Are followers in smaller communities pickier?

[Brummbaer]

Only poorly trained followers close their eyes, ignore floor conditions, and do the boleo that they feel

Maybe an attribute of an advanced follower: doesn't do boleo when conditions aren't appropriate. You could also put that for an advance leader: doesn't propose boleos when conditions aren't appropriate.

 

[Tangogal]

Even beginner followers at tandas seem to avoid eye contact after dancing with me as a beginner before. Get comments like "You need more classes"

I am a follower in a small community. This is the reason that they’re not dancing with you. You’re not good yet.

The place to improve is in lessons with a teacher not getting tips from other dancers at a milonga. A practica (if there is one) is a good place to work on things with other beginners.

I’m pretty friendly and would likely not dance with you either. I go to milongas to enjoy dancing not to instruct beginners.

 

[JournalInTime]

It probably works best for a dance that is a bit more seen than felt. With tango it will be harder to assess via video.

You've raised a crucial point here! The highest-level and most famous teachers say – in front of their classes, on social media, in their videos, in their books, etc. – things like "Tango is a feeling, not steps!" and "Tango is an emotion, not steps!" Yay, great, wonderful . . . except that's a privileged view that one starts to appreciate only with dedication measured in lessons that approach careers in terms of time and money, unless one is uncommonly talented or has a free tango teacher as a personal friend or family member. I'm not entirely sure there's any way to judge feeling other than to dance with the potential student, and that comes with its own problems, starting with a back-breaking dancer injuring a teacher and costing them income.

 

[JournalInTime]

Maybe an attribute of an advanced follower: doesn't do boleo when conditions aren't appropriate. You could also put that for an advance leader: doesn't propose boleos when conditions aren't appropriate.

Both are true – and for sure both were taught where I learned! Still, boleos are harder to lead with suitable calibration (it takes lots of dancing with someone to learn the peculiarities of their specific body, things like rotation limit, leg projection, flexibility, proportional leg weight, etc.) than to follow through control over a body you know well because it is yours. So, I feel this is a special case where, while both dancers have to learn control, the follower has a significantly shorter and easier learning curve for appropriateness, even if the learning curve for the movement itself is equal or more difficult.

 

[JournalInTime]

The place to improve is in lessons with a teacher not getting tips from other dancers at a milonga.

I go to milongas to enjoy dancing not to instruct beginners.

I agree.

The milonga is the absolute last-place environment for instruction. In theory, we should be able to show up to any milonga in the world, dance with somebody, speak no words, and leave it at that. A piece of social wisdom that even some very good, not-at-all-beginner dancers need to learn is that however wonderful you are as a dancer, if you insist on instructing or demanding instruction at the milonga, most of the people you do that with will find it off-putting enough to avoid you forever after, and many witnesses to it will avoid you, too, and might whisper to their friends to avoid you.

As you wrote, the place for that is the práctica. In most cases, you should really turn up to a práctica with a practice partner. Otherwise, it becomes a "milonga lite" where you're hoping for invitations, at which point the milonga rules apply despite the event being a práctica: Don't insist on instructing or demanding instruction.

 

[brujo]

The place to improve is in lessons with a teacher not getting tips from other dancers at a milonga. A practica (if there is one) is a good place to work on things with other beginners.

That is the problem too. People try to start practicas in the smaller community but they simply don't get attended or are treated as mini-milongas ( even with cortinas ). Whereas in the bigger city you have practicas of different types --- some beginner friendly and advertised as such, some geared towards more advanced dancers and some that are instructor led. You also get a ton more feedback at these practicas because people are so used to providing it. The typical onramp from class -> practica -> milonga often just doesn't exist in the smaller communities. It feels a lot easier for followers but that's where I see a ton of the beginner leaders just quit or move to other dances.

