Thread: First Move
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Old 22nd-March-2005, 01:35 PM   #13 (permalink)
El Salsero Gringo
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Re: First Move

Quote:
Originally Posted by Gadget
OK, why step back on the left? what does it add to the dance/movement/flow? (Remember that to lead it "properly", your left hand must sweep out to the lady's far hip; any 'mirroring' is immediatly pulled off-balance by this fact.)
Ultimately I suppose it comes down to personal preference. I *love* the move with a step back on the left. I love the way I can swoosh my left foot around if I like, I love the way I can catch my partner's eye over my right shoulder in a smouldering kind of way, I enjoy the ability to make her twist one way while I twist another. Those are all both consequences of, and reasons why, I like the move.

While I realise that MJ isn't any other form of dance and that comparisons can be misleading - it is certainly the case that for Salsa, Rumba, Cha Cha, and probably the smooth Ballroom dances too - all dances with prescribed foot patterns - when the lady's weight is on her left, the man's weight must be on his right. In the moves in those dances that are analogous to the First Move the leader has only his left foot free to move, be it back, sideways or forward.

I'll have a think about which other moves share that "he-goes-one-way, she-goes-another" feeling, and get back to you with whatever I can come up with.
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