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jim
21st-January-2011, 08:06 PM
Grounding is one of those terms that you hear thrown about every now and then. I'm starting to get glimpses of what it means but it's still a hazy subject for me.

I wounder if people would like to discuss what they think it is, why they think it's important and the techniques the know for improving it?

Gav
21st-January-2011, 08:31 PM
Grounding is one of those terms that you hear thrown about every now and then. I'm starting to get glimpses of what it means but it's still a hazy subject for me.

I wounder if people would like to discuss what they think it is, why they think it's important and the techniques the know for improving it?

It's a fairly simple concept that ensures that if an electrical fault occurs the electricity is routed harmlessly to the ground instead of through you; but you really would be better off asking on a DIY forum :na:

philsmove
21st-January-2011, 09:54 PM
Typically a teenager is forbidden from watching television or going out :(

Caro
21st-January-2011, 09:55 PM
Grounding refers to how balanced you are and how connected you are with the floor.
It's about always keeping your feet under your center (well - not exactly under, otherwise you wouldn't be able to move, but there is a certain range of motion that once exceeded will make you look unbalanced), engaging your core muscles when you move, using as much of the surface of your feet to connect with the floor, not bouncing, etc.

philsmove
21st-January-2011, 09:57 PM
Grounding: The Last Days of Swissairhttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt0449959/

Andy McGregor
21st-January-2011, 10:05 PM
It's about always keeping your feet under your center (well - not exactly under, otherwise you wouldn't be able to move, but there is a certain range of motion that once exceeded will make you look unbalanced),I think you mean the foot bearing your weight needs to be under your centre - or 'center' if you learnt the version of English spoken an ocean away :innocent:

The unweighted foot is free to fly where it likes, confined only by the length of your leg and range of movement of the hip, knee and ankle.

Caro
21st-January-2011, 10:37 PM
I think you mean the foot bearing your weight needs to be under your centre - or 'center' if you learnt the version of English spoken an ocean away :innocent:

The unweighted foot is free to fly where it likes, confined only by the length of your leg and range of movement of the hip, knee and ankle.

not exactly - you could do what you say and look very ungrounded, for example, imaging you move your non weighted foot too far ahead (I have in mind the image of someone trying to test the temperature of the water in a pool) and then try to 'catch up' with that foot by moving your centre suddenly over it - you'd look, and probably be, unbalanced. The only way that would work (still look grounded) would be if you'd bent your weighted foot and dug into the floor (effectively lowering your centre, which makes you closer to the ground) and gradually transferred your centre before the foot lands completely, e.g. think tango.

Being physically able to do a movement does not mean you are 'grounded' as dancers understand it (a smart-ass would now argue that as long as you're not falling over, you're grounded :rolleyes: )

Andy Razzle
22nd-January-2011, 10:12 AM
In Tango, grounding is essential for transmitting a very clear lead and basically is about achieving a feeling of your body weight pressing down on the balls of the feet

robd
22nd-January-2011, 11:13 AM
It's a fairly simple concept that ensures that if an electrical fault occurs the electricity is routed harmlessly to the ground instead of through you; but you really would be better off asking on a DIY forum :na:

Guess you didn't know that Jim's an electrician then :grin:

Andy McGregor
22nd-January-2011, 12:18 PM
not exactly - you could do what you say and look very ungrounded, for example, imaging you move your non weighted foot too far ahead (I have in mind the image of someone trying to test the temperature of the water in a pool) and then try to 'catch up' with that foot by moving your centre suddenly over it - you'd look, and probably be, unbalanced.As I said, your foot is free to fly wherever it likes - obviously it need to go somewhere that looks good. But it's unsaid, but implied in the rules of 'grounding', that your unweighted foot needs to return near or under the shadow of your centre when it is going to become your weighted foot. Consider a rondé, you lower your weight and look like you're stirring the water in Caro's imaginary pool. But you return your foot nearer to your centre before transferring your wight.

Alternatively, you could lunge, like a fencer, to place your weight over the foot that Caro is using to test the temperature of the pool - but only if the water's warm.

straycat
22nd-January-2011, 01:56 PM
I think you mean the foot bearing your weight needs to be under your centre - or 'center' if you learnt the version of English spoken an ocean away :innocent:

The unweighted foot is free to fly where it likes, confined only by the length of your leg and range of movement of the hip, knee and ankle.

