One of the most important ways to improve timing, control and balance in our dancing is through our relationship with the floor. This of course is going to be related to how we use our feet and ankles not how we land when we don’t have timing, control and balance.
What we need to understand and develop is something dancers refer to as floor pressure. This is the pressure you exert onto the floor with the part of the free foot that is in contact with it. When we walk, we often pick our feet up as we place them. While this may help us avoid stumbling on uneven surfaces, this is not what we want to recreate in our dancing. As we dance on a smooth surface, we don’t need to worry about stumbling and instead need to maintain contact with the floor at all times, never picking our feet up off the floor.
We maintain this contact with the floor through the activity of the feet and ankles. Here is where those exercises from Lawrence’s Sunday class come in handy. We need to get consistent about keeping our free foot active, flexing, extending. As a leg passes under our body is must feel like we are pushing or pressing it into the floor, it is as if you are trying to massage the floor with your feet.
Too much pressure? Likely not, but it is good to note that the slower the dance the more foot pressure needed to control our balance and timing. Great dances to focus on foot pressure are; Night Club 2-Step, Waltz and Foxtrot, although it is important in all dances. If we befriend the floor and use it to our benefit we will find greater ease in the accomplishment of our dancing.
April Evans is a teacher at Dance Station. If you would like to take lessons with April or any of our teachers at Dance Station, call 505-989-9788 to schedule.
