The same designations apply whether the feet be flat on the floor, on the ball, on the point, or a composite of these: as for instance, second position, right foot on the point, left foot flat, etc.
Heights are definitely divided; ankle, calf and knee serve as the measures. But as the subjoined explanations are aided by diagrams, the terms to measure heights may be disregarded for the sake of simplicity. Likewise we need not go into the enumeration and names of crossed positions and other complications. The five fundamental positions, however, are important and should be memorised. Apart from their importance in any discussion of ballet work, familiarity with them greatly aids the acquisition of ballroom dances. (The latter place the feet at an angle of 45° to the line in which the dancer’s body faces, instead of 90°, the form of the French-Italian ballet.)
The school of the ballet also defines the positions of the arms, in the same manner. They need not be memorised as a preliminary to reading this chapter; but they are interesting as a matter of record of the limitations of the classic school, and as a measure of the distance to which the Russians have departed in the direction of freedom of arm movement.
Figure 8, arms in repose, sustained; 9, extended; 10, rounded in front of the chest; 11, rounded above the head; 12, high and open; 13, à la lyre; 14, on the hips; 15, 16, one arm high, one extended; 18, one arm rounded in front of the chest, one open horizontal; 17, 19, one arm high, one on the hip.
Steps, which are now to be considered, fall naturally into the classes of gliding, beating, turning and jumping. Each class ranges from simplicity to more or less complexity, and certain steps have a composite character, partaking of the nature of more than one of the above general classes.
Dancers distinguish between a step and a temps, whose relation to each other is that between a word and a syllable. A temps is a single movement. By definition, a step must effect a transfer of weight; subject to that definition, a single movement may be a step.