Like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Agz_2um4c), you mean? :D

Andy McGregor
22nd-January-2011, 03:16 PM
Like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Agz_2um4c), you mean? :D:rofl:

Fantastic dancing and exactly what I mean.

David Bailey
22nd-January-2011, 04:30 PM
Grounding is one of those terms that you hear thrown about every now and then. I'm starting to get glimpses of what it means but it's still a hazy subject for me.

I wounder if people would like to discuss what they think it is, why they think it's important and the techniques the know for improving it?
Spookily, I wrote an article on it (http://www.learningtango.com/Improvers/Grounded.html)a month ago - hopefully that explains it.

Short version: "grounded" = "stable". And it's not the same as "balanced". You can be balanced without being grounded, for example.

See? Easy :D

jim
22nd-January-2011, 05:56 PM
Nice article DB.

I liked the breathing exercise, which is sort of where the question came from, because I was told to breath out and by haveing less air in my lungs i would be more grounded or maybe they meant by breathing from a different place I would be more grouned.

But then I though how does that marry up with the classic breath in to your (chest) diaphram and then breath out whilst leaving your (chest) diaphram where it is. And what is the point of that particular exercise or posture? is it just asthetic?

Secoundly when you mention the hips being lower to the floor. what do you mean?

I've been told to tuck them under my body, and I thought by doing this I might concetrate my wieght down into the floor.

But then I was told to tilt them back slightly... and I think I recall Stray Cat saying somthing about the bend and flex in the hips and back improving grounding? Any thoughts?

Gav
22nd-January-2011, 08:21 PM
Guess you didn't know that Jim's an electrician then :grin:

Clearly :rolleyes: I have no idea who Jim is at all; come to think of it, who are you?

Andy Razzle
23rd-January-2011, 12:23 AM
Interesting explanation, ive not heard that one before, I mainly get the mumbo jumbo explanation.
Im not convinced about pushing into the floor, as newton says for every action there is an equal and oposite reaction. As there is nothing to push against if you did actually push with the leg muscles the only way to resist this would be to set up tension in the oposing muscle or the leg would straighten! (ie pushing with legs to raise up from a chair) I think this is what most people would do if told to do this!
For me the real explanation is about posture and relaxation. And is genarally what the trick is for chinese martial artist resisting people trying to push then over.

straycat
23rd-January-2011, 02:15 PM
:rofl:

Fantastic dancing and exactly what I mean.

Historical context for that clip - those two were Al Minns and Leon James - members of Whitey's Lindy Hoppers, also seen in clips such as the famous Hellzapoppin' sequence - and two of the best dancers of their day. :worthy: I love the fact that it works so well to the alternative modern music that Pete Loggins substituted in.

Trying to pull off the stuff shown in that clip without being well grounded is probably well-nigh impossible - and being able to make it look so smooth and effortless would be pretty well miraculous.

straycat
23rd-January-2011, 02:20 PM
But then I was told to tilt them back slightly... and I think I recall Stray Cat saying somthing about the bend and flex in the hips and back improving grounding? Any thoughts?

I did talk about that, but it was in the context of the Lindy Hop bounce, rather than with any direct relation to grounding, although the two are certainly related. Here's the post (http://forum.cerocscotland.com/showpost.php?p=582452&postcount=61).

jim
23rd-January-2011, 03:30 PM
Clearly :rolleyes: I have no idea who Jim is at all; come to think of it, who are you?

I ask myself the same question:wink:

jim
23rd-January-2011, 03:44 PM
For me the real explanation is about posture and relaxation.

Maintaining good posture and technique and looking and being totally relaxed at the same time is so, so difficult.

Lory
23rd-January-2011, 04:14 PM
Like this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2Agz_2um4c), you mean? :D

:worthy::worthy:Love it!

David Bailey
24th-January-2011, 10:47 AM
But then I though how does that marry up with the classic breath in to your (chest) diaphram and then breath out whilst leaving your (chest) diaphram where it is. And what is the point of that particular exercise or posture? is it just asthetic?
Ummm. Dunno.


