But I've been taught that that is incorrect for a pivot... that each step in the pivot should involve a foot being picked up and moved -- specifically the right foot moving down the LOD and the left foot being planted each time a little outside the LOD.
Feet are generally not "picked up" in the swinging dances, even during pivots. Tango is the one exception, but this exception applies more to characetristic basic walking actions, not to pivots. So let's start by doing away with the phrase "picking up", and instead just refer to the feet as being either weighted/supporting or free/moving.
Of course one foot will always be fixed to the floor while the other is moving, or at least free of weight. But that applies to pretty much all steps, pivots or otherwise. This is a fairly easy to concept to grasp when the movement is straight... What makes things more complicated is rotation. And during pivots, there's a lot of rotation, so the relationships of the bodies moving through space can be difficult to understand. Just remember that the fundamental underlying concept is the same as most other movements: Partners are on opposite feet and move and transfer weight at approximately the same time.
Since pivots are essentially an exagerated version of a basic ballroom turn, it helps to understand some of the concepts behind rotation in dance position. If you have a decent understanding of what it means to be on the "inside" or "outside of turn", then pivots -- at least in theory -- should not elude you.
If you don't understand the concept of inside & outside of turn, you probably shouldn't be attempting pivots, as your time would be better spent exploring this concept on your more basic actions (eg Waltz Left & Right Box Turns, etc). Nonetheless, here it is in a nutshell: The more you turn between steps, the more you have to accommodate this rotation by either offsetting the direction/location of your step, or offsetting the distance/size of your step (or some combination of both). Put another way, the greater the net rotation, the greater the differential must be between partners, in terms of step size and/or direction.
When moving straight, partners step exactly the same distance and direction, and this keeps the position intact. If they do not, the position will suffer in one way or another. By the same token, when you add turn to a step (or sequence of steps), partners CAN'T step exactly the same or direction, because this would disturb the position.
To illustrate this concept, face your partner while standing a few inches apart, and have both partners make 1/4 turn to his/her right. When you began, you were facing each other, but after 1/4 turn, you are now shoulder to shoulder. This shows how stepping the same size (in this case, zero) and to the same exact direction (in this case, nowhere) can alter the position when rotation is in play. In order to maintain the position of facing each other, one or the other partner would have had to move to a new loaction.
Another good exercise to demonstrate inside & oustide of turn is thus: Face a partner with a two-hand hold, and chasse to side. Without rotation, your steps will be identically spaced and directed. Continue taking chasses to side, only this time do so along the path of a circle. Depending on which way you decide to turn, one of you will be moving along an inner circle ("inside of turn") while the other will be on the outer circle ("outside of turn"). The person on the outside of turn will be required to take bigger side steps in order to stay in front of the person on the inside of turn.
Unfortunately, both exercises are fairly poor examples of how inside & outside of turn applies to pivots specifically, but they do a reasonable job of illustrating the concept on a very fundamental level. It tends to be that rotation affects side steps differently than forward & back steps. In general, side steps require a greater differential of distance, whereas forward & back steps require a greater differential of direction. And since pivots take on more characteristics of the latter (though they do actually have some elements of both), I'll leave it to your teacher (or someone else here) to explain the concept more in-depth, particularly as it applies to forward & backward movements.
Anyway, suffice it to say that due to the extreme amounts of rotation taken per step during consecutive pivots, it is necessary NOT to step exactly the same distance, or to the same exact direction as your partner. To do so would throw you right out of dance position.
The specifics of where, when, how far, how much turn, how fast, etc. I will leave to your teachers... Or to anyone else here who cares to get into that much detail. I think the best thing we can do here is to help you get your brain around it, and so the best I can offer is the concept of inside & outside of turn. But remember, underneath it all, it's just a series of evenly-timed steps in basic closed hold, so it still follows the basic principles of any other steps. Your time spent on one foot, or moving from one foot to another, should be more or less equal to your partner's, even if rotation dictates that the exact distance or placement is not identical.
I hope this helps.
Regards,
Jonathan Atkinson
