Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. In our post last week, we began a discussion of our current theme of balance — this time as it occurs in what I sometimes refer to as the “sixth fundamental element” of dancing social Tango — el pivoteo or the pivot. As mentioned in that post, the pivot enables dancers to execute many of the more “advanced” figures in Tango, including ocho, molinete, boleo, calicita, along with an entire vocabulary of movements, comprising what is known as el sistema cruzado — the crossed system.

The ability to find balance during a pivot is one of the more difficult challenges in Tango. Last week, we focused on working toward this goal on your own. Today, we’ll talk about how to approach finding balance in the pivot with a partner.

El pivoteo (The pivot)

Before we break down the individual elements involved in leading/following the pivot, I want to remind you about an important ongoing principle of the lead/follow mechanism: A lead in Tango involves a very direct — but very slight — invitation, which emanates from the leader’s torso, asking his follower to execute a specific single movement. It is up to the follower to receive the individual lead, and act on this invitation. It is not the job of the leader to carry his follower through the invited movement. He invites; he allows his follower to respond; then, if all has gone well, he may or may not elect to invite something else. The entire lead/follow mechanism — or invitation/response cycle — occurs in increments of one complete step.

That said (until I’m blue in the face, it seems), let me now suggest a possible way to go about meeting the challenge of achieving balance in the pivot with a partner:

1.     Begin once again by forming a comfortable embrace with your partner. Be sure that you’re both solidly balanced on two feet. As a leader, gradually shift your partner’s weight to one foot (either one is fine). You can do this by gently shifting your own weight to the side you’ve chosen for her, or by rotating your torso very slightly in the direction to which you want her to shift her weight. Personally, I prefer to keep my feet slightly apart with my weight evenly distributed here rather than on one foot. I find that this enables me to offer a clearer, more effective invitation to my partner, when I suggest the pivot. In shifting your partner’s weight to one foot, take careful note of the fact that whichever foot you’ve just asked her to balance on represents a balance axis around which you’re about to invite her to pivot. A common mistake leader’s make in the invitation to execute a pivoting action is to inadvertently move their follower off this axis — and therefore totally out of balance.

2.     With all of this in mind as a leader, rotate your torso slightly in one direction or the other. As a follower, respond to this invitation by rotating your center as far as you can in the direction suggested, while keeping your head facing your partner, and your heels neatly together with your weight on the ball of the foot on which the leader has asked you to balance. This will result in your body being in a twist — with your head facing your partner and your lower body facing slightly less than 90 degrees to the left or right of the leader. Because of the inherent difficulty of maintaining balance during this movement, you as a follower may find that you need some degree of support from the leader as you pivot.  However, as you become more and more experienced, you’ll find that you require less and less support in order to successfully execute the movement.

Note to followers:

Once you’ve executed this action, your pivot is complete. Normally, it would probably be followed by a lead to walk forward or backward in order to execute an ocho; however, at this moment our focus is on enabling you as a follower to achieve balance during the pivot itself as a singular element.

Note to leaders:

As with leading other movements, under no circumstances should you attempt to rush your follower into another step until you’re absolutely certain that she’s balanced and ready to continue. The follower must have the opportunity to bring herself into balance — without having to worry about what’s going to happen next.

Next week, we’ll move on to another subject. In the meantime, if you have any questions about balance (or anything else), be sure to ask Pat or me about your concerns. As always, we’re very happy to help.