Fundamentals concept

Stepping

The basics of weight transfer and foot placement — how to step with intention and control.

Prerequisites

The different kinds of steps are fundamental to zouk. As we’ve quickly gone over in Music & Rhythm, we generally have three different kinds of steps that have slightly different meaning. Understanding these will allow you to embody the fluid and zouky feeling that we love.

Projection: Continuing or generating momentum to reach another step.
Control: A step that acts to absorb and redirect energy.
Ground: A step that anchors you back into the floor.

Let’s go into a bit more detail:

Brazilian Zouk Steps

Projection Step

Imagine you’re standing still and you start walking forward. How do you generate momentum to move forward? You push back with your back leg to create energy to step forward. In this sense you are projecting the weight of your body forward.

Projection generally implies a kind of intentionally and confident movement in a certain direction. Most of the time a projection comes from a state where you have no movement. If you are stepping on the spot and decide to go forward, you are projecting your weight forward.

Any subsequent step can also be considered a projection because you are continuing the energy of the previous step.

Normally in zouk, your projection steps land with the ball of your foot. This doesn’t mean your heel necessarily is off the ground - although it can be. It just means that the weight is not evenly distributed across your whole foot. Having the energy in the ball of your feet makes it much easier to manage and redirect the energy as needed.

To make this easier to associate in your body, we refer to this sometimes as the push part of the step.

Control Step

Imagine as you are walking you suddenly decide to stop walking. How does that work. You have forward energy in our example. You need to use your foot to absorb that forward energy into the ground. In this sense you are controlling the energy.

The control step is a specific step where the energy and momentum that you have created is absorbed into the ground.

As much as it is absorbative, it is also an opportunity for changing direction. For example, if you are walking forward, you can use a control step to change direction and walk backward. If you alternate walking forward and then backward, you’ll be able to get a feel for how the energy transfer works naturally. You can become more conscious of the difference between control and projection steps by creating more energy and momentum in your projections, which will necessite more absorbing in your control steps.

Because the control step generally involves complexity with redirection of energy and rotation, it is very important the energy is on the ball of the foot. If it is on the whole foot (or God forbid the heel), you will probably run into problems really fast.

Ground Step

In the ground step we are returning the energy directly into the ground. It can be considered a kind of “home” step where you come back to a kind of base and are connected to the ground. There is no rotation, no projection, no controlling. The weight is distributed among your entire foot.

Let’s go back to the walking analogy. So you’re walking forward and you’ve just landed on the control step - the left foot in this example - stopping the forward energy. There is a bit of “bounce back” that you might have, so your weight doesn’t necessarily finish on your left foot ultimately. Instead it, the control step kind of pushes you back and your weight shifts back to your right foot, which has been in the same spot the whole time. You can then into that step. This last one is the ground step.

You can think of the ground step as catching the “bounce back” of the control steps energy redirection.

Incorporating Premovement

In most common zouk moves the sequence is a repeating pattern of project - control - ground. You should be familiar now with how projection is created, control stops or redirects the energy, and ground is a resting step. Because this is a looping sequence, there is a necessary transition from ground back to projection. That’s where Premovement comes in. It’s kind of a bridge.

With premovement, right after the weight shift lands on the ground step and you are moving into a projection step, you first Sink into the ground, and then extend the free leg out to the desired spot. As you take the projection step by pushing against the ground, your level rises back to normal. So this level “dip” only occurs as you are extending the leg out for premovement, and then by the time you’ve projected your body forward, you’re Standing.

Weight Transfer

Awesomeness Warning! Understanding this will seriously level up your zouk. This is not taught elsewhere (as far as I know).

Mainstream zouk teaches boom chick chick steps. 1 beat for the whole boom, then a half beat for the other two. We went over this briefly in the Music & Rhythm concept. The idea is 1 beat for the projection step, then a half beat for the control and another half for the ground. This is very misleading, and no professional really dances in the way that a beginner would interpret these instructions, in my humble opinion.

Here at Bath Zouk we emphasise the importance of the and following a Projection Step, the first step of any boom chick chick, and redefine the meaning and purpose of the other beats. Because there are two ands, we at Bath Zouk prefer to use the full count 1, 2, 3, 4 over the half count 1, &, 2, & that is more popular. You should be able to count and dance in both times, however.

Boom ‘mah’ chick chick

Your should be thinking boom mah chick chick where the mah is equivalent to the 2 - the middle part between the 1 (boom) and 2 (first chick).

This means 1, 2, 3, 4 is the Red Phase, and 5, 6, 7, 8 is the Blue Phase. Each phase is one boom chick chick in the classic sense. The mah falls on the 2 and 6 - normally in zouk these are ignored completely.