 

[Tangogal]

That is the problem too. People try to start practicas in the smaller community but they simply don't get attended or are treated as mini-milongas ( even with cortinas ). Whereas in the bigger city you have practicas of different types --- some beginner friendly and advertised as such, some geared towards more advanced dancers and some that are instructor led. You also get a ton more feedback at these practicas because people are so used to providing it. The typical onramp from class -> practica -> milonga often just doesn't exist in the smaller communities. It feels a lot easier for followers but that's where I see a ton of the beginner leaders just quit or move to other dances.

As I said, I’m living in a small community, practicas haven’t worked out for us either. It’s too hard to work on one thing with one partner while turning down dances with others. They only work in larger communities where you come with your own practice partner.

Onboarding in a smaller community consists of lessons and a quick after lesson practice and maybe meeting up with a classmate to go over the lessons. Then milonga but by that point the average beginner has been consistently taking classes (private or group) and is dancing at a minimum competency. A beginner who hasn’t reached the competency level won’t be asked to dance much. Unless they’re somebody’s significant other or child or local celebrity or something.

Other dances are not any friendlier they just have a lower bar for competency. Probably because you generally dance a single song and move on.

 

[JournalInTime]

It feels a lot easier for followers but that's where I see a ton of the beginner leaders just quit or move to other dances.

Speaking in old-fashioned "leader = man, follower = woman" terms, because that is still overwhelmingly dominant here despite giant steps forward:

It doesn't help that in communities of all sizes, there's a certain kind of "advanced" leader who gets his thrills telling beginner followers what to do, usually in a creepy way that strongly hints at "Okay, I helped you, now what are you gonna do for me? Hint: You can't really help me dance, but . . .". This takes beginner followers out of circulation for beginner leaders and often grosses them out and makes them leave entirely. Yet even in communities like mine where there are far, far more followers than leaders, there's no lineup of advanced followers willing to dance with beginner leaders.

It's complicated.

Part of it is because men tend to creep on less experienced and usually younger women. It's a cultural phenomenon we can ignore, but that won't make it go away. We'd have to call the creeps "Creep!" to their face and show them the door for that to happen.

Part of it is because there's a myth that a less advanced leader poses a greater physical danger to a more advanced follower than a less advanced follower poses to a less advanced leader. I don't think this is actually true, but the "leaders protect followers" tradition in AT props it up regardless.

Looking at both of those, I think they stem from the old-fashioned "leader = man, follower = woman" thing. I imagine that erasing those equivalences and AT's macho overtones would redress the situation overnight, but there's a hard core of tango traditionalists and ritualists who dig in their heels against that . . . usually the same ones who complain when women wear pants instead of skirts or flat shoes instead of heels, and who get angry when they see women leading or dancing with women, or men following or dancing with men. I strongly suspect that until the traditionalists and ritualists lose their privilege and influence, and go away, we'll be stuck with beginner men not having many people to dance with.

 

[brujo]

Other dances are not any friendlier they just have a lower bar for competency. Probably because you generally dance a single song and move on.

And the concept of practicas are a bit more optional as well. So you can do a beginner class and then do the social afterwards and there is at least an understanding that there will be beginners.

The other dance styles in the smaller communities also seem more hungry for new dancers than tango, so they often have really clever or unique class structures to attract beginners and encourage the more advanced dancers to help beginners. Even gentle things like 'say yes to dances' part of a pre-dance announcement. Compared to the big cities, they are much more welcoming so it's quite shocking to see the reverse for tango.

My perspective has soften a bit since I originally wrote the first post. It feels like smaller communities just have a more religious absolutist view of milongas where the larger communities are a bit more flexible simply given the amount of people that flow through. In the larger communities, if a milonga's style doesn't work for you, you can just go to another or find a new group of folks that are more in line with your taste, whereas the smaller communities are more 'this way or no tango for you'.

 

[Brummbaer]

That is the problem too. People try to start practicas in the smaller community but they simply don't get attended or are treated as mini-milongas ( even with cortinas ). Whereas in the bigger city you have practicas of different types

True. It's simply about the costs of hiring somewhere. You need sufficient numbers sttenfing to cover the costs.

