Thread: Putting Your Weight in Your Heels

I was told by my first teacher (7 years ago) to put all my weight in my heels when I dance and I've been doing it ever since. Until recently, when I discovered that this bad habit is responsible for the lower back pain I've been suffering from for 7 years.

Granted, I do have high arches and weird turned out feet and that may be contributing to the back pain but I've been trying to spread my weight evenly and a bit more forward and this has helped the pain.

Was anyone else told this about putting your weight in your heels? I'm wondering where this notion came from.

From my experience, putting your weight in your heels is a tribal posture. I feel it is more beneficial to distribute your weight throughout your feet.

Well, that might explain it. My first teacher was tribal-ish.

Tribal posture or not, I'm not doing it anymore. Tired of the back pain and tired of feeling strangely off-balance.

For oriental/cabaret dance, your weight should be forward.

My weight changes depending on the movement, but generally, I find that the weight should default to the center of your foot, over the arches. From there, you can move your weight forward over your toes or back over your heels as needed.

Originally Posted by tamrahennatx

My weight changes depending on the movement, but generally, I find that the weight should default to the center of your foot, over the arches. From there, you can move your weight forward over your toes or back over your heels as needed.

Yes! Because it's all a matter of what you are expressing from the music.

If I'm dancing to heavy, earthy music, I'm not gonna be up on my toes doing arabesques with little fairy wings tied to my back . . .

Deborah

really? weight on your heels?
weight on the whole of the foot, flat on the floor, with center of balance towards the middle -- yes
but weight full on your heels??

Most of the time, weight should be on the feet anywhere from the arch area to the ball, with posture in neutral or somewhat forward position. Weight can be on the heels for certain folkloric or tribal or otherwise earthy movements (example: anything done while leaning back) or for percussive accents (example: drop onto the heel only for a beat). Keeping your heels on the floor at ALL times limits your movements and may have helped cause back problems. BTW, you don't have to be up on your "tippy toes" to have the weight on the ball of the foot. You can appear to have your heels on the floor, but in reality have your weight on the balls of your feet with your heels very close to the floor.

i tend to keep my weight forward on the balls of my foot but it depends on the move. i'm rarely completely flat foot

what about when you shimmy. Celeste says heels on Turbo Shimmy

My weight moves shifts around my feet depending on which particular move or combination I am practicing at the time. On the whole though, the default tends to be toward the balls of my feet.

I do put the weight more into the heels on the backwards 1/4 of a hip circle, If I do a heel bounce accent (bit of a no-brainer, that one ) and on some shimmys, depending on exactly what sort of shimmy they are and the quality I am looking to produce.

I'd say that my weight does go into my heels from time to time, but only for a limited portfolio of moves. The rest of the time its much more forward (arch, ball, toes )

Originally Posted by annela

From my experience, putting your weight in your heels is a tribal posture. I feel it is more beneficial to distribute your weight throughout your feet.

I'm wondering what your information is on this. Out of all of my tribal studies, I've never had a teacher instruct me to put the weight in the heels and I've never taught it this way. Tribal posture has the weight pretty much even throughout the feet and occasionally more towards the balls of the feet than anything. Some moves are done entirely in releve.

Pulling the weight back into the heels causes the entire body to lean back slightly, pulling the dancer away from the audience in effect and negating the very strong flamenco-esque forward lift that's supposed to be present in the ribcage of the tribal dancer.

Originally Posted by Kathiya

really? weight on your heels?
weight on the whole of the foot, flat on the floor, with center of balance towards the middle -- yes
but weight full on your heels??

Yep. She said that if we were having trouble keeping the weight in our heels than we should lift up our toes as we drill or dance or what have you.

My first teacher was self-taught tribal. She never had a tribal teacher; there weren't any in our city at the time. She studied the Fat Chance videos and taught from those. I didn't mean to imply that the weight in your heels dictum is a tribal thing.

Originally Posted by Albertina

My first teacher was self-taught tribal. She never had a tribal teacher; there weren't any in our city at the time. She studied the Fat Chance videos and taught from those. I didn't mean to imply that the weight in your heels dictum is a tribal thing.

Fair enough, and I didn't mean to imply that *no* tribal teachers teach that way, just that it's not the norm, based on my own experience with tribal. I have heard of teachers telling students to lift their toes, but as a way to keep them from pushing the toes into the floor and keep the weight more on the ball and heel (together) of the foot. You can actually lift those toes and still keep most of the weight on the balls of the feet in fact. It's not easy, but it can be done (yes... I did just stand up and experiment with this.... interesting feeling for sure!).

My tribal teacher likes to emphasize keeping our weight distributed evenly in our feet. The way she does this is, as we're drilling, she'll ask us to try lifting our toes off the ground. If we can lift our toes while we're squatting or if we can lift our toes while we're drilling chest lifts without losing our balance, then we're not gripping the floor with our toes and our weight is distributed evenly.

Try it next time you're doing anything that doesn't involve moving around, like piston hips or chest drills.

And if you continue to have persistent back or leg pain, if you haven't already, I suggest talking to a chiropractor or a pediotrist, who can help with your wonky alignment.

I'm so sorry you've had pain as a result of technique you were taught! It's soooo hard to unlearn habits once you've practiced and ingrained them. Good job figuring out what was causing the problem, though -- hopefully in time to fix it before your back is wrecked!

I have one teacher who says to put weight in the heels for a shimmy, and it does help when I want a nice, slow, big, counted-time piston shimmy. (my hips sometimes want to go into turbo speed against my will).

During sustained drum solo shimmies, as the texture of the drum solo changes I'll change my weight around. Forward for an Egyptian (Raqia-type) shimmy, then as the drums deepen, leaning back into the heels and 'sitting' into a piston shimmy as a 'special effect.'

