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How to Waltz - Swing and Sway

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Terry Dean: Hi! I am Terry Dean from Terry Dean's Dance Studio. We are teaching the waltz.

Now, it's very important when we do the waltz that we have a ballroom dance element called rise and fall. Rise and fall is pretty much what it sounds like. It's up and down action, which is kind of like carousel, so the waltz has it's beautiful floating up and down action. It's not very hard to do; however, it does require balance.

So, one of the first things you have to learn to do is learn how to stand on your toes. So, let's just start with that action. First of all, we are going to take our feet side apart and we are going to lift up our heels. Now, I am going to turn myself to the camera for a second so that you can see this. My feet are side apart and I am going to lift my heels up and then I am going to lower my heels down. My heels up, and my heels down.

So, the basic idea is that when you are going up in your toe, you have to be able to balance this and then you come down softly. When we are talking about rise and fall, we are talking about going down first that's the down part then coming up and then back down again. We always go down on the one up on the two, three, at the end of three we come down. One, two, three, down, one, two, three, down. Now, it's very important that when you are doing the rise and fall that the timing is synchronized with your partner, so that you both go up and come down at the same time.

So, I am going to demonstrate with Cindy us going down together, down on the one, up on the toes on the two, three, down again, one, two, three, one, two, three, one two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, very good. So, when we are dancing the raise and fall is very much an important part and we remember that what is happening is we are down on the one count, we are raising up on the two count all the way up on the three count, at the end of the three we start lowering down, down on the one count, up on the two, lowering at the end of three and starting over again. That ends technique in the waltz. Now, we are going to do is another pattern. So, what we going to do is the hesitations and that will be the next waltz step we do.

Expert: Terry Dean

Ballroom Dancing Expert

www.terrydeansdancestudio.com

Terry is the owner and principal male dance instructor of Terry Dean’s Dance Studio, in Charlottesville, Virginia. He has been teaching ballroom dancing for 30 years and opened his own successful studio following a 19 year career with Arthur Murray Dance Studios. Terry has received accolades for his choreography and has been honored as Virginia State’s Top Studio and Top Teacher twice. He and his staff teach More »