We occasionally attend a practica/milonga in a small community - but people travel in from some distance. A teacher provides private lessons in an adjacent room (and they're quite a good teacher to intermediate level). It's a pretty large hall, so it's not a problem if a couple work on some move whilst others dance in a 'ronda'. Even if a couple stay together that evening. The music mix is so bad that it's easy to try out some interpretation and timing to different orchestras and rhythms within the same 'tanda'.

You take what you can get! Positively it helps the social connection when you meet up at an actual milonga.

 

[Brummbaer]

Part of it is because men tend to creep on less experienced and usually younger women. It's a cultural phenomenon we can ignore, but that won't make it go away. We'd have to call the creeps "Creep!" to their face and show them the door for that to happen.

As someone recently put it: middle-aged solos prefer younger women; older men also prefer younger women. That's just a general observation of life. And then we also get the women swooning over the latin types...

But, aside from life's sexual politics, there's a whole problem getting men interested in dance - and then there's AT. There's also a group of women who are interested in the 'sparkle' of dance (think DWTS/Strictly), but not in actually dancing (at least without severe dieting). Oh, and the same goes for the couch-potato males!

As you say:

It's complicated.

It feels like smaller communities just have a more religious absolutist view of milongas where the larger communities are a bit more flexible simply given the amount of people that flow through.

It can happen, but I'll disagree. It comes down to revered, absolutist, leadership. Yes, you can certainly get that in a small community. However our experience has been that only applies to two small groups - and they've become more flexible. Other small groups' (4-6) leadership may have particular views, but 'members' don't have to buy-in and set their own agenda. Larger metropolitan groups can have the revered leader where obedience to their cultural take is obligatory. They probably have a lot more invested. That doesn't just apply to AT!

OK, you can argue that [social] AT isn't just a dance but also comes with the whole GA cultural baggage of retro BsAs, which is forever. But it's evolved from then, from the 1970/80s, and from the turn of the 21st century - even, apparently, in BsAs.

 

[JournalInTime]

But, aside from life's sexual politics, there's a whole problem getting men interested in dance - and then there's AT.

Well, one thing AT has "going for it" (if you can call it that) is that it's attractive to the sorts of macho guys who might not dance otherwise, because its traditions come from a time and place when that was just fine (and I would argue "even more than any other dance," but I'm sure that would cause a war). Unfortunately for AT, these guys are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

I believe that to get more men to take up dance, we mostly have to wait for the older cohort of Western society who hold most of the money and power to die out – and with them, their dated attitudes about "male vs. female activities." My hopes in that regard have been dashed in recent years by the resurgence of alt-right thinking that wants to bring back traditional gender roles. The fact that it also wants to bring back fascism doesn't fill me with hope, either.

There's also a group of women who are interested in the 'sparkle' of dance (think DWTS/Strictly), but not in actually dancing (at least without severe dieting).

Yeah, there are lots of those for sure. They are actually the worst offenders for bad technique leading to accidents on the dancefloor. While we like to blame leaders for poor floorcraft, 4 out of 5 bad things I've had happen to me have been caused by some woman in heels doing pretty-princess dance moves instead of planting herself on two legs, inside the frame, in front of the leader, and taking responsibility for 50% of the floorcraft. That "pretty-princess dance moves" thing is the exaggerated flipside to the macho thing.

It comes down to revered, absolutist, leadership. Yes, you can certainly get that in a small community.

Put it this way: It's easier to get that in a small community. The difficulty of being a dictator rises with the size of the population. Sure, there have been huge political dictatorships, but there have been far more tiny ones, because it's easier to police a small group into submission and to detect a challenger there.

Which isn't the same as saying that it's easier in a small place. Plenty of big cities have several small and mostly independent tango communities, each with its own dictator. The difference is that people who dislike the dictator in small places can supplant the dictator or leave altogether, while in larger places they have the third option of changing dictators without becoming one or changing for the null option by leaving.

Larger metropolitan groups can have the revered leader where obedience to their cultural take is obligatory.

