Premovement

Premovement can be considered a bit of an advanced fundamental. It’s something that is very important to zouk, but for beginners it can be a lot to think about. For this reason, we recommend if you are new to zouk to simply give this a brief read-over so you can become familiar with it, maybe drill it at home, but don’t try to incorporate it into your dance until you have the mental bandwidth to do so.

Premovement is fundamentally the extension of the leg before shifting your body over the weight. In many popular social dances, you “fall” on the weight. This means you begin to shift your weight as your foot moves to the next position. When your foot arrives, your weight lands with it. This can be exaggerated as a kind of “stomp”.

If you stand in one spot with your weight on your left foot and bend your knee slightly into a SinkSinkA lower level achieved by bending the knees, often used in conjunction with premovement. Part of Levels, the other foot - the right foot - can then be extended out sliding gracefully near or touching the floor in front of you.

How to do Premovement:

1. Start in a neutral position with your weight on your left foot.
2. Bend your knees slightly into a SinkSinkA lower level achieved by bending the knees, often used in conjunction with premovement. Part of Levels.
3. As you do so, extend your right foot out in front of you, sliding it along the floor until it reaches the desired position. At this point, your extending leg is generally straight.

At the end, you should have your weight still on the bent leg, but with your other leg sticking out in front of you.

Premovement can be used for any direction. You can do premovement with weight on either leg, and extend your free leg in front of you, to the side, or to the back.

Normally, after you do premovement, you move your weight over to the foot that you just extended. This is known as ProjectionProjection StepA step that generates or continues momentum in a direction with energy on the ball of the foot. Part of Stepping and will be discussed later.

Why do we do Premovement?

Premovement accomplishes a few things:

1. It gives the lead and follow a chance to negotiate the direction of their next move together rather than guessing where they are going. By doing premovement slightly before the moment where the weight shift happens, as a lead you have time to communicate your intention, and as a follow you have time to prepare for the direction of the weight shift. Without this, the projection step would be jerky and surprising. Not zouky!
2. The dropped level in premovement allows the lead to get lower to the ground before the weight shift, which indicates to the follow that something is about to happen.
3. It feels nice and easy, rather than quick and panicky.

Premovement is important for Lead/Follow ConnectionLead/Follow ConnectionThe foundational connection between leader and follower., which is of course a pillar of zouk.

When to do Premovement

Premovement is normally done before the Projection StepProjection StepA step that generates or continues momentum in a direction with energy on the ball of the foot. Part of Stepping, which we’ll go into later. However, if you think about what premovement really is, it’s essentially a step without a weight shift that’s taken when the level is lowered, and that’s what ties into for example counterbalances or PlanadaPlanada. These are moves which involve intentionally lowering the level, creating a small indication as to which way to go, and then sending a foot out in that direction. This foot is essentially a premovement, but in these movements, you don’t actually move to that spot. More on that later.

Point is - premovement isn’t used just for the projection step. The lowering of the level leading to the premovement can be used in different kinds of moves with musicality.