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Years ago, while training in Canada with the great Méryem Pearson, we spent hours studying body-weight shifts and the production of swing as purely as possible. It was during that time that an idea appeared—more like an assignment, really: to calculate how many steps my Waltz routine had and to analyze how many of those steps were missing the continuity of body-weight transfer.
Were there interruptions in weight shift?
If so, how many steps—and how many missed opportunities—would it take to recover and get back on track?
Most importantly, the margin of error had to be zero percent.
The assignment was clear, as was the famous ballroom quote that no matter how big the floor is, the movement is always “simply” from foot to foot.
But what does foot to foot even mean?
The simplest and yet most difficult concept at the same time.
If there were statistics on failed attempts to move, we’d probably see an overwhelming number of times when dancers struggle with the initial movement. This is where most of the focus usually goes—where arguments start, and even some marriages end!
When you are “in motion,” there is no start and no end; you can ignore the complexity of the sequence that initiates movement. But before you are “in motion,” the so-called initiation phase is like the lift-off of a space rocket—everything has to be perfect, and the technology must work flawlessly.
After the reality of the problem sets in, another mystery arises: “The Drive.”
And we’re not talking about the famous Hollywood movie with Ryan Gosling; we’re talking about step number one of almost any figure in any International Ballroom dance.
To my mind, the obsession with the feet and legs in the original English style of ballroom dancing comes from the simple fact that the Technique Book, written many decades ago, described movement in a two-dimensional space—the dance floor. The technology of that time didn’t allow for a better explanation, and it truly helped generations of dancers to come.
The confusion begins when we realize that we exist in three-dimensional space, and some might even argue that time itself is the fourth dimension.
So where does that leave us?
“The Waltz” in 2025 still comes with an instruction manual from the 1930s—and very poor 2D graphics.
To put it into perspective, try playing Doom 2 on a modern computer to feel the pain. (Any gamers out there?)
That brings us logically to the next question: if there is a “1”—the foot to foot, the drive—what do we actually move? How do we measure movement? The obvious answer, of course, is that we move ourselves—our body. It’s the torso, together with the head, that carries most of our weight and must be the focus of movement.
In biomechanics, a term extremely relevant to “foot to foot” technique in Standard is contact distance—the distance the dancer’s center of mass travels between touchdown and toe-off.
That creates the right focus for a dancer: the focus on the body—a three-dimensional figure in space—rather than on the foot in a two-dimensional floor plan.
When envisioning contact distance, we must ask ourselves:
What is the most efficient way to get into motion and experience the touchdown-toe-off moment?
Do we need to drive?
How much energy should we actually spend?
Standing upright in vertical alignment, we are perfectly balanced—therefore, not in motion. According to the old dance cliché, we must bend our knees and “drive” the body using the standing leg toward the direction of movement, simultaneously preparing to catch ourselves with the moving leg as we rise on count 2.
Do you feel pain in your knees and lower back yet?
I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t try that at home with my 200+ pounds!
So where does that leave us?
The feet are itchy, the soul is ready to be unleashed to the tune of Ross Mitchell, but the stubborn body weight—and even more stubborn partner—won’t let it happen (as always!).
If not for our partners, we’d all be ten-time World Champions by now.
Luckily, there are solo competitions these days, so we can all take a shot.
It leaves us with a clear realization:
Maybe, to move the body efficiently, we simply have to focus only on the body.
The vertical alignment will naturally change the angle of the torso toward the floor (poise) through the only possible form of real swing—the metronomic swing.
Motion begins, and if we can allow the body weight to sink toward the floor patiently—without straightening the knees—we’ll achieve “contact distance” in no time, and most importantly, without effort.
And the drive?
Simply irrelevant from a biomechanical point of view—a visual description of an effect from a third-party perspective that has nothing to do with the cause of movement.
The more we’re able to move the body away from the standing foot—without “using” the leg, but rather allowing the leg to be used (the beauty of the English language)—the more efficient we are.
Written by: Iaroslav Bieliei
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