Bad habits?
- Thread starter itwillhappen
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tangomaniac
Well-Known Member
Never pulled back out but it felt like I pulled my back out when I tried back sacadas. The 180 degrees pivot is a killer.
ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
I've done it many times, simply not a fan. And I've always found it to be more work for less reward. The torso does far less work in this case for the simple reason that you are not connected by your torso. You don't lead with your torso, you lead with your legs and arms.
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Interesting. This wasn’t my understanding from when I took lessons in open. As a follower I have more connection points in open. Eyes being the first connection point - we did exercises without any embrace. My hand on the leader’s upper arm/shoulder and hand to hand on the closed side being the second and third connection points. We were also taught to seek the leader’s arm/hand on our backs as another connection point. Then as we progressed into other movements like soltadas etc we had to look for different connections and leads. I remember those classes as really fun!
i remember that the leaders had to be very clear and conscious of their lead as each part of the torso was visible to the followers. Some of the leaders were a real pain to follow either too stiff or too noisy but again we all really enjoyed the classes.
Ah this is the bad habit thread! I consider dancing a totally different dance to the music playing eg tango to a milonga as a bad habit. But I don’t consider a stylistic preference to be a bad habit. I also think it’s a bad habit to decide there’s only one way to tango.
The arms are supposed to be an extension of the torso, they shouldn't move independently. It gets real easy, in ballroom as well as argentine, to get sloppy and rely on the arms when there is no direct torso to torso connection. And depending on how far apart the dancers are, it can get more difficult to respect the partner's axis.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
When I listed bad habits that drive me mental, I forgot "the leader moving the follower around using the arms." That pretty much guarantees back and shoulder pain. Ugh.
My partner and I are always changing what we're working on, meaning that our exercises at the práctica change, too. However, one exercise we do every single time is dance at least one tanda arms-free. The only point of contact allowed is the torso. Every major family of tango movements other than colgadas, including overturned movements, can be danced this way. At this stage, we use milonga tandas for this, because with short, sharp movements at high speed, there's no room for error – either it works or it doesn't.
I believe that all tango should be this at its heart, with the arms added strictly for a bit of extra safety – like a seatbelt, something you put around you but hope never to need. Colgadas aside, any movement a person can't dance without implicating the arms is one they need more work on. An absolute need for arms is a sign that they're not really transmitting and receiving with the core.
side note: I did ask a number of travelling teachers about this in the past, and the consensus seemed to be that follower's back sacadas are also in the 'arm lead involved' category for most setups
JournalInTime
Forum Master
That sounds right for very dynamic sacadas.
The most common follower back sacadas I lead are close, "inside" sacadas in turns, me leaving my free leg in place for an instant longer than usual. I create overturn by dissociating to twist my torso acutely toward my free leg in a way that, if my partner stays in front of my torso, will lead their moving foot to "replace" my unweighted one . . . an illusion. My arm isn't involved because all the élan comes from a sudden torso twist.
So I'm saying that the arms aren't needed for sacadas as illusions: The follower would step there regardless, and you hang around long enough to make it look like their foot displaced yours. That applies to front, side, or back follower sacadas . . . you're really just delaying for visual effect.
This is for me the main difference between leader and follower sacadas. Leader sacadas can drive a turn due to the way that, even if they're "illusions" in some sense, they shift the leader's step target in a way that results in a more energetic turn. While follower sacadas can be like that, in which case arm tonus is essential, I'm not confident leading those as back sacadas yet! I'm fine leading them as front and side sacadas, but those don't need arm, either.
Numawan
Well-Known Member
There is one particular move that I learned this year in one of our group classes that can't be led by the torso.
The figure started with a back sacada on my part into a back ocho to the left for my partner. After my back sacada, my partner ends up in the saludo position. Then I step forward and invite my partner to do a back sacada into my extended trailing leg.
You have to really push with your left arm to indicate to your partner that she needs to do a overturned back ocho before she can follow up with a back sacada. You can't use the torso because you are already dissociated to the max.
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Don't some open side movements require a bit of arm? Like open side volcadas and open side back boleos require a bit of signaling/stiffening of the arms? I think they can be performed without arms but it may not be very clear?
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Volcadas are: (1) pick which leg you want to move (100% in your head), (2) keep or put your partner on the other leg (at most a weight change, which doesn't need an arm), (3) give your partner the impulse to move the free leg in the desired direction without transferring their weight on to it (for front and side/armpit volcadas, you can step away or just retreat your torso; for back volcadas, you advance your torso), and if leading a circular rather than linear volcada, (4) bring the leg back crossed (by rotating your torso). For front and back volcadas, you really shouldn't need an arm; torso-on-torso contact is generous and high in friction (unless your partner is wearing silk or something). I could see side/armpit volcadas benefiting from arm to help stabilize the weird right-angle geometry.
Ouch.
The boleo is created by you stepping in one sense and then reversing the sense before your partner has fully followed through. If you're retaining their upper body, you'll create a back-breaker boleo . . . I saw people kicked out of class for that. A boleo – linear or circular, front or back, open or closed side – is a natural free-leg response to checked momentum in stepping, a lower-body thing. Upper-body boleos can severely hurt a person.
Caveat: I dance fully closed with true weight sharing around a shared axis at just about all times. I have no idea whether semi-closed dancers who remain on two axes need their arms more for these movements, because I learned volcadas and boleos after I'd permanently changed to dancing apilado.
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Ah yeah, with fully close embrace apilado style I can see the arms being unnecessary, but with it being a bit more open / separate axes I think a little more lead from the open side arm would be useful since you don't have as much info/signals from the close embrace.
The boleo impulse should come from the legs, not arms (the arms just transmit)
JournalInTime
Forum Master
In fact, you have to work hard to leave your arms unimplicated a lot of the time. I've resumed work with my coach, who recently related a horror story about "El Caracol": a milonguero who stuck to, enveloped, and kind of crushed his partners. A tango embrace is indeed a hug, and needs arm encirclement to feel good, but the communication and dynamics come not from the arms, but from the torso-on-torso press.