At the end of the pandemic, maybe a new start?

[LadyLeader]

WARNING:
This is third occasion in one week I write text directing readers to wrong conclusions!


One of my follower friends is getting more rough after leading for some time and tells me:

"Followers should not give me advice. They actually don't know what is happening when you lead. "
" I have decided to stop inviting followers who are not fit. A follower needs to train, not spend all time on a sofa. I want to learn, I need a follower who can something!"

 

[David_In_CA]

WARNING:
This is third occasion in one week I write text directing readers to wrong conclusions!


One of my follower friends is getting more rough after leading for some time.

* Followers should not give me advice. They actually don't know what is happening when you lead.
* I have decided to stop inviting followers who are not fit. A follower needs to train, not spend all time on a sofa. I want to learn, I need a follower who can something!

Are you suggesting that is what your follower friend is saying? I would use quotation marks if so.

 

[Numawan]

There's a saying in the writing world that if multiple readers tell you something doesn't work, they are almost certainly right. If they offer advice on how to fix it, they are almost certainly wrong.

I think this applies here. In classes and practicas, I ask followers for feedback on their experience. Unless they also lead themselves, I don't expect them to be able to offer useful advice on what I need to do to fix it – that's a job for my teachers.

In class, it is one aspect of spotting an advanced follower, for me as a leader. She will tell me that something doesn't feel right (usually I will also feel it when something isn't right), but she won't offer advice on how to fix it.

 

[Numawan]

The reverse is also true BTW. When I feel something isn't right, I am seldom able as a leader to give useful advice on what my follower should do differently. (Yes yes, I am of the school that not everything is the leader's fault.)

 

[opendoor]

..decided to stop inviting followers who are not fit. A follower needs ..not spend all time on a sofa..

Just to understand: Your statement must refer to known dancers, because you can't necessarily infer the level of fitness from the outer appearance, or can you?

 

[opendoor]

....think this difference has not been clear to me!

Also in the milonguero style there are dynamics, acceleration and ritardando. I would like to determine this myself, but not be determined by stop and go of a crowded ronda of beginners or unmusical dancers in front of me. Thats all.

 

[opendoor]

..I write text directing readers to wrong conclusions!

Better than leading and the follower walks the wrong direction!

 

[Bailango]

The reverse is also true BTW. When I feel something isn't right, I am seldom able as a leader to give useful advice on what my follower should do differently. (Yes yes, I am of the school that not everything is the leader's fault.)

In practica there are things that I can give useful suggestions to followers that can fix simple things. I am amazed that they have been dancing and taking classes for several years but no instructor has fixed it. I will switch the role to follow myself and let them experience how it feels the way they might be incorrectly doing it. Then I will do it a better way and let them compare it for themselves. Sometimes I will do both in form of a blind test. Ask them which feels better. I seldom do fixing in practicas. When I have, generally after a few weeks the follower comes back to say thanks for the tips.

There are other things that I can tell them are incorrect but they need to seek out an instructor that can help them fix it. One example is disassociation. I can tell them they are not disassociating enough. I don’t know how to help them with that.

 

[itwillhappen]

That's the fundamental issue: lack of male leaders in some locales, and how to encourage more males to learn AT.

Friday's milonga: deficit of female followers.
Sunday's milonga: deficit of male leaders.

Thursday evenings: purely traditional music, not very beginner-friendly, more or less gender balanced.
Sunday afternoons: mixed music, coffee and cake, 90 minutes of protection time for beginners, clear lack of male leaders.

At the moment, from hearsay, it seems to may be becoming a trend, and females are solving it for themselves.

We can't know what the future holds, but I wouldn't envision that as a male exclusion. Rather, men prefer to stay at home because tango is becoming more feminine and enriched with bodywork, contact improvisation or Ayurveda.
Here

Revelation tango | Tango Dance Musicality Neotango Contango

tango dance neo tango contact tango musicality

www.revelationtango.com

an organizer can do without any role specification, I think because he can recruit enough participants from his very successful double-role events.

 

[JournalInTime]

I wrote a long post and my browser died. Argh.

Tango is full of chatterbox leaders who pick out newer, generally younger followers and mansplain follower technique to them (despite having never followed . . .), believing that their years of social dance experience as leaders give them insight into follower technique, and that their experience is more valuable than the professional coaching experience of their followers' teachers. Most of these guys are good dancers only in their heads, and seem to be prone to high elbows and arm-leading, head pressure and foot-gazing, wide cowboy stances, and bobbing walks and weight shifts. Don't be them! Give feedback only if asked directly – and even then, only at the práctica, never at the milonga – and say what you feel, not what you think is wrong. Leave diagnosis to the pros; experience at the milonga doesn't teach it. Instead, lead with your body and not with your words, and if it doesn't work, accept that it's 50% likely to be your fault.

I do my part to fight this by shutting my mouth. When followers new to an event or a crowd insist that I tell them what leaders to avoid – and they do! – I point out the physically dangerous ones and then the dance-floor "teachers." Nobody needs those guys.

 

[JournalInTime]

When I feel something isn't right, I am seldom able as a leader to give useful advice on what my follower should do differently.

