[Tango-L] Forward Step By Lady

[Alexis Cousein]

Tony Rathburn wrote:
> 
> Extending your unweighted foot in any direction, and then transferring your weight over it, is one option.

But there is a fundamental difference when you *lead*. You don't just extend your foot and then
brutally transfer your weight. You're leading, and the lead is an invite to step forward
for the lady. The timing is not arbitrary.

There's a fundamental point: for the lady, the foot movement is necessarily an
*effect* of an invite, given she follows. And as you can't have the same
timing for leader and follower if you reverse cause and effect,
the leader's foot also moves as an *effect* of the lead (which is usually a
COG movement, not hand signals or subtle winking).

What are you going to do? Stand there first with leg extended like a sitting duck,
until the lady has accepted the invitation to step forward and has started
moving her foot, so that you can coordinate your COG movement but *un*coordinate
the foot movement?

Yeah, that's going to look graceful (it's an emphatic adorno, you don't do this
by default)....but you're all free to do whatever you want - after all, it's
your free leg by the time you're ready to move in this step.

But don't count on the same leniency from me if you mess up the timing of the
lead and still wrestle to finish it all in one time, which is also
invariably what happens when you ask someone else to do just what you advocated.