The reason for this is as follows - let’s say you’re doing lead steps:

When the 1 strikes, you’re ready to go with your projection. Your weight is still mostly on your right foot, your premovement has found the place it needs to, and you’re ready to project with your 1. So on 1 you push off from your grounding step - the right foot - the one with the weight on it. Note this: On 1, your weight is on your right foot. But, at the same time, when you land on 3 for the first chick (Control Step), your weight is also on your right foot. Weird! How could it be that you did one step, but you started and ended with your weight on the same foot?

This is why the 2 (or and in half time) is so important to understand zouk movement. Because the placement of a foot and the weight transfer are decoupled.

Let’s say this in another way - again for lead: right before the 1, we initiate a Premovement by bringing the left foot to it’s intended spot. The premovement foot arrives at its target location on the 1, which happens to also be the moment you begin to start shifting weight to the left foot by pushing off the right leg. Note that this 1 is not when you actually shift weight to the left foot. 1 is not the moment your weight lands on the projecting premoved foot, it’s the moment you push off and begin creating that momentum which eventually becomes the weight shift.

This is lead timing - normally follow timing would be inversed, but the logic is the same.

Count	Sound	Step Type	Level	Description
`1`	”Boom”	Projection / Push	Sunk	Weight is still on the right, but you begin the projection which is transferring weight to the left foot by pushing off the ground with your grounded Sunk foot
`2`	”mah”	—	Standing	Weight is mostly on left foot and on its way to the right foot
`3`	”Chick”	Control	Standing	Weight arrives on the right (control) foot
`4`	”Chick”	Ground	Standing	Weight arrives on the left (ground) foot, Premovement begins as the right foot is extended to repeat the process with opposite feet. You begin to drop your level.

Note the importance of the 2 - that nobody talks about! But this makes everything connect. The classic way of teaching zouk gives the impression that you step - meaning shift your weight - landing with your left foot on the 1. If this were true, you would have to rush Premovement on previous chick (ground) to get the projection step ready on time, then do the projection really quickly to move your weight over your projection foot - all in a half beat! And this is what many beginners who are taught boom chick chick try to do.

But because in reality you are actually not transferring weight on 1, this means you have ample time within the previous chick and the 1 to prepare your premovement and lower your level.

Weight transfer in motion

It is important not to conflate weight transfer with your physical position over your two feet. If you are running forward and have a lot of momentum and you stick your foot out in front of you to stop your momentum, for a moment in time, your physical body is technically above your back foot, but because you are carrying forward momentum, all of your weight is on your front foot. Once that momentum dissipates, the weight falls back to your back foot.

So just because your body is physically over a certain foot, that doesn’t mean your weight is necessarily on that foot. If you were not in motion, it would be. But you need to factor in the momentum and energy that you are carrying into that position. This is important for the control step, and allows for fluidity especially with faster movement.

When music is fast, you take shorter steps, but if you move with a lot of energy, you will find that putting your whole body on top of the control foot is time consuming and clunky. You don’t need to do that! You can place your control foot in such a way that it captures all the energy and your weight without you needing to move your entire body over it.

Displacement

Displacement is changing the physical location on the dancefloor. If you do a spin on the spot, you are not displacing yourself. The projection step always has displacement. This may seem trivial but the terminology will become important once we start getting into Frame Theory, which is an advanced concept.

Red-Blue Feet

Because in zouk leads and follows are almost always stepping with opposite feet, we define these two terms to avoid the need to say “lead stepping with left and follow stepping with right”. Instead we say, “stepping with red foot”. Both the lead and follow interpret this as corresponding to opposite feet. We can then address steps as a collective.

Music Phase	Counts	Starting foot (premovement/projection)
🔴 Red Phase	`1, 2, 3, 4`	🔴 Red Foot (lead’s left, follow’s right)
🔵 Blue Phase	`5, 6, 7, 8`	🔵 Blue Foot (lead’s right, follow’s left)

For example, rather than saying left right left for leads and right left right for follows, we can simply now say blue red blue for all.

Red Foot

The red foot is the foot that is ready to go on the 1 of the rhythm, or the Red Phase. This follows from the idea of the So for leads, the red foot is the left foot. For follows, the red foot is the right foot.

Blue Foot

The blue foot is the foot that is ready to go on the 5 of the rhythm, or the Blue Phase. So for leads, the blue foot is the right foot. For follows, the blue foot is the left foot.

Leads to

Compass Step Lines Basic on the Spot

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