Pivots are a fundamental part of tango dancing, and a well performed pivot looks and feels wonderful. But let’s face it, pivots are challenging. We all know we need to work to develop our pivots, but what should we actually focus on? Here are two tips that can help.
Keep the foot and pelvis of our standing leg aligned. We want the foot and pelvis to turn at the same time and at the same speed. It is as if our standing leg and pelvis are in a cast and move as one unit. Another piece of imagery: you can think of headlights shining from your standing foot and the middle of your pelvis. You want these headlights to point in the same direction throughout the pivot. Keeping the foot and pelvis aligned will provide balance and minimize our chance of injury. We want to utilize the freedom in our hips, but we want the movement to happen in the free leg, not the standing leg. It is common for us to rotate in the hip joint of the standing leg without moving the foot. This reduces our stability and makes the pivot harder. More important though, moving the pelvis separate from the standing foot puts a lot of torque on our knee, ankle, and foot, which can cause pain or even injury. If you find yourself having a sore knee or ankle after dancing, there is a good chance that you are moving the hip and foot separately in your pivots. Focus on keeping your standing foot and pelvis aligned throughout the pivot and see if it helps.
The spiral in the upper body has a counter-spiral in the lower body. Finding the counter spiral through the floor helps provide balance, provides a feeling of groundedness, allows for more rotation in the upper body, and makes our pivots look more dynamic. As a concrete example, say we are doing a front ocho with the right foot so that we will turn in a clockwise direction. Our upper body goes in the same direction of the turn (left shoulder comes forward, right shoulder goes backwards). The rotation of our upper body puts a torque on our hips which will pull them clockwise as well. To counteract this torque, we twist our foot into the ground counterclockwise, sending energy towards our midline. The torques from the spiral in the upper body and the counter-spiral in the lower body cancel each other out to give us a steady pelvis. You should feel that the counter-spiral grounds you and allows you to twist the upper body more. You release this counter-spiral at the moment of the pivot, which should now feel has more ease and energy. The rule for the counter-spiral is to twist your foot into the midline in front ochos and away from the midline in back ochos.[1] We want to just counter-spiral enough to stabilize our hips, not so much that it starts to twist our knee.
The two tips (1) keeping the foot and pelvis of our standing leg aligned, and (2) finding the counter-spiral in the lower body should help with your pivots. Cleaner and more efficient pivots then help with all the other movements you want to do, opening up new possibilities in your dance.
[1] Some teachers use the terms disassociation when the shoulder opposite the standing leg comes forward, such as with a front ocho, and association when the same shoulder as the standing leg comes forward, such as with a back ocho. The more general rule is that the foot spirals towards the midline in disassociated pivots and spirals away from the midline in associated pivots. I first heard the terminology of disassociation and association from Gianpiero Galdi and Lorena Tarntino, though I am not sure whether they or someone else first coined the terms.