TECHNIQUE TIPS: “THE 80/20 PREP”

A Dose Of Danspiration- Blog Post- “The 80/20 Prep” (Originally posted 5/13/24)

One day, a debate broke out in a dance teacher social media group I am a member of. A teacher was beside herself that some of her dancers were told by another educator to put their weight center versus transferring their weight to their front foot. It is was quite incredible to me how passionate people were about what become dubbed the “80/20 prep” (80% of the weight on the front, 20% on the back). Now to be clear, the debate was specific to a parallel jazz pirouette preparation.

Here’s the thing, I tell my dancers to put their weight center.

And here’s Why…

When the front foot is flat and the back foot is popped, the weight has already naturally shifted. I have found that when a dancer is told to put their weight on the front foot, they lean their upper body over the front foot. Now their weight is too far forward to roll up on to that relevé. In turn, their spine, shoulders, and hips are not in alignment over their center. They lean to the side, hop around, and just plain struggle to make it through the pirouette.

Think if you didn’t place a toy top right over the center of the supporting tip. It would lean to one side and not continue to rotate. When we are executing a pirouette, the same physics are applied.

Of course, there are so many nuances that go into executing a pirouette. This is just the start, but give it shot. Sometimes just changing up the way we give a direction or mentally prepare for a task we can achieve a whole new outcome!

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