Pirouettes

Good day in class today.  I actually did a perfectly balanced quadruple en dehors pirouette from fourth to the right (phew, that's a lot of qualifiers!).  I attempted two more, but both times I hopped at about the 3.5 mark.  I also did in our adagio a very nice slow double "adagio pirouette" (en dehors from fourth also) that was smooth and balanced, arms in fifth, AND the teacher saw it and commented.  So yeah, a good day!

I've recently been experimenting with different preparation stances for en dehors pirouettes from fourth.  When I was in Spain, I took classes at a Balanchine (and Bournonville, but mainly Balanchine) school, and they weren't of the philosophy that adult/open class people could do whatever technique they had learned.  Thus, I had to learn the straight back leg preparation, which was not what I had learned as a kid. 

I didn't like it much at the time, but it didn't have much effect on me.  Then I did modern instead of ballet for a year, and when I came BACK to ballet, my turns were all wonky and I couldn't do quadruples anymore.  (I unfairly attribute this to having become accustomed to turning in bare feet.)  But, I had the best luck with a straight back leg preparation.  I'm not entirely sure why this is.  I don't actually know why Balanchine preparations are that way---I don't know if he liked the aesthetic, or the physical effect.  I've seen one source that says it's because it provides an element of surprise (i.e., you don't necessarily know that they're about to pirouette if their back leg is straight). 

What I'm actually doing now is a bit of a mix.  I think the girls at my studio mostly do the whole fourth position with both legs bent, but I start in a lunge-like fourth and the draw the foot in the half beat before.  Now, if we're doing the crazy petit allegro that one of the soloists in the company gave, that landed in the fourth IN the half beat before a double turn in one count (a FAST count), obviously there's no time to switch, and I just start out with both legs bent. 

Anyway, this new prep gives a deeper plie for me, which helped me get that quad today.  I think it also helped me really secure the turnout on the standing leg. 

However, the ACTUAL recent improvement to my balance in pirouettes is knitting my core as I push off for the pirouette.  Whenever I have a bad turn combination, I usually realize afterward that I was being lazy in the core. 

In sum, technique.  It works again.  It really isn't just a look.