Secoundly when you mention the hips being lower to the floor. what do you mean?
This is basically the whole "lengthen your diaphragm" thing - pushing up from above the waist, pushing down from below it. It's not a trivial thing, I can demonstrate in person but it's quite tricky to explain in text.

straycat
24th-January-2011, 12:34 PM
Im not convinced about pushing into the floor, as newton says for every action there is an equal and oposite reaction. As there is nothing to push against if you did actually push with the leg muscles the only way to resist this would be to set up tension in the oposing muscle or the leg would straighten! (ie pushing with legs to raise up from a chair)

Have you tried? Give it a go, starting gently and slowly increasing pressure. To begin with, all that happens is that you engage your muscles more, and you start to feel more of a connection with the floor. As you increase pressure, yes, you'll start to move - it's the stages before that happens that you want to start playing with.



For me the real explanation is about posture and relaxation. And is genarally what the trick is for chinese martial artist resisting people trying to push then over.
Also very important. I improved my dancing / connection / general movements skills a lot just with QiGong classes, for example.

straycat
24th-January-2011, 12:36 PM
Maintaining good posture and technique and looking and being totally relaxed at the same time is so, so difficult.

Relaxation can be hard to learn in dance, I agree, but I'd say it's far far harder to maintain good posture and technique without it.

Gav
24th-January-2011, 12:46 PM
Im not convinced about pushing into the floor, as newton says for every action there is an equal and oposite reaction.

Yeah, but could Newton dance?

Ghost
24th-January-2011, 02:07 PM
But then I though how does that marry up with the classic breath in to your (chest) diaphram and then breath out whilst leaving your (chest) diaphram where it is. And what is the point of that particular exercise or posture? is it just asthetic?

Basically being grounded comes from having good body mechanics. Exactly what "good body mechanics" means depends both on who you talk to and on what exactly it is you're doing. For example a judo practitioner, a catch-as-can wrestler, a sumo wrestler and an aikido practitioner all have very different, very effective ways of being grounded and ungrounding their opponent. Trying to combine all of their body mechanics to become "even better" is something best attempted by someone who's really good in all four (not that this actually stops people from trying, it's just that the result tend to be a mess).

What's also important is that it's body mechanics. So you can't look at your example of breathing in isolation - you have to know what effect it's having on the rest of your body and that will depend on a) your body (Both fixed characteristics like your height and variable ones like flexibility) b) what you're doing with the rest of your body.

Also trying to describe this stuff in text is a pain the neck. My advice would be either to try and get a private lesson with someone who can explain this stuff coherently or failing that try an Alexander Technique teacher (but don't expect fast results!). Failing that have a read of the link within David's article to Marc's thoughts.

Ghost
24th-January-2011, 04:08 PM
Interesting explanation, ive not heard that one before, I mainly get the mumbo jumbo explanation.
Im not convinced about pushing into the floor, as newton says for every action there is an equal and oposite reaction.
There's quite a few pitfalls when people discuss grounding

There tends to be quite a bit of “magical thinking” involved when people discuss grounding.

Take a small child whose tooth has fallen out. They go to bed, put it under their pillow. The next day the tooth is gone and money is there. As long as the child’s interest is in getting the money then this is fine. Trying to work out the frequency at which the Tooth Fairy’s wings flap in order to get more money however is a fruitless task….

Likewise people will often say things that if you actually do them will give you the desired result, but for different reasons. As long as you’re just interested in the result, then that’s fine. Trying to apply classical physics to what’s being proposed as the process usually doesn’t help much (although there’s some fascinating cases of people trying.)

Likewise there's often a tendancy to oversimplfy what is massively complicated physics. eg a karate practioner wants to break a board. he adopts his stance and punches the board. The board doesn't break and there is a yelp from him as the force he exerted gets applied to his fist :what: . Undaunted (he really has issues with this board!) he tries again, this time remembering his kiai spirit shout. The board breaks and he doesn't feel any pain. He realises he's broken both the board and one of Newton's Laws.

Which is a reasonable realisation to have. He's unaware that he just punched slightly faster the second time and that classical physics has an explanation for why this is important.

