Grand Circle in Paso Doble

Ballroom Blitz #090

Grand Circle in Paso Doble - Dec 04, 2023

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Ian: Hello again Ballroom Blitzers. Welcome back to the channel today we are going back into the world of the bull fight we're going back to Paso Doble. We're going to be looking at this very grandiose sounding figure the Grand Circle, easier to pull off than it sounds. Let's not waste time let's get into it.

Demonstration (without music)

Ian: Alrighty, that is it the Grand Circle. That's what it looks like, but how do you do it? The leaders part and the follows part are quite different, but the follows part is reasonably straightforward, and as long as the leader can count their part is reasonably straightforward as well. So let's break it down into both parts, get it together and get you Grand Circling.

Okay leaders, for you to pull off this figure you need to 1) be able to count, 2) hold a frame. If you can do that, this is easy as pie. You are going to start in Promenade Position, that means there is no Appel. So we're counting from one with a moving step, that moving step will of course be on the right foot; which is consistent with all of our Paso figures with the exception of Left Foot Variation. We're going to walk forward with a strong heel step on one, the follow will follow, funnily enough; and then over two and three we're going to hold position with our feet and allow the follow to walk around in their circle, I'll let Lindsey talk more about that in a moment; and then over beats four, five, and six, so for a count of three, you are going to keep walking them around you, although this will largely be driven by the follows steps forward; except our frame will keep them in position. But, what you are trying to do is evenly rock your weight from one foot back to the other.

So, you are going to swivel from this forward position, that has come from Promenade, around into a Promenade Position facing the other way, over three beats, and you're going to get to a position where you have an open figure and, beg pardon an open position, but facing in Promenade ready to do a Closed Promenade from our Promenade Link and Promenade Close tutorial. It's the last two steps, this is our first example of using those two steps from the Promenade Link figure as a Promenade Close. So if we count that out we have: move on one, hold position two-three while the upper body is walking the follow around, rock between your feet over four, five and six, and then Promenade Close on seven and eight. You will end in a Closed Position, so you're moving from Promenade to Closed, and as you can see if I'm facing you in the camera I switch all the way around, so in a closed position I have turned 180° which means usually I'm going to Appel and head somewhat in a different direction. But that's entirely up to you.

Demonstration (of Leaders Steps)

Lindsey: Followers, we don't have to worry too much about stopping and counting and rocking our weight, we have a step for each of these eight beats. We're going to start in Promenade Position with our partner stepping through with a heel step on our left foot, that matches the heel step of the leaders on their right. After that though, we're going to rise up onto our toes and do a base basic movement around our partner, all pretty much going forward but because of the leader's frame it will take us around in a circle. So we had our heel step on one, then rising up onto our toes two, three, four, five, and six, we want to drop onto our heel on six because we're about to take a pretty beefy step on our left foot again, seven, close eight. And we're really hoping for a little bit of frame help from our leader to get us whipped around on that last two steps

Demonstration (of Followers Steps)

Ian: So if we put both of those halves together we have

Demonstration (with Description)

Ian: Or thinking of it more from the leader perspective we have

Demonstration (with Description)

Demonstration (with Counts)

Demonstration (with Music)

Ian: And there you have it boys and girls the Grand Circle. Not so grandiose as long as you keep your frame and keep the count. Of course there is a lot more that you can do with it to spice it up if you want to add it to your Paso Doble routines. But, this will get you started with the basic Blitz version. Thank you for watching we will see you next time let us know what you would like to see we are approaching the 100th Episode Special if you want to see something special in that you better let us know quickmart see you soon.

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