2024-08-22

Teaching my regular classes at the Ross Farnsworth - East Valley YMCA.

Tonight we talked a lot about balance while pivoting. I describe the state of “balance” as having a plumb line from your center of gravity that falls inside the area of your “base.” Think of your “base”, like the base of a plastic army man, but only as large as the area inside a piece of string that hugs the outside of both feet. That means maintaining your balance gets harder as your base shrinks and, when your base is only as large as the heel (or ball) of your foot, it can get really difficult to keep your center of gravity over that tiny little area.

Students who aren’t able to do this will generally try to “fix” the problem in one of two ways:

• Some will try to spin faster in an effort to complete the turn before they lose their balance. This rarely works because increasing your rate of rotation while already unbalanced generally causes your angular momentum to throw you even farther off balance.
• Others will try put more of their foot on the ground (to increase the area of their “base”), but this doesn’t work either. Here’s why: If you’re trying to pivot on your heel, but lose balance and drop the ball of your foot to compensate, your foot will stop rotating and those rotational forces get transferred to the ankle. That hurts, so the body compensates by lifting the heel, causing your “base” to shift about 4 inches mid-turn, and wrecking your balance even farther.

There are no shortcuts here. The only way to improve your balance is practice. I encourage students to practice slow-ish 360° pivots on the heels and balls of their feet - the slower the better.