Lastly I'm unconvinced that even if you could measure all of the information needed in the process of being grounded, that you could convey that information to another human being in a way that they would be able to do it. Conversely "push your foot into the floor" is pretty easy to do no matter how bad you are at physics.

clevedonboy
24th-January-2011, 04:23 PM
Yeah, but could Newton dance?
One of my ancestors sat under the same tree as Newton & got hit on the head by a falling apple, "Eureka!" he exclaimed in the manner of all great scientists "I've just invented unconsciousness"

David Franklin
24th-January-2011, 04:50 PM
... "push your foot into the floor" is pretty easy to do no matter how bad you are at physics.But those of us who are not bad at physics do have a problem with that. That is, whatever you do, in a stable position (*) you must be pushing your feet into the floor with a vertical component equal to your weight. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not physically possible to do anything else (otherwise you would either accelerate upwards or downwards).

Which then leaves the question of "what do you actually mean when you say 'push your foot into the floor?'"

(*) Stable position where all your weight is on your feet, that is.

Ghost
24th-January-2011, 05:00 PM
Which then leaves the question of "what do you actually mean when you say 'push your foot into the floor?'"




Lastly I'm unconvinced that even if you could measure all of the information needed in the process of being grounded, that you could convey that information to another human being in a way that they would be able to do it.

ie assuming I were able to build a precise mathematical model of everything your body needs to do for what I mean by "push your foot into the floor", how would you as a human being actually be able to physically replicate it?

And if you can't, you get stuck with having to use words, metaphors etc.

Personally I'd rather the information was physically passed on by a skilled teacher, hence my advice. I think that's probably the closest you can currently get to passing on the mathematical model. Internal body mechanics remain problematic though.

David Bailey
24th-January-2011, 05:36 PM
ie assuming I were able to build a precise mathematical model of everything your body needs to do for what I mean by "push your foot into the floor", how would you as a human being actually be able to physically replicate it?

And if you can't, you get stuck with having to use words, metaphors etc.

Personally I'd rather the information was physically passed on by a skilled teacher, hence my advice. I think that's probably the closest you can currently get to passing on the mathematical model. Internal body mechanics remain problematic though.
Yeah... see, I know what it feels like, but I can't easily describe it in text - it's one of those annoying things that people resort to hippy metaphors like "be a tree and reach your roots into the ground" or similar rubbish, to try to describe. And the annoying thing is, I can't think of a better way to describe the process.

I know that I'm grounded, because I'm more stable now than I was a few years ago: it's far, far more difficult to push me off-axis than it used to be. But I find it very difficult to describe how I achieved that stability, without using non-physics or "be the tree" metaphors.

jim
24th-January-2011, 06:11 PM
Ummm. Dunno.


This is basically the whole "lengthen your diaphragm" thing - pushing up from above the waist, pushing down from below it. It's not a trivial thing, I can demonstrate in person but it's quite tricky to explain in text.

yeh I know that exercise. Although I thought it was about core... shows what i know :sick:

jim
24th-January-2011, 06:46 PM
I was thinking about pushing into the floor last night and I decided rightly or wrongly that its about having flex in the knee and the foot.

If we have flex in the knee and foot then we have power and can accelerate like a sprinter(... if we wish).

If we step with a locked knee or flat foot as we might do when walking normally we have less potential for power. We've got less 'spring'.

I think it's the settling down into the joints that makes you feel like your 'pushing into the floor'. It's the de-acceleration.

David Franklin
24th-January-2011, 09:08 PM
ie assuming I were able to build a precise mathematical model of everything your body needs to do for what I mean by "push your foot into the floor", how would you as a human being actually be able to physically replicate it?

And if you can't, you get stuck with having to use words, metaphors etc. To be clear, I'm not being all mathematical pedant for no reason. The problem is, I genuinely have no idea what you're trying to get at with "push into the floor". It's not literally true(*), and there are several other things I can possibly think of you meaning but none of them really say "push into the floor" to me.

From what I see, I'm far from alone amongst dancers towards the physics-geek side of the spectrum in finding many of these metaphors actively confusing. There are teachers with engineering/science backgrounds who I've had recommended in this context - Robert Royston being the highest profile.

(*) Actually, I think there is one way in which you can "push harder into the floor". In my previous post, I said "vertical component". But you could, for example, use a wide stance, and then 'squeeze' your legs together. You're then also exerting an extra frictional force, which although horizontal, you could reasonably consider "into the floor" in this context.

