How to Pivot in Netball

Pivoting is how a catch becomes an opportunity: it lets you turn to face your options without breaking the footwork rule.

Technique

The pivot, from above. The filled foot is the landing foot; the outlined foot is the other foot.

The landing foot stays where it landed and turns on the ball of the foot.
Step round with the other foot as many times as you need, turning away from the defender.
Head first: the eyes find the pass as you turn, with the ball held close to the body.

World Netball's coaching material describes the pivot like this:

Turn on the ball of the landing foot. After catching, rotate on the ball of your first grounded foot — the landing foot.
Step round with the other foot. It can step in any direction, as many times as you need.
Keep the ball close to your body while you position it to throw.
Head first. As you turn, your head leads the body, so your eyes are already looking at where the pass can go.

What the footwork rule allows

Pivoting is one of the things the footwork rule expressly allows. On your landing foot you may:

pivot, stepping with the other foot in any direction any number of times;
lift the landing foot — but you must pass or shoot before it touches the ground again.

What you can't do is drag or slide the landing foot, hop, or re-ground it before releasing the ball. See footwork.

Which way to turn

At the basic level, World Netball's guidance is to turn outwards — away from the defender. As body control improves, players also learn to turn inwards on the pivot. Where the ball is placed often decides which way is better.

It also helps to land on the right foot in the first place. If you're moving to the right when you catch, land on your right (outside) foot first and pivot on the ball of that foot; moving left, the left. That lets you turn away from the defender naturally.

Pivot, see, decide

The manual stresses recovering after catching or intercepting the ball, so there's time to land safely, balance, pivot, see and make a decision before passing. You have only three seconds to release the ball (see held ball), so the pivot needs to be quick and purposeful — turn, look, choose — not a full circle in search of an idea.

Protecting the ball

Turning your shoulder and back towards a defender as you pivot is a simple, legal way to shield the ball while you look for the pass. If you're the player with the ball, remember the defender must adjust to stay 0.9m from where your landing foot now is — not where it started.

How to practise

Catch, identify the landing foot, pivot to face a target, pass. Do it slowly and deliberately first, then add a decision — two receivers, and the passer picks the one who is free. World Netball's decision-making progression starts exactly this way: a player facing away from two teammates throws the ball up, catches it, pivots, sees both and decides which to pass to. The footwork, landing and pivot drill builds the whole sequence.

Sources

All information on this page is given to the best of our knowledge at the time of writing (October 2026), after referring to the official sources below.

World Netball: Foundation Coaching Manual — "Pivoting" in "Movement & Agility", and "Decision Making".
World Netball: Foundation Coaching Cards 1 and 6 — pivoting, and the decision-making progression.
World Netball: Rules of Netball — for the footwork rule and held ball, as explained on our linked rules pages.