Forty years ago, noting the confusion in the minds of riders between pirouette and reversed pirouette, I renamed the latter, rotation—pirouette for the mobilization of the fore hand; rotation for the mobilization of the hind legs or croup. The change is, at first sight, not important. It becomes so only because it helps to clear the matter for beginners.
Even at first sight, the figure of the pirouette is easy to understand. The difficulty comes in executing it. Moreover, it is sometimes extraordinarily hard to make the beginner comprehend just the difference between pirouette and rotation. I have seen really intelligent men confuse them, month after month. Changing the name from reversed pirouette to rotation has helped not a little.
Finally, for the sake of one of my pupils in particular, who insisted that he was doing the one when he was really doing the other, I hit upon the following device.
Stand facing the edge of an open door, and take the knobs in your two hands. The hinges represent the horse's front legs; your legs are the horse's hind ones. Now pivot the door from right to left, passing your right foot between your left foot and the door, bringing it to the ground, and then bringing the left foot into its usual place beside it. This imitates the movement of the rotation. Taken from left to right, everything reverses, both motions and effects.
