What Is Rise and Fall in Ballroom Dancing? A Complete Guide

Rise and fall is one of ballroom dancing's most beautiful techniques—and one of the most confusing for beginners. You will hear an instructor say "rise at the end of the first beat" or "you are lowering too late," and without knowing what is supposed to rise, or when, you are left guessing.

This guide breaks rise and fall into its physical parts, times it against the figure charts, and names the dances that use it differently—including the one Standard dance that does not use it at all.

What Rise and Fall Actually Is

Rise and fall is the vertical movement of the body as you travel across the floor. It is not a jump, a bounce or a pop. It is a controlled extension and compression of the legs and body that lets you swing from one step to the next instead of stepping flat.

Two distinct things rise, and conflating them is the single most common source of confusion:

Body rise is extension through the legs, spine and frame. The knees straighten, the body lengthens upward. Body rise can happen whether or not the heels leave the floor.

Foot rise is the heel leaving the floor so that the weight travels onto the ball of the foot, and in full rise onto the toes. It is an action you take, not a by-product of standing tall.

Fall—more precisely lowering—is the controlled return: the knee flexes, the heel comes down, and the body settles ready for the next step. Rise without a planned lowering is what makes dancers look stuck up on their toes.

Because body rise and foot rise are separate, a figure can have one without the other. That is exactly what the term "no foot rise" describes, and it is covered below.

Rise and Fall Across the Standard Dances

The five International Standard dances do not treat rise and fall alike. Competition tempi below are as published in the DVIDA International Standard Bronze "Musical Information Chart" (Intro vol. p.27, ©2013), which states them as the official NDCA competition tempi; they are the figures held in this site's own dance register.

Waltz — 84 BPM, 28 measures per minute

Waltz carries the most continuous rise and fall, and it is the dance where the timing is most often taught wrong.

On the Natural and Reverse Turns, the Standard charts time it like this:

• Beat 1: step, and the rise commences at the end of the beat—not on it. The body is at its lowest as the step is taken.
• Beats 2 and 3: rise continues. This is the swing.
• End of beat 3: lower. The lowering happens inside the measure, at the end of the third beat, so you arrive at the next step 1 already down and ready to swing again.

That last point is where beginners lose the dance. If you treat the lowering as something that happens after the bar, as the next measure begins, you are a full beat late on every measure you dance, and no amount of practice will make it swing. Lower at the end of 3.

Footwork on step 1 is not the same forward and back:

• Forward: heel, then flat—a heel lead.
• Backward: toe, then heel. A backward step does not have a heel lead. "Step back, heel leading" is not footwork in any Standard syllabus, and removing it from a new dancer is a term's work for a teacher.

Most Waltz figures carry rise, but "every measure must rise and fall" is not a rule you can dance from—the chart for the figure you are actually dancing is the authority, and the charts list figures and part-figures that carry no foot rise.

Tango — 128 BPM, 32 measures per minute: no rise and fall

Tango is the Standard dance with no rise and fall. It is danced with the feet staying into the floor, the knees softly flexed, and a stalking, staccato action instead of swing. There is no foot rise to time and no swing to lower out of.

This is the most useful single fact on this page, and it is the one most rise-and-fall articles leave out. Rise and fall is not universal in ballroom. Four of the five Standard dances swing; Tango does not. If you carry Waltz's rise into Tango, the dance stops looking like Tango at all.

Foxtrot — 112–120 BPM, 28–30 measures per minute

Foxtrot's rise is selective rather than continuous, which is why it is harder than Waltz to learn and easier to fake badly.

Foxtrot is the home of no foot rise (NFR): steps on which the body rises through leg and frame extension while the heel stays in contact with the floor. It is what gives Foxtrot its level, gliding travel instead of Waltz's visible undulation. The Feather Step is the figure every syllabus uses to teach it—no foot rise, body rise only.

Beyond that, do not take beat-by-beat rise timings from an article—including this one. ISTD, IDTA and DVIDA chart the same Foxtrot figures with wording that differs in detail, so the right answer for a Three-Step or a Natural Turn is the chart for your syllabus, read figure by figure. The principle to carry in is that Foxtrot rise is prescribed per figure, not applied continuously.

