Giro or Molinette timing

What determines the timing of the follower's movement in a giro or molinette pattern? With music having a simple clear beat or pulse, how best are the follower's steps related to that pulse? Several teachers advocate stepping with the pulse for the forward and following side steps, but quickening the pace for the back and following side step (SSQQ).

Who decides: leader or follower, and if leader, how does he control the follower's movement to achieve that (or any other) timing? Lots of music would call for a very free movement, but I am thinking in terms of, say, D'Arienzo etc., where there is a clear pulse.

when I was a beginner I used to get irritated by followers who acclerated after the back step into two quicks..but there is a simple reason for this..the back ocho and step takes loner than a beat so the next two steps bring the follower back onto the beat..if the follower is aware of this and assuming she's musical, then I am happy for her to go with her own feeling for the music.

I'm more worried about followers who are not particularly musical, or who perhaps through inexperience, are not moving with any discernable rhythm. It feels as though once I have opend up one side of the embrace, to start the pattern going, I have little or no control over what happens next, until I make some definite move to end the rotation.

I don't feel as though I could (and I don't think that I would want to) start moving around segments of the circle, like a ratchet, 'releasing' steps, one at a time, but then, lots of people advocate leading each and every step in the pattern (which seems a good idea, in principle, but which I don't observe happening much). Ladies just seem to 'take off' to do their own thing, and if the leader is, himself, executing an action like an enrosque, he probably hasn't much choice.

BTW I agree that completing the backward step and pivot may well take more than a beat, so the following step is a 'catch up', which calls for a quickening of movement, which may well not amount to the sub-division of one beat into two halves. If a complete circle is being danced over four steps (say, fwd, side, back, side), do you think that is best danced over four beats, or three?

Forward-1-Side-1- Back-1.5-side .5 Forward 1...four beats seems to work, I just dance it never worry about how many beats..

UKDancer said:

..Who decides: leader or follower, and if leader, how does he control the follower's movement..

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I always lead the timing and doubling in the molinete. I do it by a slight acceleration of the torso combined with a tiny little pull of my left arm. Once I had a little contention with the governor of VU-Style in Berlin. He asserted that there are two protocols in TA, the cross and the molinete. I deneyed, by the way. But if you would accept such a dogma of two protocols, the follower would be responsible for the timing in giros.

UKDancer is probably right when expressing his doubts on the musicality of most followers. And his also right on the difficulty to control the rhythm during turns. What is mostly done is doing a walked turn on three beats, accelerating in the media luna (back side forward). In longer turns with the leader on one pivoting foot, the turn is completely accelerated. So it is done on two beats. This is obviously difficult stuff for leader as well as for the follower.
Even a somewhat longer walked turn is physically already difficult to do with the right speed.

pwpulto said:

What is mostly done is doing a walked turn on three beats, accelerating in the media luna (back side forward).

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That's interesting. I've never heard anyone refer to that segment of a giro in such terms unless it was being danced as an action on its own. Christie Cote & George Garcia's DVD series for DanceVision use the name 'media luna' for a completely different action, which I would call a planeo, but I have always understood it as the 'backward half' of a giro.

opendoor said:

I always lead the timing and doubling in the molinete. I do it by a slight acceleration of the torso combined with a tiny little pull of my left arm.

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I assume you're rotating counter-clockwise? I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer a push from the RH, but perhaps that is just a BR dancer's horror at the idea of actively leading with the man's LH?

RH is proscribed, for you dont touch the lady´s back with your bare palm but whith your forearm in TA. The RH rests on the bra beneath the arm-pit. If at all only the forearm is used for leading impulses.

UKDancer said:

I assume you're rotating counter-clockwise? I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer a push from the RH, but perhaps that is just a BR dancer's horror at the idea of actively leading with the man's LH?

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i teach to creat a vaccum with the left hand so the follower always feels she has space to move into..this draws attention to a common problem with the CCW giro of leaders moving the chest and blocking with their left hand.

I experiment with teaching it as a medi-luna, to use it as a change in direction.

opendoor said:

RH is proscribed, for you dont touch the lady´s back with your bare palm but whith your forearm in TA. The RH rests on the bra beneath the arm-pit. If at all only the forearm is used for leading impulses.

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I agree with the idea of using the forearm, and am familiar with the idea of not actually touching the follower's back with the RH (Christine Denniston advocates the same thing*), but I see 9 our of 10 leaders (including most teachers) not being so fussy. I guess the underlying idea is that we don't lead with the hands at all.

*"The Meaning of Tango", with embrace illustrated on p127.

UKDancer said:

That's interesting. I've never heard anyone refer to that segment of a giro in such terms unless it was being danced as an action on its own. Christie Cote & George Garcia's DVD series for DanceVision use the name 'media luna' for a completely different action, which I would call a planeo, but I have always understood it as the 'backward half' of a giro.

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I'll add a third definition of the mix.

I've never heard "media luna" used to describe the back half of a giro, nor have I ever heard it refer to anything that could be confused with a planeo.

I have always heard "media luna" refer to the side/forward/side portion of a molinete. Pretty much everything except for the "hard" part of a molinete.

bordertangoman said:

i teach to creat a vaccum with the left hand so the follower always feels she has space to move into..this draws attention to a common problem with the CCW giro of leaders moving the chest and blocking with their left hand.

I experiment with teaching it as a medi-luna, to use it as a change in direction.

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I would say that the space or vacuum comes from the chest rotation, and blocking with the LH is clearly just a fault. Inviting the follower into that space isn't the same thing as 'pulling' her into it, though, and I think that too would be as bad as blocking her path.

I'm not sure that I understand your change of direction experiment.

Uh...well, the thing about being a leader is that you are the one who leads these things. You should be controlling the steps, which means you should also be controlling the timing.

ETA: One time Subliminal tried running a little experiment with me, which I thought was interesting. He started leading molinetes...and sometimes he would actively direct the timing, but other times he never indicated that. When he didn't indicate anything, I did what felt most natural to me...and it had a very particular rhythm to it. (don't remember what it was, unfortunately). Point is, there is a timing which will probably happen naturally for her, but you can alter that.

opendoor said:

RH is proscribed, for you dont touch the lady´s back with your bare palm but whith your forearm in TA. The RH rests on the bra beneath the arm-pit. If at all only the forearm is used for leading impulses.

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Where did this "rule" come from? I strongly disagree. The hand is part of the embrace, it completes it and creates that held and "cradled" feeling. No hand on the back?!!? The mind boggles.

Peaches said:

I've never heard "media luna" used to describe the back half of a giro, nor have I ever heard it refer to anything that could be confused with a planeo.

I have always heard "media luna" refer to the side/forward/side portion of a molinete. Pretty much everything except for the "hard" part of a molinete.

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Perhaps 'back half' is the wrong expression - particularly given that the pattern can start or finish on any step. I mean the steps 'between' the pivots, where effectively, the follower is stepping in a U shape, with little or no turn.