ahhhh footwork!! is so!!! important!!!! to me it's what separates a dancer from someone who dances you know??

part of the reason i think footwork is so important is because we as humans are much more used to using our hands in a variety of ways? so often people get upper body moves down quicker/easier/more exact. they also know that if someone's looking at them as idols, they're probably not looking at the feet, they're looking toward the face. so people are just really less likely to notice if your feet are not in the right position!

that said, footwork is actually central to all parts of dance, and often times you have no idea how badly it can mess you up if your feet aren't in the right position. in the behind for mayfly stage, lino goes over a move with innie that he keeps messing up, and the reason he keeps messing up is because his weight is held incorrectly. it's been a while since i watched so i can't remember if he was starting on the wrong foot or if he just had his weight on the wrong foot, but basically, in order to do complex/quick movements, you need momentum. if your feet are positioned incorrectly, you can stunt/lose your momentum at a pivotal moment and knock yourself out of rhythm altogether. ahhh it's hard to explain bc it's something you can feel easier than imagining it, but momentum needs to be coordinated throughout your entire body when performing a dance routine. each move is chosen carefully to flow from the last and into the next, not just visually but in the dancer's body!! footwork is also so so important for balance like it's soooo hard not to fall over unless you pay attention to your feet

if you look at lino's feet during maniac, he has them in fifth position for every single turn, switching which foot is forward as he spins. this keeps his spin stable even though his feet are tightly together and helps make sure he's not wobbling when he does the turn. the others who do this most consistently are changbin and felix, with hyunjin a little behind them, and these are also all the members who have stable turns consistently!

in chaconne, enhypen do some of the most complex and lovely footwork i've ever seen from kpop. there's multiple times where not only are they doing footwork, but that's all they do, and the footwork is the focal point of the move itself. i loooove that. they also do really precise step synchronization by wearing tap shoes during practice so they can hear when their feet fall and make sure they're in sync!! so if you watch them dance, their feet often look exactly the same, which is not something i can say for the majority of idol groups i watch.

the easy footwork is cool to me because it's fast and difficult, it should by all rights be choppy, but it ends up flowing smoothly... chaewon especially is just so good at making these moves look natural even though they're hard! but you need a lot of precise footwork for the song and with less members you can't exactly hide if someone messes up, so it's really cool to see them pull off the formations they used with that level of specificity, i really liked it!