How Useful is the DVIDA Syllabus?

Hey Guys

I am just wondering how useful the DVIDA DVDs are in regard to learning Argentine Tango....

I get instruction one on one, but it's only once a week and it's not enough for me. I know DVIDA has a Syllabus put out and has DVDs, but I've always heard the best way to learn AT is to do it through experience, and not watching... although one can learn a lot by watching, too.

I have no experience with the DVIDA program personally, so take this with a large grain of salt...

I would guess that, as a syllabus--which is to say, a logical program of learning a dance--it could probably be OK provided that you have a knowledgeable teacher to help guide you through it and provide instruction regarding the correct technique. There's nothing wrong, IMO, in having a logical progression of how to learn a dance worked out--either independently by a teacher, or in combination with an outside source. After all, no one learns things willy-nilly. Or shouldn't, at any rate.

The potential problem I see with it, and I see this doubly since you have a background in ballroom, is in transferring too much of your ballroom technique over. This isn't to say that there aren't universal concepts of good dancing which would be applicable to both; I don't know diddly about ballroom, so I can't begin to comment on that. But it is a truly different dance, and in order to really learn and appreciate that it's my opinion that you need a good teacher to help you learn the correct AT technique and separate it from your ballroom technique.

YMMV.

Others will disagree with me, I'm sure. Like I said, grains of salt.

Yep, P.

I think there may be an enlightening thread or two, in the archives,as well. IIRC, one of the former DF mods went through DVIDA certification while he was active on DF. There may already be some useful conversations here.

pygmalion said:

Yep, P.

I think there may be an enlightening thread or two, in the archives,as well. IIRC, one of the former DF mods went through DVIDA certification while he was active on DF. There may already be some useful conversations here.

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Thanks for that, pygmalion. I'll take a look for it.

Thank you, as well, Peaches. All and any comments are appreciated.

You'd probably get a lot of mileage going to a practica, or possibly even a milonga. Milongas would probably be more useful once you get more experience under your belt, but dropping in to watch for a while could be eye-opening in terms of truly seeing how it's done.

Are you a leader or a follower?

More often than not, I am a leader, but since I am also a dance teacher, I have to know the follower's patterns as well.

And I've been making plans to go to a Milonga ever since I started learning the dance a few months back. I have yet to find the time or a Milonga... :/

Br0nze said:

More often than not, I am a leader, but since I am also a dance teacher, I have to know the follower's patterns as well.

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Why do you think you need to know followers patterns? Or patterns? Do you intend to teach?

While I think you should understand what you are asking the follower to do, understand her responses and her movement, I don't think you need to memorize patterns. If you can lead a pivot, a step to the side front or back without using your hands disconnected from your torso movement, you have the foundations for leading basic social movement to a follower.

My suggestion would be to approach the dance for what it is, and with the mind of a beginner, since you are a beginner to this dance, rather than with the eyes of a dance teacher from another genre.

I do think there is basic social vocabulary and concept that people should learn in some fashion, whether it gets taught in syllabus format or not, but if you are attempting to learn the dance through patterns, I think you'll get tired of it at some point, because that isn't the point of AT and anyone I've ever known who tried it that way doesn't dance it anymore.

I would also strongly suggest taking Peaches advice and go to some milongas or practicas. You appear to be on the east coast- I'm sure there's plenty to be had that direction.

I think you might be doing yourself a disservice starting out with DVIDA. The purpose of using a pattern in AT is to teach you something about the individual steps so you know you chain them together different ways. My impression of DVIDA is it is pure pattern memorization, without getting into how you take apart and improvise from the steps. Also, according to DB's review of the system, it doesn't go into how to lead the steps. Which makes them pretty useless, unless you're dancing with a follower who also learned from the DVIDA system.

I'd be worried that you might end up developing bad habits then having to unlearn them later, which is always more painful.

Br0nze said:

Hey Guys

I am just wondering how useful the DVIDA DVDs are in regard to learning Argentine Tango....

I get instruction one on one, but it's only once a week and it's not enough for me. I know DVIDA has a Syllabus put out and has DVDs, but I've always heard the best way to learn AT is to do it through experience, and not watching... although one can learn a lot by watching, too.

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Honestly, and with all due respect... The only people I have found to benefit from the DVIDA DVD's are ballroom instructors who diversify and want to teach Argentine Tango to their students.

I have danced with many people who have "learned" Argentine tango from the DVIDA DVD's/curriculum and it has always been... Challenging. I can feel the followers/leaders struggling to figure out what (pattern) is being led. Sadly this body of work does not teach leading nor following. It teaches steps and patterns.

If you truly want to learn AT, I would agree with Peaches. Test what you learn in a Practica. That's what its there for.

It looks like it has been dicussed here too http://www.dance-forums.com/showthread.php?t=34019

Yes, I did a critique of it a while back.

I don't really think my opinions have changed much in the past 6 months, so that's pretty much still how I feel about it.