Groups, yes, but a metropolis lets you leave a group without leaving tango, as I wrote above. I personally know several people who left Dictator A's group to join Dictator B's group, or to join a group that doesn't tolerate dictators. You can't really do that in a place where Dictator A's group is the community.

OK, you can argue that [social] AT isn't just a dance but also comes with the whole GA cultural baggage of retro BsAs, which is forever. But it's evolved from then, from the 1970/80s, and from the turn of the 21st century - even, apparently, in BsAs.

The trick being that you have to convince a bunch of traditionalists and ritualists of this evolution. I've had some people who regularly visit BsAs say, in front of actual citizens of BsAs visiting us, that things are like X, Y, and Z in BsAs. When the visitor from BsAs laughs and says things haven't been like that in forever, the response is "La la la I can't hear you!" It's a bit ridiculous . . . we have a bunch of very non-Argentine locals playing at being more Argentine than actual Argentines, trying to preserve traditions that even people in Argentina have dropped.

(The most recent specific case I witnessed: "Argentines talk for half of each tango, and embrace for a full minute before starting to dance." To which an Argentine master said, "Uh, where did you see this? In most places, if you do that, you get shoved!")

It's bizarre, but you also get it in other domains. One of my martial-artist friends was blown away when he moved to Japan to study martial arts and learned that all of the Japanese budo traditions he'd learned had been abandoned to focus on the values of modern MMA, save for in a very small number of gyms. One of my British writers routinely calls out U.S. writers who write English like it's 1899.

 

[brujo]

Well, one thing AT has "going for it" (if you can call it that) is that it's attractive to the sorts of macho guys who might not dance otherwise, because its traditions come from a time and place when that was just fine (and I would argue "even more than any other dance," but I'm sure that would cause a war). Unfortunately for AT, these guys are part of the problem and not part of the solution.

I believe that to get more men to take up dance, we mostly have to wait for the older cohort of Western society who hold most of the money and power to die out – and with them, their dated attitudes about "male vs. female activities."

I don’t see this as much. In fact the appeal of tango in my area seems to be the opposite, the guys who want to pick up take up salsa or bachata so tango actually feels safer because there are fewer meat market creepy dude types. Overall it’s actually a bit older and nerdier. There are at least four followers that I’ve chatted with that love tango but are creeped out by dances like bachata where the guys try to get closer for no reason.

 

[opendoor]

Well, one thing AT has "going for it" ..is that it's attractive to the sorts of macho guys who might not dance otherwise, because its traditions come from a time and place when..

I don't see that at all. In my community and many communities in Europe, that's absolutely not the case. And I think you're simply highly sensitive to such characters, and thus perceive them as disproportionately present, even though they are rare exceptions. The mainstream tango dancer is simply a softy like you and me! By the fireplace on cold winter evenings, I tell the story of the two fights that borderline dancers had. Even in the bachata sensual community, everyone is just a nice young man I'd adopt as a son-in-law in a heartbeat. Admittedly, things are a bit different in the salsa communities. And in the lindy hop scene, you'll find the nice, soft guys too. The guys just go wherever the girls happen to be. Thats it.

 

[Bailango]

if he wasn't well-groomed, as often beginners are not.

Beginners are not often well-groomed? Not sure what you mean by it, but grooming habits have very little to do with whether you are beginner or not. Percentage of dancers in tango who are not well groomed is low. When you say “often” it implies very frequent.

I have always said that dancers should not reward those that are not well groomed. In my other posts I have frequently stated that men tend to be lax about grooming than the women. And if I was to be a follower, there are men I wouldn’t dance with because of their grooming. Either I have higher intolerance of lack of grooming, or women have higher tolerance towards me that aren’t well groomed

In a dance like tango, where we dance close, grooming is an important factor in deciding whether to dance with a person or not.

I'm not sure where your last sentence refers to.. I have leaders very discreetly inviting me to coach them a little when a choregraphed element goes a tad awkward.

During milonga ?