Here I drop my weight into my heels (and increase the bend in my knees) just for a moment at :20, you can see how it changes the 'character' of the shimmy:
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0-6cTnZAwg]YouTube - John B Drum solo[/ame]

I hate using myself as an example of anything, but it's the only clip where I *know* for sure what the dancer is doing with her weight - LOL! I think Fifi transitions her weight during sustained shimmies, too.

Wow. Your weight should be distributed based on the movement you are aiming for. i teach my students even foot weighting for basic dance posture, forward weighting for most "lyrical" movement, arabesques, Egyptian (straight-leg) shimmies, etc... and heel weighting for hip shimmies (fast up & down, whatever you want to call it). Everything else is even foot weighting.

How do you turn with weight in your heels? Doesn't it throw your balance off?

Yes, it definitely throws my balance off whenever I forget and lapse back into my old posture. It's a bummer but what are you gonna do? Live and learn.

Thank you, ladies, for all your help with this!

Originally Posted by Sonja2

How do you turn with weight in your heels? Doesn't it throw your balance off?

Like this? Check out the first two turns, especially. This is Dina's signature turn. I personally CAN'T do it, it throws my balance off terribly!

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnJrQt3ZH6E]YouTube - Dina dancing to Om Kalthoum[/ame]

I generally distribute my weight across the full foot, from front to back. Of course, this will vary depending on the move. For example, if I'm doing something involving a pivot such as a half-turn, I shift my weight to the ball of the foot for that. I can't think of an example of a move offhand that involves weight on the heels, but I'm sure there are certain moves that do use it.

This is how I do it:
put all your weight on on side .say left foot, turning to the left:
shift to the left- all the way as much as you can with out falling over
have arms out to the right, move arm to the left quickly
when arms hit left follow arms with uper body around in cricle
arms arrive frist

ps; 1. dont shift weight from right to left, alot of time people use the momentum in shifting weight to make a turn
2. arms make a circle around the body
3. pick you right foot up off the ground
hope this helps

Originally Posted by Lauren_

Like this? Check out the first two turns, especially. This is Dina's signature turn. I personally CAN'T do it, it throws my balance off terribly!

YouTube - Dina dancing to Om Kalthoum

Thanks, Toria! I was able to get a nice smooth half-turn doing it that way, if I keep working maybe I can go all the way around!

Originally Posted by *Shira*

I generally distribute my weight across the full foot, from front to back. Of course, this will vary depending on the move. For example, if I'm doing something involving a pivot such as a half-turn, I shift my weight to the ball of the foot for that. I can't think of an example of a move offhand that involves weight on the heels, but I'm sure there are certain moves that do use it.

I know that when I posted above, I couldn't think of anything (other than what I call a "hip hop" turn that Lauren asked about and Toria answered) where the weight was specifically on the heels; it was more a flat-footed, distributed weight I was thinking of, with the weight shifting as necessary . . .

Hmmmmm . . . back in the good ol' days of gigantic twisting shimmies, I recall feeling a bit like the weight was slightly to the back, kinda like digging in one's heels so that the hips made all the action and the heels stayed on the floor. Does that date me or what? .w.:

Deborah

At the last workshop I took Hadia, she clarified the difference in two shimmies this way (more or less) ... a thigh shimmy is done with your weight more forward/on the ball of the foot; you sit back onto your heels to change the movement into a hip (side-to-side) shimmy. I'd been doing it, but not really thinking about it until she mentioned it.

I was just thinking about this thread last night! I was watching Ariellah's yoga and bellydance drills DVD for the first time, and she very clearly and repeatedly said to put the weight in the heels. So there's at least one tribal-fusion teacher who does it that way.

Originally Posted by Kalirah

At the last workshop I took Hadia, she clarified the difference in two shimmies this way (more or less) ... a thigh shimmy is done with your weight more forward/on the ball of the foot; you sit back onto your heels to change the movement into a hip (side-to-side) shimmy. I'd been doing it, but not really thinking about it until she mentioned it.

I shift from ball to heal for these the same way as well.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

I was just thinking about this thread last night! I was watching Ariellah's yoga and bellydance drills DVD for the first time, and she very clearly and repeatedly said to put the weight in the heels. So there's at least one tribal-fusion teacher who does it that way.

Actually, I *just* took a workshop with another instructor who said the same... maybe it's a newer trend, maybe not. I don't think I ever said that there are no tribal teachers who teach weight in the heels. I'd just never experienced one who did until last week.

In this case, the "weight in the heels" instruction was specifically for a loose, slow shimmy using the glutes and/or obliques (the drill used both). Maybe it's just that I've danced too long with the weight not in my heels for it to be comfortable now. I keep my weight even in my shimmies. I find it hard not to "lean away" from the audience when I shift my weight into the heels.

Originally Posted by mihri

Actually, I *just* took a workshop with another instructor who said the same... maybe it's a newer trend, maybe not. I don't think I ever said that there are no tribal teachers who teach weight in the heels.

No, of course not -- sorry if we made it sound like you did. I think sometimes those of who are less familiar with tribal forget that there's a variety of technique and styles going on in the form, or even if we know it we forget to acknowledge it in our posts.

But maybe it's part of one school of technique, and that school is a tribal one? Kinda like saying the Raqia knee shimmy is part of one school of technique within the 'Egyptian' umbrella. You can say 'It's an Egyptian thing' because it's primarily dancers who identify themselves as Egyptian style who use it/teach it -- but that doesn't mean all (or even most) Egyptian dancers use it.

Semantics... I know. But people so HATE to be lumped together with technique that isn't their own, and that's what happens when we just say 'it's a tribal thing' or 'it's an Egyptian thing.'

(ok, now I'm just thinking out loud while I drink my coffee...ignore my fascination with language and move on...)