Although I do believe structured teaching is an effective way to learning dance, and I don't think a syllabus per se is A Bad Idea, this one doesn't do much for me - as said, it's basically a ripoff of the Ballroom equivalents.

And, for that matter, I'm not at all convinced that it works in Ballroom, except in the sense that the overall ballroom dancing scene seems to be more about structure and not so much about, you know, dancing.

Dave, found it interesting reading your review. What you point out about meticulous documentation of the steps with no explanation of how is very much in keeping with the ballroom technique manual tradition. Which is a tradition we may actually have arrived at accidentally when what was basically an examination manual for teachers got repurposed as a stand in for a non-existent instruction manual.

Essentially, in this tradition of documentation, the text does not tell you what to do, it more observes a set of waypoints that will be passed through by a couple doing the subject chunk of dancing. It is left to the reader/teacher to "read between the lines" and deduce which techniques from the common bag of tricks must be applied to transition the couple from one of the listed waypoints to the next. Good ballroom teachers end up putting more instructional time into this than the kind of bare outline found in the text, but as I'm sure you can imagine there are many others who do not.

Personally, I ultimately believe that a ballroom syllabus eventually should be treated as a collection of "case studies" in dancing, ie, some ideas that work well for two bodies with details given of a version that works. Hopefully this can then be an inspiration and similar-situation-reference for developing ideas beyond. For that kind of use, your review seems to say about what I'd say about most ballroom syllabi - ie, there are some decent ideas, some things that seem introduced too early, and some things that really aren't all that good of an idea period...

@bastet: I need to know the follower's patterns because the studio I work for wants me to know them so that I can teach them to whomever walks in the door and shows interest in Argentine Tango.

Please understand the following: I am a Ballroom Dancer first, foremost, and for all intents and purposes, probably final. That being said, dancing to me represents something much bigger, much better and much deeper than what one will be told about when going to a social studio to learn whatever it is one wants to learn. I was hooked upon the idea of dancing as an art, as a form of self expression and connection and communication with another person; that is, as a philosophy in and of itself. I am aware that Argentine Tango is not only a dance; that it very much is a way of life and a philosophy that must be studied in great depth and detail (and this is true for Ballroom Dance as well, but that's another matter). Trying to convince ordinary people of the depth of dance is, and I am sure some here would agree, rather challenging and often useless, since they already have their own ideas and beliefs, and those are difficult to change.

For the business aspect of the dance world, Argentine Tango is another way for studios to reel in the students. For dancers, it is a beautiful dance that has no syllabus and flows from the soul and the experience of two people coming together. From the business aspect, I need to learn it or be faced with making less money. From the dancer in me, AT seems to be exactly what I've been searching for -- there are no mistakes, anything can be led, and a deep understanding of movement and its principles are required.

A slight aside; it's a shame that DVIDA has monopolized the syllabus world. And I agree wholeheartedly -- they don't even begin to tell you how something is done, and to me, that is one of the most fundamental and important questions, right along with the 'What' and the 'Why.' ( I shiver watching these DVDs because in reality I am not learning anything I couldn't have figured out on my own.) I am of the opinion that the Syllabi are a there as a reminder for where the feet go, not for how to do something. The books and manuals (and DVDs) should be treated with a grain of salt, and in no way be utilized as a substitute for actual instruction.

My purpose is to become familiar with the dance first and be prepared for all the possible "patterns" that "can" be led (again, from the business aspect) and to find the best system that will allow me to do this. DVIDA has its hooks in everything else... but since I dislike it, I figured it was best to ask before investing money (I don't have) into it.

Br0nze said:

@bastet: I need to know the follower's patterns because the studio I work for wants me to know them so that I can teach them to whomever walks in the door and shows interest in Argentine Tango.

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[Carry On Cleo]"Oh puer, Oh puer, Oh puer".[/Carry On Cleo]

Br0nze said:

For the business aspect of the dance world, Argentine Tango is another way for studios to reel in the students. For dancers, it is a beautiful dance that has no syllabus and flows from the soul and the experience of two people coming together. From the business aspect, I need to learn it or be faced with making less money.

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I could be wrong, but it doesn't seem that you need to learn a syllabus to be commercially-successful as an AT teacher.

But then, you know your own market best. If they insist on a syllabus, then you have to provide a syllabus.

If it helps, here's my class notes - they may give you some ideas.

Br0nze said:

My purpose is to become familiar with the dance first and be prepared for all the possible "patterns" that "can" be led (again, from the business aspect)

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Well, from a purist point of view, AT doesn't really have any patterns. So that's a problem.

From a practical point of view, it sounds like the Dinzel System may be appropriate for that type of learning / teaching; apparently they take a "lots of patterns" approach.

Obviously the best way to learn AT is with a specialist AT teacher. But that's if you want to spend time at tango-only dances.

From a ballroom perspective AT is "just another dance". One of a dozen or so. It will usually get danced in a studio environment where it's slotted in among all the other dances.

In this context I would guess that dancers are more comfortable learning a few patterns. In the same way that they learn all their other dances.

So - I would agree with the OP - give them what they want...