🎯 Poise
Poise is the location of your Center of Gravity (COG) over your Center of Support (COS) — i.e., your standing foot.
That’s it. It's not mysterious and it's not a style choice, it's the foundation of your dancing. If your 'poise' is off everything else won't work as well. Given it's importance it's surprising that seldom taught.
**Good Dancers understand what 'poise' is and how to use it.
Your Poise Zones
The simple view of Poise Zones is shown below:
You will see Front, Middle and Back Poise mentioned over and over again in these documents.
These three Poise Zones are further spit into:
👣 Poise in Practice
When your COG sits neatly within your COS, you’re balanced.
Where it sits — front, back, inside, outside — determines how much control or risk you have.
💃 Application of Poise Zones During Motion (i.e Travel)
-
Forward Travel:
Requires Back Poise, positioning the COG as far back over the 'Back Inner' zone as possible to allow the COG to travel through the Middle and the Front of the foot before a final push from the big toe. See 'How move Forwards' -
Backward Travel:
Requires Forward Poise, with the COG as far forward as possible over the Front Inner zone to allow the COG to travel through the Middle and the Back of the foot. See 'How move Backwards' -
Side Travel:
Uses Middle Poise, aligning the COG over inner zones Front Inner, Middle Inner and Back Inner to maximize lateral COS for the push require for side travel. But, but don't we move to the left and to the right irrespective of what foot we are standing on? Or do we? If we are standing on our Right Foot we can push ourselves to the left from the Inner zones of the Right foot. But since the outer zones are relatively weak we hardly ever: -- Move to the right when we are standing on the right foot, -- Move to the left when we are standing on the left foot.
Well ok, we can but it's probably going to involve falling in some manner. Ouch!
🧘♂️ How Do We Achieve Poise?
No mystery. No magic. Just physics and a little body awareness.
Here’s how to find poise — right now, without taking a step:
- Stand with your feet together (as in actually touching, look down to check :)
- Do NOT lean, keep your back straight!!
- Bend your knees slightly
So that your hip can move forward and backwards - Move your hips slowly forward and backward
Keep your hips parallel to the floor, and shift them over the length of your standing foot.
This helps you feel where your Center of Gravity (COG) moves — and where it starts to tip too far in any direction.
-
Forward Poise Stand comfortably with knees slightly bent. Move your hips forward until you can feel your weight getting further and further to your toes. The point where you are about to fall forwards is the very front of 'Front Poise'. You should feel all of your weight (that's your COG) on your big toe (it's not scary as the other toes will be helping too).
-
Back Poise Stand comfortably with knees slightly bent. Move your hips backward until you can feel your weight getting further and further to the back of your heel. The point where you are about to fall backwards is the very back of 'Back Poise'. You should feel all of your weight (that's your COG) on your heel bone.
-
Middle Poise Stand comfortably with knees slightly bent. Move your hips backward and forward until you can feel your weight (that's your COG) equally on the ball of your foot and the heel bone. That is Middle Poise which technically is the position where the ankle joins the foot.
as you can see from the diagram below this is very subtle and the travel length is literally your shoe size
You really, really should learn more about the Poise Zones, but if you want to progress quicker, we can look at The Ballroom Dance Frame
Dive Deep into Poise Zones
You don't have to go here but it will give you a better understanding of your foot. Go on, jump in...
Mastering poise doesn’t mean locking yourself in place.
It means knowing where your balance lives — and how to move it on purpose.