Ladies, ladies, ladies. What. Are. You. Doing.
No. It's not a question. Because I know what you're doing.
But you are doing it wrong and you are hurting me. And yourself.
Gah. She is so lovely. Of course you want to look like this.
But doing this…
Or some HORRIBLE combination of the two will not get you there.
"What's so bad about the first one?" you might ask.
This one is a little hard to see unless the dancers are in motion, but when the boy steps away from the girl, we see this…
Yes, you should look to the left… of your partner. That's it.
Try this…
Put your arms in front of you in a V, 45 degrees from the parallel floor and yourself.
Now look to your left hand. That's enough. Really.
As for example #2, do I really need to tell you that doing nice poise doesn't mean bending over backward?
"Nice poise" for ladies does not mean "bend over backward".
There. I told you. Just in case you needed it.
I'll even tell you why it's terrible, besides the painfulness of it: you're pushing yourself against the guy (probably balancing on him) which makes it harder for him to take a decent step; you've already stretched your hips past neutral which means you can't take a very big step back.
Basically, you've made you and your partner dance like Frankenstein. Neat.
Please pleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease please just stand up over your own feet.
Notice the vertical line between the girl's shoulders, hips, and feet? That's a good thing!
Now, even though she is still not wearing shoes, this partnership will be able to move with ease across the dance floor.
Because they are both standing up over their own damn feet.
Note to advanced dancers: of course I did not give the whole story on lady's poise here, today, in this post. Just thinking about having to go into counterbalancing and connection and tone through the frame and the man's job and how to put it into words and take all the pictures made my head hurt. Literally.
[Literally, by the way, means "it actually happened". Figuratively means "I am totally over-exaggerating". So when you say "my head literally exploded", I'm trying to figure out how you're telling the story without a head.]
Riot and Frolic 
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