Perfecting Pirouettes (or Learning to do the Same Old Thing at Last, Maybe)

Every once in a while you come across a tip or coaching suggestion that makes a lightbulb go off.

It’s why taking classes with different instructors can be so helpful. The good coaches all say basically the same thing, because the mechanics of our bodies don’t change much – leaving aside accommodations due, for example, to injury. However, they say the same thing in different ways.

My dance teachers have all talked about being nice and vertical, using my head to spot when spinning, engaging my core, and not flinging my arms around in a vain attempt to spin faster. More than 20 years of lessons; at least 10 different teachers, all of them very good at what they do. And yet I still struggle with pirouettes.

Doing a good pirouette is a trick I don’t really need in my skill set to enjoy dancing, but it is probably the equivalent of being able to lift a certain weight, or run a particular distance or do so in a goal time. It doesn’t matter that the teachers all say pirouettes are a life-long challenge for everyone: I want to be able to do them consistently.

My lightbulb moments over the past few weeks have come from short videos by a few on-line dance teachers.

1. Engage my lats (my newly-discovered muscles following months of physiotherapy to address shoulder issues, but also the muscles that teachers have talked about for years as part of my smooth strong back)
2. Hold my turning arm in front of my body, not behind it (aka don’t fling my arms around in a vain attempt to spin faster)
3. Think “up up up” (I have written about this before)
4. Pausing for a moment before landing (one teacher has his kids snap their fingers to get them to hold that beautiful moment of completed spin an instant longer)
5. Once shoulders are wide and the lats engaged, squeeze the front of your chest in and up (what my very first teacher called my elevator muscles – close the door and send it to the top floor).

None of this is new to me, exactly. What is new is my enthusiasm for trying to do five pirouettes on each side every day, to consolidate the muscle memory I am trying to develop thanks to this new way of understanding what my teachers have been asking me to do for literally decades.

I told my current teacher about this goal and her response was YES! Because consistent practice is what will make your work better. Add that to my list of things I knew but needed to hear in a different way.