Ghost
24th-January-2011, 10:09 PM
To be clear, I'm not being all mathematical pedant for no reason. The problem is, I genuinely have no idea what you're trying to get at with "push into the floor".
Yes, but you do seem to be repeated missing my point.

Given the number of physics geeks who study movement - and not just dance; sports, martial arts, everyday movement - and given that people still go on about "being a tree", my feeling is at the current time, being mathematically pedantic won't get you a useful answer.

Either wait until the Matrix technology becomes a reality and you can download the mathematical model into yourself, or accept that the only people who come close to explaining this stuff beyond a certain level in terms of physics tend to do so mainly in the Real World and largely by physically demonstrating it to you.

So if "push your foot into the floor" or "be a tree" makes no sense to you, which is perfectly reasonable, my honest advice is to get someone who understands it and can communicate it, to physically demonstrate it to you.

Trying to create a classical physics explanation in text (especially on a Dance Forum) is in my opinion pretty much a waste of time. I was told something similar by someone far more skilled than me. YMMV.

David Franklin
24th-January-2011, 11:47 PM
Yes, but you do seem to be repeated missing my point.Or you're missing mine.


Given the number of physics geeks who study movement - and not just dance; sports, martial arts, everyday movement - and given that people still go on about "being a tree", my feeling is at the current time, being mathematically pedantic won't get you a useful answer.Thing is, "being a tree" is obviously a metaphor. "Push your foot into the floor" seems like a practical instruction.

If it's a metaphor, fine (although I think in that case "think about pushing your foot into the floor" is much clearer, and I would not have spoken up).

But still, if it's a metaphor, you should accept that many people won't "get it". Looking at your example, if you were to say "be a tree" , you wouldn't be surprised for people to say "What do you mean, 'be a tree'? I can't grow branches here!".

Now you did say in your last post:


So if "push your foot into the floor" or "be a tree" makes no sense to you, which is perfectly reasonable,

but I don't feel this really tallies with:


"push your foot into the floor" is pretty easy to do no matter how bad you are at physics.

in response to someone else saying


Im not convinced about pushing into the floor, as newton says for every action there is an equal and oposite reaction.

FirstMove
25th-January-2011, 12:13 AM
But those of us who are not bad at physics do have a problem with that. That is, whatever you do, in a stable position (*) you must be pushing your feet into the floor with a vertical component equal to your weight. Nothing more, nothing less. It's not physically possible to do anything else (otherwise you would either accelerate upwards or downwards).

Which then leaves the question of "what do you actually mean when you say 'push your foot into the floor?'"

(*) Stable position where all your weight is on your feet, that is.

This quickly becomes a game of definitions. Taking stable to mean not falling over, I think I can push through my feet. I start in a crouching position and I stand up. I've moved my centre of mass, so I've moved the Earth a little bit in the opposite direction. Sounds like pushing to me.

Now you redefine 'stable' or 'push' or 'floor' :wink:

Ghost
25th-January-2011, 01:00 AM
Or you're missing mine.

Thing is, "being a tree" is obviously a metaphor. "Push your foot into the floor" seems like a practical instruction.
So from a pedantic physics viewpoint you honestly think you can push your foot into a solid floor? :what: Now something like sand maybe I could understand, but a solid wooden floor - now that I'd like to see.


If it's a metaphor, fine (although I think in that case "think about pushing your foot into the floor" is much clearer, and I would not have spoken up).

Excellent - think about pushing your foot into the floor then.



But still, if it's a metaphor, you should accept that many people won't "get it".
Of course hence
"So if "push your foot into the floor" or "be a tree" makes no sense to you, which is perfectly reasonable"


Now you did say in your last post:

"So if "push your foot into the floor" or "be a tree" makes no sense to you, which is perfectly reasonable, "


but I don't feel this really tallies with:

"push your foot into the floor" is pretty easy to do no matter how bad you are at physics."

in response to someone else saying

"Im not convinced about pushing into the floor, as newton says for every action there is an equal and oposite reaction."


*sigh*

It's easy to do. Not necessarily easy to understand. A child can turn a computer on. Understanding everything that happens to make a computer come on is a whole different ballpark.

Quite simply for a lot of people, it's good enough.

Yes the current explanations aren't wonderful. On the other hand they have been used for hundreds of years across cultures. And people do seem to eventually figure it out, even if they don't really understand how they did.

