Closed Hip Twist in Cha Cha
Ballroom Blitz #094
Closed Hip Twist in Cha Cha - Dec 18, 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 Ballroom Blitzers, welcome back to the channel. Today we are going into Latin American, we're going to be doing some Cha Cha. A very popular move the Closed Hip Twist, let's take a look.
[Demonstration without music]
Ian: So, you can see from the demonstration that there is quite a bit to this figure. But, it is really lovely to dance when you get a few things straightened out. It starts in a slightly a skewed closed position, and we'll go over that in a moment, and ends in the fan position. This is one of those examples where you end in fan position but you haven't actually danced the Fan Figure, and if you need some revision on that I will leave links in the description to Demystifying Fan, and the Fan Figure itself. [The] steps are quite different for the lead and the follow, and what you saw there was just the basic version. There's a lot of pimping up that you can do with various chasses and things like that. We will talk you through the basics, get those down, then you can add the flare a little bit later. So let's kick off by talking about the leader steps and the initial position for this figure.
So leaders, your steps in the feet are actually pretty simple, but it's the arm work and the tone and the tension and where you're going to guide your follow, that's where this move gets kind of tricky. We're going to start with the most basic version, basically with your feet together, and you will have led your partner in the end of the previous figure towards your right side. The easiest way to get here is from an Alemana, and we have scheduled in one of our future blitzers, not too far away, an Alemana video with alternate endings, of which this will be one of them. You can also do it from a Natural Top video link in the description for that, but however you get there you've led your follow towards your right side. So they will be stepping forward out in this direction, our feet for the moment are together. The first step we're going to do is step to the side, and we're going to allow our torso to twist as we turn the follow because they're about to turn a half and take a back step, but I'll let Lindsay talk you through that in a moment. So our two step moves out to the side that is a side step. It's not a Cucaracha, this is full weight. We are now going to have a rock step and like any other rock steps, we are not moving our feet, we're not twisting, we're not doing anything, we're not doing anything strange, we are just rocking back and holding position, holding tone. Now, in the most basic version we are now just going to do a compact chasse, so all that is, is just closing on the spot in your Cha rhythm. Later on you can upgrade this but just for now, to get you started, the first bar of music is Two Three On-The-Spot.
Now at this point we have held our follow outside of us, and at this point they have their hips twisted, which is where the name Hip Twist comes from. We are then going to walk them across ourself, turn them, and send them backwards into a Cha Cha, beg pardon, into a fan position, with a Cha chasse. So we are now going to step back and allow them some space, we're now on our right foot, back, the follow walks across us, we rock forward in place, and this can't be a massive back step because we sort of fall over and make everything a bit too stretched, so a small back step, rock forward, and then we're going to Cha out to the side in our fan position. Don't get trapped and go on the spot again, then it won't feel like Fan Position, we have to take a small chasse to the right side-and-side. Leave a little bit more for the last step, don't go too big too early, then you get your stretched Fan position, it doesn't feel quite right. So we're going to go small together, and then big enough to make it feel like we're in fan position and have achieved a Cha Cha. So feet wise we are going
[Demonstration of leaders steps]
Lindsey: Followers, let's have a look at your steps. We have the same number of steps as the leader and once again we're going to have two steps and then our Cha Cha chasse two steps and a Cha Cha chasse. But, unlike the leader, we've got quite a bit of twisting and turning to do. You may have noticed that Ian was ultimately kind of always facing the same way through his steps, we're going to end up looking at pretty much every wall around us. So, we have started by being guided to the leader's right side, as Ian said. We're ready to go on our right foot, but the tension through the leaders hands will make us swivel a half before we take that step. So my first step will go backwards, this way, on the right foot. We replace to the left and we're still held in this position through the frame, then the frame releases a little bit and we swivel back the other way to do our Cha Cha Cha, forward on the right, together, right past our leader. So if I do all that with my swivels we've got Back Rock Cha-Cha-Cha and this is our hip twist position. You should feel some tension around here, that gets released a moment later when we go into our next step. We'll feel a switch again before we take our next walk, this will be past our leader, left foot first, then right foot, then we'll be guided to switch again on the spot, before doing a left-a-left backwards into our fan position.
Ian: So, if we have a look at how all that works together, just for now focusing on the feet, you will see as the lead moves to the left, we swivel the follow around they step back. We now have no weight on our inner feet the ones closest together, we rock back without turning our frame just yet, but now I'm going to encourage the follow to stay outside of me as we do our chasse portion Four-and-One. At this point I'm going to step back and encourage the follow to turn and walk across, two. I rock, my follow keeps walking, three. We allow that three step to happen, then encourage them to turn before taking Four-and-One.
[Demonstration with counts]
[Demonstration with music]
Ian: And there you have it, the Closed Hip Twist in Cha Cha. The Rumba version is very similar, but of course does not have the Cha chasse, we will cover that in a later Blitz, and do watch out for that upcoming Alemana alternative endings video to give you a little bit more, more of an option of how to get into that position. Keep it nice and calm, don't rush through it, don't wrench through it, just take every step. Don't forget to dance all the steps, but put them in their right place, don't dance them too late or too soon. Once you get the basics down we can cover all sorts of other exciting things like Twist Chasses, and Ronde Chasses, and timing nuances, to make it look a little bit more spicy. But for now, get those basics down, try it out on the floor, let us know how you go, and we will see you in the next one.
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