Media Luna (Half Moon)
- Thread starter Clive
- Start date
tangogo-dancer
Member
Nope, you're right.
Yes, try not to obsess about names and patterns.
The follower's action should always be a consequence of your lead (you move her),
and your next lead is a consequence of her action (she moves) and your reaction (then you move).
To satisfy your curiosity and hoping not to get stuck on names, a Giro is really
any turn but tango people tend to assign it to a specific pattern (there we go again)
resulting in a 360 degree turn. You both execute the Giro but she does a
molinette or grapevine. As far as I know a Media Luna is semi-circle by
the woman around the man so essentially half a giro in a clockwise direction.
But I have never been taught it with that name.
Peaches
Well-Known Member
Typically speaking, in its most simple and typical form, a giro/molinete is a pattern where the lady's footwork is forward/side/back/side around the man. (A grapevine pattern, done in a circle.) She can technically start at any point in that footwork, but some points are more common than others. For example, it's much more common to start a molinete with a forward step than it is a back step.
A media luna, generally speaking, is essentially the same as a molinete, but it doesn't include the backwards step.
There are nuances, but as a beginner definition for a beginner learner, that should get you by.
A media luna, generally speaking, is essentially the same as a molinete, but it doesn't include the backwards step.
There are nuances, but as a beginner definition for a beginner learner, that should get you by.
tangobro
Active Member
sometimes the terms media luna (1/2 moon) and media vuelta (1/2 turn) are interchanged
is this what you mean by media luna ?
see :20 - :30
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7kxpW7jIFk
opendoor
Forum Master
And the timing is most often different, too: no doubling.
I think this varies by locality. Here it's much more common to start with the back ocho (if you don't count the side step)
Yes, that's the action I mean, although I don't find the Paz/Hart way of describing anything very helpful.
The IDTA's relatively new AT technique has the 'Half Moon' which the follower executes 'back, side, forward', timed QQS. On the facing page it has a similar figure 'Cross Basic with Displacement' which has the lady executing essentially the same pattern, but 'forward, side, back, also timed QQS. One is described as 'Media Luna', and the other 'Giro'.
Ampster
Active Member
What's an "IDTA?"
... and to confuse the issue a bit more (I'm sorry), the are some really good professionals out there who would consider a giro, molinette, enrosque, all the same. Spiral motions, varied only by the way it is led and followed, with no formal terminology behind it all.
Hello Clive. Welcome to DF.
So, can we take from this that you are located on that island off of Europe?
So, can we take from this that you are located on that island off of Europe?
Dave Bailey
Active Member
Dave Bailey
Active Member
IDTA aside, that's pretty much the way I think of the media luna / media giro / whatever. That step.
Um.
If it's the other half of a giro / molinete movement, that definitely doesn't work in QQS, as it's more correctly a "forward, pivot, side, pivot, back" movement.
But if it's the first part of the Basic 8, then yes, you could do that in QQS. Except that no-one, ever, should do that in social dancing, it's insanely dangerous. And as someone who's about to go to Negracha's tonight, I know insanely dangerous when I see it.
To be honest, I'd strongly recommend ignoring the terminology, it'll just confuse you.
No, I don't think you can, not from anything I have said. Surely the IDTA is a teaching society with International reach, and the overwhelming majority of its members are not from the UK, if that's where you mean. I'm just looking at its 2009 syllabus (although I'm not much of a fan, so far). It was (and I quote from the inside front cover)
"Commissioned as a technique for IDTA's Argentine Tango Teaching Diploma and suitable syllabus figures for IDTA Bronze, Silver & Gold Medal Examinations."