Unless you are the only ballet teacher in your school, clear communication about how vocabulary will be taught, at what level, and how it will progress over time is critical. Today is the fifth in a series of posts about vocabulary that can be taught more than one way. There are pros and cons to each approach. What matters most is that all the teachers in your program are teaching and progressing ballet technique (including pirouettes) in the same way.
What position do you teach pirouette from at each level? Do you have a clear reason why, or are you teaching what you remember learning without looking at it critically? By the way, there is nothing wrong with teaching the way you were taught, as long as the way you were taught aligns with your goals. It's when we don't look at the why behind what we are doing that leads to hiccups in the training we offer.
I can give you a very quick rundown of which position I teach pirouettes from, and when.
Beginning Division: parallel
Level 1: from 1st position
Level 2: from 5th position
Level 3: from 4th position
Beginning Division: Why from parallel? Because the Beginning Division primarily uses parallel. Slight turnout is introduced at the end of the Division but young children aren't developmentally ready for the challenge of using their turnout. These cuties are still organizing their bodies and gaining gross motor coordination. We keep the turns in parallel so that turning is fun and we still get the balance and other cognitive benefits of turning.
In Level 1 we pirouette from 1st position. These dancers are just beginning to build their somatic awareness and muscle strength in turnout so we don't want to challenge them beyond what they can reasonably accomplish this year. Pirouettes from 1st position offer a great chance to practice cleanly organizing the body when you finish the turn and develop a wonderful awareness of the dancer's center line, both of which will help them as turns become more difficult later.
Pirouettes from 5th are hard. Really, really hard and that's why I teach them before 4th. If you can pirouette from 5th you have the strength and awareness to maintain your turnout when you eventually pirouette from 4th. It is easy to go from turning from 5th to turning from 4th the next year but it is much more difficult to teach turns from 4th first and then expect success when you add turns from 5th. All dancers are prone to losing turnout in the 4th position preparation, especially dancers who also take jazz. You can organize your teaching to help avoid this if you teach pirouette from 5th as the second progression. The "I use my turnout in both legs" habit is easier to establish this way.
Finally, in Level 3, dancers start using 4th position as their preparation for pirouette. This is still in the Elementary Division, so most of the preparation positions are already learned before dancers reach the Intermediate Division.
What about pirouette from 2nd? I hold off on that until about midway through the Intermediate Division. I find that students benefit more from the weight transfer practice when they are proficient enough at turns to have the brain space to focus on that particular element. But I'm not married to that particular benchmark. Midway through the Intermediate Division is more of an at-the-latest timeline; I often see that it will help students if I bring it in earlier.
Whichever order you choose to teach pirouette preparations in, it is important that everyone is teaching the same thing and everyone understands the reason why. Students cannot have clear technique if teachers are not following a clear plan.
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