What do you all think about the word "integrity" ?
Yes, I think that's handy for a community builder, but it just doesn't scale up. And personally, I might not want to spend a lot of energy to have a lukewarm, exchangeable relationship with everyone. For example, the private milongas in the pandemic, which were exclusive and not inclusive, led to some deepened relationships. Or if we together drive an hour to a milonga, maybe half a day to an event, maybe share the accomodation for a weekend.
"Integrity" sounds too systemic to me. "Selfish", on the other hand, gets to the point: too often personal concerns are sacrificed while dancing. I understand "selfish" in terms of self-care and "awareness".
Yes, but also generous dancers tend to get good, because it's more of a challenge to be generous. If I only dance with a few leads who will lead familiar sequences, I might never look bad or feel frustrated, but I won't improve. If I dance with a beginner or a newcomer or even just someone with whom I'm not very sympatico, that's a challenge and I can learn from it.
But the opposite also is true. I would never try out sequences I don't know, invent new figures, or just experiment at a party. All of this belongs without exception exclusively in the práctica. At the milonga only known steps should be danced; the challenge there is the musical interpretation of the pieces, but not the gymnastic or acrobatic one!
Sorry, I just find your comment contradicting in itself. Of course, I don't know who they are referring to and who you actually danced with. In any case, they don't apply to me, although I would describe myself as a quite "selfish" dancer. When I step into the dance hall or on the dance floor, I always have "one eye in the mirror" (as in Carly Simon's great song). And I am extremely picky and selective, too. I will never dance with weak, wobbly, clinging, or unstable followers. I don't have to hurt and torment myself only out of a sense of duty. I understand "self-awareness" in the sense of "mindfulness" (as John Kabat-Zinn once defined it).
Here in Northern Europe, dancing is generally far more attractive to women than to men. And it will take at least a few more years for a sufficient number of women to want to and are able to lead.
This is the big problem with group classes: the followers know what they are supposed to be doing, so the leaders have no way to know whether or not they are leading it. Ideally, there would be two rooms – the leaders taken into one and taught how to lead the thing, the followers given some technique exercises relevant to the topic, but with no idea what is to be led. I've been to exactly one workshop where the teachers took that approach.
If I'm not really without luck, like @opendoor, then I'm satisfied, I've almost achieved my goals. But are there enough like me to create a noticeable effect?
There is a difference between a figure and a sequence like four front ochos, ocho cortado, molinete. Some leads have very set routines, and might only lead a molinete after four front ochos and an ocho cortado regardless of what the music is or isn't doing. Whenever I dance with that person, I know that if he's led one front ocho, in six counts he'll expect an ocho cortado, followed by a molinete, which he may or may not trouble to lead. I will wait for the lead, but not every follow does (because they're dancing with an eye in the mirror too, whereas I rely on proprioception).
In English, pronouns refer to the last, named subject of the same number and gender (unless one has very specifically and carefully indicated otherwise), so syntactically 'them' necessarily refers to 'selfish dancers' because 'selfish dancers' are the only people to whom 'them' could refer. Further, the behaviour I characterized as selfish is consistent with the standard definition of the word 'selfish' in English, which is 'lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.' I know it's the done thing to define words to suit ourselves, but even though I'm not a prescriptivist (at least in theory, in my actual writing, I am a prescriptivist because my readers are multilingual) I'm a descriptivist, so correct usage is accepted usage.
I have never been able to clearly state my goals. I can only tell from evidence that I am approaching the finish line:
Hello JCS, nice that you answer. In fact, there are several misunderstandings in our communication. But we can clear it up, now. For me there is no difference between a figure and a sequence. But I know that there are some older didactics around that differentiate here. Gustavo Naveira defined 5 basic movements: that is, already a single front ocho is a complex sequence of 4 moves. But I still understood you, you complain about dancers who call up what they have learned stereotypically without being creative with their vocabulary. I'm sorry, you seem to be surrounded by so many poor dancers. Do you live in the provinces or in the diaspora?
Thanks for the tutorial in English grammar. But please allow me to use language intuitively. For me, a sentence is not a clear command line in a computer language. If we were facing each other, I would pay attention to your body language, facial expressions and intonation. Here in the forum (of course) I pick out the trigger points and make them my own topics. And I just had the feeling that you were attacking leaders across the board. It's good that we have now clarified that.
Sorry, it still is. This point somehow triggers me emotionally. Unfortunately, I am no longer the most attractive, youngest, and best leader in my community. Somehow I have to come to terms with it. In this forum there were many threads about learning curves, progress and prognoses. I deal with the contrary, aging in tango. This is where the tried and tested strategies fail.