There's No Foot Rise in Bronze — Wrong, There Has to Be

This old chestnut is still served up by some studios. Let’s be blunt: it’s not biomechanics — it’s a revenue-generation scheme.

There absolutely is foot rise in Standard and Smooth dances at the Bronze level.
Without it, there can be no sway, no inertial control, and no ability to manage balance or momentum.
In short: bad physics, bad dancing, and a bad experience for your partner. Ew.

🔍 How This Works

Let’s assume we’re talking about Smooth Waltz:

• The studio or teacher decides to omit foot rise and fall, claiming “you don’t need it at Bronze.”
  This makes teaching easier, sure — because it leaves out essential technique.
  (It’s not like the students will notice… right?)

• Sway is then taught as “something you do” instead of a byproduct of motion and rise.
  Result: broken sway and unhappy partners.

• Dancing continues… until one day:

🗣️ “We want to move up to Silver!”

But suddenly: Oh dear. That’ll require Rise and Fall… and sway… and posture control…

Which leads to:

💸 Result: More Sales

The students must now buy more lessons to learn the very things that were intentionally left out.

If they had been taught correctly from the start, they wouldn’t be:

• Enduring frustration
• Wasting time
• Paying again for things they already paid to learn

😤 Got One of Your Own?

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