Same. When I worked as an accompanier, the teacher I worked with the most – now my coach – insisted that I learn "diagnostic leading" so that I could help followers ask their teachers the right questions, or explain to their teachers what wasn't working. However, I don't do that at the milonga or even at the práctica, because I only have a decade of experience in a city where the real teachers have 20-30 years of experience. Instead, when asked what's up, I say, "Well, I feel this. Maybe mention that to your teacher next time? But it could be just me."

(Yes yes, I am of the school that not everything is the leader's fault.)

Me, too. I take the stance that tango is 50/50: Each partner is 50% responsible for making movements work and avoiding disasters, and each is 100% responsible for creating their energy and decorations, and so 50% responsible for the couple's energy and decorations. More controversially, I believe that each partner is 50% responsible for the movements used, although that's an "equal but not the same" situation, with the leader working through proposals and the follower working through counter-proposals and provocations.

 

[Bailango]

I wrote a long post and my browser died. Argh.

Tango is full of chatterbox leaders who pick out newer, generally younger followers and mansplain follower technique to them (despite having never followed . . .), believing that their years of social dance experience as leaders give them insight into follower technique, and that their experience is more valuable than the professional coaching experience of their followers' teachers. Most of these guys are good dancers only in their heads, and seem to be prone to high elbows and arm-leading, head pressure and foot-gazing, wide cowboy stances, and bobbing walks and weight shifts. Don't be them! Give feedback only if asked directly – and even then, only at the práctica, never at the milonga – and say what you feel, not what you think is wrong. Leave diagnosis to the pros; experience at the milonga doesn't teach it. Instead, lead with your body and not with your words, and if it doesn't work, accept that it's 50% likely to be your fault.

I do my part to fight this by shutting my mouth. When followers new to an event or a crowd insist that I tell them what leaders to avoid – and they do! – I point out the physically dangerous ones and then the dance-floor "teachers." Nobody needs those guys.

This is definitely a problem in dancing. Those least qualified are usually the loudest. I will be very rich if I got a dollar everytime a beginner follower has told me how grateful she is that some random leader gives her tips during social dancing or likes to dance with her. Which is pay her attention though he could be dancing with better followers. My instinctive reaction without knowing which particular leader she is praising is that:

a. It is wrong to be doing that unsolicited when social dancing.
b. He is not likely a good leader. Most good leaders will not correct a follower when social dancing.
c. What he told her is probably incorrect.
d. Don’t form bad habits. Work with a good instructor.

Some followers will try to argue back.

It doesn’t help that half the instructors have less than five or six or ten years of experience as dancers. Their own dancing is no better than intermediates. I will say of about 30 instructors in the area only 10 might be truly experienced and qualified to teach. I am surprised to constantly discover some not before heard name beginning to offer tango classes.

 

[JournalInTime]

Those least qualified are usually the loudest.

Yes. I know who many of ours are. Some of them started tango after I did and stopped lessons a few years later. Put another way, I started tango before them and continued at least weekly coaching up through the present . . . yet I simply say nothing to followers. I find it hard to say nothing to those leaders, however, as I feel they lower the overall level of dance in the community when they give their free advice.

One guy who especially irks me holds his partner way off to his right side, keeps his partner a mile from his body, looks at his feet, and forces movements with his arms. When I see him, I want to make like a football ref, and pull a red card and send him off.

It doesn’t help that half the instructors have less than five or six or ten years of experience as dancers. Their own dancing is no better than intermediates. I will say of about 30 instructors in the area only 10 might be truly experienced and qualified to teach. I am surprised to constantly discover some not before heard name beginning to offer tango classes.

That's a related problem for sure. We're fortunate to have many instructors here who've been dancing tango for 20-30 years, quite a few of whom went through formal dance training in ballet or another style taught at an actual dance academy, or at least apprenticed with older teachers for years. But a few of these guys who started tango after I did and stopped lessons a few years later have set themselves up as teachers, which is a disgrace.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

As we learn to lead and can pick anyone we want,

This is not necessarily true. It simply means they too will be competing with the other leaders for a smaller group of followers. Not every woman wants to dance with a woman. And most men don't want to follow.

 

[Brummbaer]

Thursday evenings: purely traditional music, not very beginner-friendly, more or less gender balanced.
Sunday afternoons: mixed music, coffee and cake, 90 minutes of protection time for beginners, clear lack of male leaders.

Yes. I gave a single sample. It depends on many things, amongst those: music choice ('traditional' is fine; obscure 'traditional' isn't), so the DJ affects that; location => implies transport accessibility and travel time. I suspect, since it isn't always a metropolitan area, local cost of living (e.g. housing prices) can also exclude younger people, unless attracted by some teacher, maybe as DJ, bringing people in. Classes tend to imply [dance] couples.

It really needs a proper survey of those attending over time rather than impressions.

Rather, men prefer to stay at home because tango is becoming more feminine and enriched with bodywork, contact improvisation or Ayurveda.

Yeah, been in those environments. Does seem to generate the 'alternative', 'wellness', 'lifestyle' enthusiast finding an expression of AT as their outlet. Never did it for me, and probably unheard of in that GA source of 'tradition', but if it does it for you...

It doesn’t help that half the instructors have less than five or six or ten years of experience as dancers. Their own dancing is no better than intermediates.

That's almost intrinsic in AT where there are no formal standard or qualifications. Why not monetize your passion? To be fair, some have trained, and been 'apprenticed' to more experienced teachers.

Should there be 'standards' and qualifications? And who judges that?