For pedantic physicists who want a better explanation, precision ask someone who can explain it clearly to demonstrate it to you physically - then knock yourself out working out the physics involved. Or simply just accept that if anyone's come up with a way of conveying the information using physics in a way that's actually practical they're keeping quiet about it.

Ghost
25th-January-2011, 01:07 AM
So from a pedantic physics viewpoint you honestly think you can push your foot into a solid floor? :what: Now something like sand maybe I could understand, but a solid wooden floor - now that I'd like to see.

Just as an aside for Jim (or anyone else who'd not going to get pedantic about the physics) walking on sand or gravel is often described as a way of understanding how to ground yourself. You can literally push yourself into sand or gravel and then try to replicate the body mechanics on solid ground. Obviously you won't actually go into solid ground, but it's one way of conveying the information.

straycat
25th-January-2011, 01:26 AM
Trying to create a classical physics explanation in text (especially on a Dance Forum) is in my opinion pretty much a waste of time. I was told something similar by someone far more skilled than me. YMMV.

Wise words, but there's always going to be some fool who still tries to explain it. And - of course - I am that fool :rolleyes:. Glutton for punishment ;)

Mind you - I'm not going to try to explain it so much as throw a different viewpoint into the mix - we don't tend to talk about grounding much in Lindy, although I think we cover similar concepts, so for once, I'm not presenting the Lindy viewpoint.

The things that I think are missing from DF's way of looking at it is quite simple: movement, and forces applied by your partner. As dancers, we are rarely completely stationary, so the static model doesn't feel applicable.

Here's a nice simple example you can try (learned from a Chinese martial arts expert) - it ties in nicely to DB's article too. You need a partner for this.

Stand with feet a little wider than shoulder-width apart. Have your partner start to apply pressure sideways to push you off the spot you're standing on (not a sudden shove, but they can use a lot of force if they want)

Try the following two ways of resisting them:
1) Push back.
It's not that effective. Your balance is no longer your own, and is now a little dependent on your assailant - at best, you are balancing against them. At worst, you go off balance, and they can move you easily if that happens.

2) Don't resist at all, but focus all your efforts on sinking down into the floor.
You should find that this is far more effective, with far less effort from yourself. What you are doing is redirecting the force received from your partner down into the floor. You are grounding yourself - and in consequence, you become far harder to move. Think of it as the first steps in the beginners' version of the martial arts 'make yourself immoveable' trick that Andy Razzle talked mentioned.

Take a look at the piccie from DB's article (http://www.learningtango.com/Improvers/Grounded.html#NotBalance), where he talks about supporting a partner by being grounded - that is, I think, effectively what he's doing. If he tries to support her by pushing back against her, then he is giving her a little of his balance, so she's actually, to a small degree, supporting him. Which is a lot less stable.

David Franklin
25th-January-2011, 01:52 AM
The things that I think are missing from DF's way of looking at it is quite simple: movement, and forces applied by your partner. As dancers, we are rarely completely stationary, so the static model doesn't feel applicable.I haven't actually been meaning to say very much about how *I* look at it, other than to say "this description doesn't work for me" (and to extrapolate that I think a lot of people who worry about 'the physics' feel the same).


~snip~
2) Don't resist at all, but focus all your efforts on sinking down into the floor.Yes, I'm familiar with this - and it has a fair bit in common with how I prep for lifts in dance.

But to me, that's quite a different feeling from 'push into the floor'.

Which is fine - you gave another way of describing it, and I now know what you're getting at.

For the record: over about 10 years on forums, I think I've seen about 5 different things that can be casually described as 'push into the floor':

The one you describe.
The 'squeeze' with your legs I described.
Trying to 'grip' the floor with your feet.
Trying to have the feet have a 'rolling' contact with the floor.
Trying to keep the weight on a particular region of the foot.

So I might guess which one you (or Ghost) mean, but what's the point? It's easy to ask for clarification (not so easy to get it, perhaps...)

David Bailey
25th-January-2011, 10:45 AM
Stand with feet a little wider than shoulder-width apart. Have your partner start to apply pressure sideways to push you off the spot you're standing on (not a sudden shove, but they can use a lot of force if they want)

Try the following two ways of resisting them:
1) Push back.
It's not that effective. Your balance is no longer your own, and is now a little dependent on your assailant - at best, you are balancing against them. At worst, you go off balance, and they can move you easily if that happens.

