Yeah that's what I was going to say body, body, BODY haha... I have a clip from a few years ago where my body is doing the exact same thing as yours. It's the I want to groove yet look wavey flexible type deal. Here's what I learned after wasting an assload of time with this problem.
Floats and glides may solve some of your footwork problems, but they will not solve your problems you're having with your body. Things will still look off. Here's what I realized after years of heartache. I wish I'd known then what I know now... I wasted so much time. There are two ways that I've learned, and still work on, to properly fix the problem we all have behind our arms and hands.
1. Dance with a groove. Usually the way this advice is dished out is stop doing liquid and learn how to dance. Err where do I start? That's what my question was. So I wasted two years coming up with an answer that applied to the dance we're actually doing. I call it the metronome technique. In reality it's just an idea to help you establish a groove with the music. You can read my full rant about it in the dance philosophy section. I also have a short non-helpful tutorial on my youtube page.
2. Dance from a place of stillness. WTF? You stand with a nice posture and don't move while you do liquid. A lot harder than it sounds. When you actually do move you use body isolations. A good way to learn is the robot. You can actually switch from clean pose to clean pose also. Check out the clip of sifi and justin doing liquid in Melbourne, that's a top notch example. You want to look wavey, this is counterintuitive, but dance standing still using sequenced isolations aka waving. That's the hard way to do it. Look at belly dancers like Rachael Brice for inspiration, don't look at me haha.
Other big problem that you should fix is your leg placement. You over-move, as I call it, swinging your legs out into wide sloppy stances. I used to to do this all the time. Taller lankier dancers seem to have this problem a lot. Shorten the space between movements, it'll be tough at first. Don't be afraid to be still and not move. That'll go against a lot of dance philosophy you've probably heard. But being still allows you to isolate correctly for the audience.
You had some really great ideas in there that I would like to see cleanly presented. Remember make a clear decision and execute it. Dance with a groove or dance from a place of stillness. Do not combine them. If you want to look wavey when you dance stand still and isolate. Head, neck, chest, torso, hips, knees (extremely overlooked but adds so much), feet (think swivels).
