occur. He goes into the heel turn too fast (uncontrolled backward movement). He will have to lower into the heel turn on his left foot, which will increase the speed even more (because he is continuing his backward movement while trying to lower) when if he had lowered on his right foot (sixth step of the open right