2) Don't resist at all, but focus all your efforts on sinking down into the floor.
You should find that this is far more effective, with far less effort from yourself. What you are doing is redirecting the force received from your partner down into the floor. You are grounding yourself - and in consequence, you become far harder to move. Think of it as the first steps in the beginners' version of the martial arts 'make yourself immoveable' trick that Andy Razzle talked mentioned.

Take a look at the piccie from DB's article (http://www.learningtango.com/Improvers/Grounded.html#NotBalance), where he talks about supporting a partner by being grounded - that is, I think, effectively what he's doing. If he tries to support her by pushing back against her, then he is giving her a little of his balance, so she's actually, to a small degree, supporting him. Which is a lot less stable.
Yes, that's a very good description. So good, in fact, that I understand it better myself now :)

I use this technique when I'm trying to teach followers a forwards-intention posture. I get them to lean / push against me in close, as hard as possible, just to demonstrate to them that I'm not going to fall backwards simply because I'm getting some pressure from my partner. So yes, what I'm not doing in that case is pushing back against her, I'm transferring her energy downwards.

But the weird thing is, it's not conscious. This whole "grounding" thing just sort of happened to me, over a period of a couple of years. I just gradually became more and more stable when dancing. I only noticed this when I realised it was easier for me to stabilise my partners when they became off-balance during the walk.

So I'm fairly sure I can't (at the moment) teach this to anyone; All I can do is describe why it's important. For me, increased stability happened as part of my own learning process, but it wasn't something that I worked on specifically.

NZ Monkey
26th-January-2011, 11:42 PM
Which then leaves the question of "what do you actually mean when you say 'push your foot into the floor?'"
I realise that I've come in very late to the conversation (I've been on holiday) but aside from Straycats excellent explanation I have another one that may work for some people.

When I think of grounding I tend to do so in terms of movement. By lowering our centre of mass slightly when we start moving we improve our ability to generate lateral movement. We essentially channel a large portion of the energy lost through our height change through our bodies and into the floor in the opposite direction to where we want to travel. I think of it as being similar to the reason why we accelerate around around corners in our cars - because it increases the frictional forces between the road and our outside wheels.

To keep with the martial arts theme, I've only seen this taught explicitly once by a very experienced Aikidoka. When he moved he had a definite sense of inevitability about him, and he felt extremely stable at the same time as being mobile and, for lack of a better word, slippery.

In practice the amount of rise and fall required to make a difference can be very small. It's also worth noting that I'm only talking about a rise and fall of the centre of mass here - not necessarily the dancers whole top line. I suspect that's one of the reasons why breathing technique is considered important at the higher levels in ballroom (and elsewhere I'm sure).

Finally, this also lines up with what I know about Skippy Blairs teaching regarding the three-toe-base, power points and sending feet. I'm not so sure about her centre-point-of-gravity ideas, because I'm still not certain I understand what she's talking about there myself.

EricD
16th-February-2011, 05:55 AM
To some extent I think it means be aware of the weight on your feet.

If a person is pushing against you, then you can gain extra traction between the ground and your feet by part-lifting the person. That will also reduce their traction so they will slip first.

Other than that, it's all in the mind, you know !

On the other hand, you can spin easier on a sticky surface by part-jumping first, and/or part-dropping during the spin. Skiers and boarders talk of up-unweighting and down-unweighting. It's a dynamic give-and-take though, whereas grounding seems more static.

straycat
17th-February-2011, 03:05 PM
If a person is pushing against you, then you can gain extra traction between the ground and your feet by part-lifting the person. That will also reduce their traction so they will slip first.

That sounds more like a wrestling technique than a dance technique.


Other than that, it's all in the mind, you know !
Strongly disagree! If you want to know why, there's actually quite a good thread that goes into the concept in some depth - have a look here (http://forum.cerocscotland.com/showthread.php?p=585167).


On the other hand, you can spin easier on a sticky surface by part-jumping first, and/or part-dropping during the spin. Skiers and boarders talk of up-unweighting and down-unweighting.
So... more or less the opposite of grounding?


It's a dynamic give-and-take though, whereas grounding seems more static.
I'd say it can definitely be dynamic. See the aforementioned thread.