Bad habits?

[JournalInTime]

it's not a zero sum game, people who start up new classes can bring new people into the community and/or fill niches that the existing teachers aren't reaching.

You make a good point. Still, I live in a city with a high ratio of existing tango teachers to existing tango dancers, and the jungle drums beat loudly here. Several acquaintances of broadly comparable seniority and experience to me decided to teach. Due to back-channel connections, I learned how several established teachers felt about those people and what informal blacklists those people ended up on as a result. I'm not sure I want to play that particular social game.

The rough standard here for "teacher" is 20+ years of continuous workshops and at least some pedigree as the student of an influential Argentine master. I have about 10 years of (admittedly intensive) lessons and coaching, all of it entirely local. So I come up wanting. The people asking me to teach them are all women without partners, and I have a feeling that their real interest is in hiring a long-term taxi dancer. Even if not true, I'm not knowledgeable enough about follower technique to help them.

I think I could help leaders improve floorcraft in particular, but that subject is a nonstarter here. Lessons in it don't fill up and generally fail to launch.

 

[Rabbit]

Which is interesting, because all of my instruction, ever, has said that that family of movements works better the closer you are. I find that to be the case, too. Ganchos from another time zone, especially, are foreign to me, as I was taught that they're something that happens as one leg literally brushes over another in contact at super-close range.

In these movements, I generally don't open more than would be needed to comfortably do a high front boleo (I think that amount of space is also needed for "showy" moves such as back sacadas, piernazos, pulpeades etc)

Due to back-channel connections, I learned how several established teachers felt about those people and what informal blacklists those people ended up on as a result. I'm not sure I want to play that particular social game.

Fair enough - I think a similar attitude exists in many other places where established teachers and/or organizers jealously defend "their" turf on the basis of nothing more than seniority. Then again, they're not inviting you to their encuentros anyway, so you probably don't have that much to lose.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

My issue is with self-imposed limitations on learning. The old milongueros didn’t have the opportunities to travel or learn from the internet like we do. They danced what they learned locally.

I suppose it depends on whether you see that as a limitation or not. The old milongueros, that is. As for learning, we do have greater opportunities today, certainly more global but far less focused and intensive.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

So, although there are teachers who don't teach follower technique, there are also too many followers who don't like to hold themselves up because they find it fun to let the leader do that.

Oooh, that's very risky and more work for the leader.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

I realize that all those pros have done the hard work of stretching and balancing.

And, in many cases, years of modern dance or ballet training.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Many followers here, I would say most, were taught to dance straight-legged and tall.

Not really very comfortable.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

And this is not laziness. I'm itching for a "side hustle" and would really love for it to be related to tango. I'd do the work. I simply don't believe I'm credible after a scant decade.

I respect this. I've met guys who started teaching women after a year taking as many classes as they could. Oh brother! I've met others who couldn't really dance four years ago, who now claim to be teachers. It's truly something to behold. Neither of them was very good at traditional AT. I feel sorry for the women who gave that guy money.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Even if not true, I'm not knowledgeable enough about follower technique to help them.

I bet you could practice with them, give them pointers, basic stuff, and that would probably be very helpful. Same for other men, you could probably handle the basics pretty easily at this point. Doing it as a full-time gig is a whole other matter, but for casual or friendly assistance for the length of a practice session or maybe an hour in a studio with them, I'm sure you'd do fine.

 

[LadyLeader]

Today the only persons recognized as having knowledge are teachers and I find it problematic. If there were more options/roles people would not necessarily end up labeling themselves as teachers.

Many experienced dancers have a solid knowledge but no recognized channel to pass it to new community members.

 

[tangoing]

No? I’m trying to remember arm led tango moves and all I can come up with right now is a travel turn soltada.

Colgadas also require arm support but they’re led from the torso

Maybe it’s just semantics but I’m not saying the arm is the driving force of the move, but it acts to transmits the signal that came from your legs/torso/core/etc, and without it the signal is much weaker (especially in open embrace).

I’ve been to a lot of teachers even though I’m still newish to tango compared to most people, but what I find silly is that one teacher will tell you that X move is best lead by the Y body part and then demonstrate how Z is bad in a half assed way, and then another teacher will do it vice versa by demonstrating Y half assed and why Z is superior, but the best teachers I’ve been with will show Y and Z can both be performed with good examples of each but they may prefer one over the other in certain situations.
So is a pure arm “lead” bad? Yeah most of the time, but there are a lot of instances where the arm acts as the support or signal and not the “main” lead and I don’t think that should be disregarded as the arm not leading at all.

 

[Tangogal]

I’ve always thought that a model of peer to peer learning would work well in social dances.

In my mind a group of skilled dancers would set up a practica and would take turns in leading a practice session.

Stuff like making everyone dance in a tiny space surrounded by chairs or one couple dancing blindfolded could help with floorcraft without it being an actual lesson.

Another week/month the theme might be refreshing the basics.

 

[Bailango]

I don’t understand? Differently how? Why don’t you use your whole torso? Perhaps you are just not as proficient in open?

I think it’s good to learn and practice every style and every embrace. I don’t want to rule out whole sections of a dance or not explore certain movements (I’m not in love with piernazo).

Tango when danced in open hold is not the same dance. As a leader my whole leading technique has to change. By open hold I am referring to distance of a feet or more better the frames. How I express musicality also changes. A simple example is syncopations. In close embrace it is easy to lead syncopation using your frame or whole torso. In open hold that is not an option. In close embrace there is more connection overall. In the open hold the connection is different. I rarely encounter a follower that wants to dance in open hold. As a leader I let follower select the embrace she wants to dance in.

There are different embraces but I don’t think there are different styles. Type of embrace can dictate and restrict certain movements. That doesn’t make it a different style. Only styles I recognize are show tango, social tango, and neuvo. Open hold is a bit of an aberration unless you want to include elements of neuvo style dancing or show tango. But to socially dance an entire tanda in a wide open hold doesn’t feel like dancing tango to me. On top of that most people who dance open hold are not able to maintain the dance frame and connection the way it is required to dance open.

 

[Bailango]

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.

It gives a wrong impression to say you lead with legs and arm. It gives an impression of arm leading. I think what you meant is that more connection is conveyed through arms and leg movements. You are still leading with your frame. Due to the nature of the open hold less information gets transmitted. The close embrace allow us to process more information about the connection. I have yet to meet an open hold tango dancer that can process the connection quickly the way a swing or salsa dancer/follower would. Both those are danced in open hold relative to tango.

To paraphrase in technical terms the channel is noisy and the latency is high

 

[Bailango]

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.

Dancing tango to milonga is either ignorance, incompetence, or uncharacteristic. While there is no one way to dance anything, it isn’t good to totally usurp the music or dance from its roots and essence. A case in point is sensual bachata which is a big craze these days that has very little connection with what bachata music or dancing is. If you devoid the dance from its roots and essence in form of its structure and music, it isn’t a different style. It is a different alien form.

 

[Bailango]

She then suggested using the time settling into the embrace to do a somewhat abbreviated version of this to calibrate the scale of lead needed for each follower. I consistently found it was always less than I would have guessed.

When starting a tanda I do the opposite. I start with being subtle and then calibrate it up or down.