Quickstep — 192–208 BPM, 48–52 measures per minute

Quickstep is the fastest of the Standard dances, and the tempo is the technical problem. At roughly 200 BPM you may rise and lower more than once inside a measure, and the actions have to be crisp rather than luxurious.

The principle is Waltz's, compressed: rise through the swinging figures, lower in time to take the next step down. A late lowering does not merely look wrong, it steals the time for everything after it—which is why Quickstep punishes sloppy timing faster than any other Standard dance.

Viennese Waltz — 168–174 BPM, 56–58 measures per minute

Viennese Waltz has rise and fall, but at twice Waltz's measure rate there is no time for the slow, built swing of Waltz. The rise is slight and continuous, and the dance's character comes from rotation and sway rather than from a tall, visible rise. Dancers arriving from Waltz routinely try to rise as much as they do at 28 measures per minute and lose the turn.

Common Rise and Fall Mistakes

Rising Too Early

Dancers rise as the foot is placed instead of at the end of the step.

Why it matters: it breaks the swing and puts you ahead of the music.

The fix: in Waltz, rise commences at the end of beat 1 and peaks through 2 and 3. Place the step low, then rise.

Lowering Late

The mirror-image error, and the more damaging one: holding the rise over the bar line instead of lowering at the end of beat 3.

The fix: make the lowering as deliberate as the rise. Count the lowering, not just the rise.

Rising Too Much

Rise driven from the ankles alone reads as bouncing.

The fix: rise comes from extension through the whole leg and body. The heels leaving the floor is the end of that action, not the cause of it.

Giving a Backward Step a Heel Lead

Covered above because it matters: forward is heel lead, backward is toe then heel.

Dancing Foxtrot Like Waltz

Applying continuous rise and fall to every Foxtrot step.

The fix: learn which of your figures carry foot rise and which are no foot rise, from your syllabus chart.

Dancing Tango With Rise

If your Tango swings, the character is gone. Feet into the floor, knees soft, no rise.

Losing the Frame During Rise

As you rise, the arms drift and the posture collapses.

The fix: rise is controlled by the legs and core, not the arms. The frame should be unchanged at the top of the rise and at the bottom of the lowering.

How to Practise Rise and Fall

1. Alone, with a mirror. Dance the basic figure slowly, watching only the vertical. Does the body travel up and down smoothly, or in steps? Say the timing out loud—"low, rise, rise, lower"—so the lowering is counted rather than forgotten.

2. Slow tempo, then build. Practise at half tempo to feel the full range, then return to tempo. For Waltz, a metronome at 84 BPM matches the competition figure above.

3. In frame with a partner. Your partner should feel the rise and the lowering through the frame. If they cannot tell when you are lowering, it is not clear yet.

4. On camera. Record from the side, where vertical movement is visible, and compare the moment you lower with the end of the third beat in the music.

5. Against the chart. For each figure you dance, read the rise and footwork column in your own syllabus. This is the step that separates dancers who know their technique from dancers who are copying.

The Aesthetic Goal

At its best, rise and fall is invisible: the dancers appear to travel level while the body swings underneath, and the audience sees only the travel. That appearance is the product of precise timing—rise commenced late in the beat, lowering completed inside the measure—repeated without variation for the length of the dance.

Sources and Further Reading

The technique above is International Standard technique as charted in the standard reference works, which are held in this site's library: Alex Moore, The Revised Technique (6th ed. 1962; 8th ed. 1976; 9th ed. 1977) and Ballroom Dancing; Frank Borrows, The Revised Technique of Modern Ballroom Dancing Explained (1950); and the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing's own instructional titles. Where ISTD, IDTA and DVIDA differ in the wording of a figure, this page says so rather than picking one silently.

All tempi on this page: DVIDA International Standard Bronze, "Musical Information Chart", Intro vol. p.27, ©2013, stated there as the official NDCA competition tempi.

Related reading:

• Anatomy of a Dance Lesson — how teachers break down technique
• Ballroom Dance Music Structure — the musical phrasing that rise and fall is timed against
• A Brief History of the Tango — the Standard dance that does without rise and fall