The Secret to Powerful Pivots
Channel: Tango Tribe
Date: 2020-01-29

Pivots are the second most fundamental movement in Argentine tango. (The first fundamental movement is changing our weight from one foot to the other, whether in place or over a distance, forward, backward, or sideways.)

All the instruction I have seen for pivots focuses on dissociation between the  shoulder girdle and the hips as the muscle motor for pivots. But in my analysis the hip rotators are much more important.

External hip rotators turn the foot away from the centerline, or, if you are standing on the ball of the foot, they turn the heel toward the centerline, as for a forward pivot. Internal hip rotators, when we stand on the ball of the foot, turn the heel behind and away from our centerline, as for a backward pivot. Due to the way the muscles are arranged in the body, the internal/backward pivot is less powerful than the external/forward pivot.

We can help the backward pivot with a forward tilt of the hips, as the video shows.

Most importantly, we can effectively recruit external/internal rotators *together* on opposite sides of the hip for forward pivots, or internal/external rotators for backward pivots. We synergistically multiply the effect of one foot pivoting.

The Tango Tribe Secret to Powerful Pivots:
We do this by firmly pressing the heel of one foot into the heel of the other foot in the direction of rotation. Whichever heel is moving in the direction of rotation will be the one pressing.

The video begins with a five-minute warm-up to prepare the body for work and inform it about how to employ the secret. In the next three minutes we describe the arrangement and function of the hip rotators, and demonstrate the tip about hip tilt to help backward pivots. The final three minutes describe and demonstrate the secret of the heel press.

TangoTribe.com