Block, Cross & the Hesitation Therein...

[Me]

I'm glad you came here, Br0nze. Keep the questions coming!

I just want to stress that the best Argentine instruction you can get is very simple and very clear. As a beginner in a beginning class, you should be working on walking, your balance/core/center, and feeling your partner's balance/core/center. Interpretation of the music comes later. Finding your partner's foot on the floor comes later on when you have discovered your walk, your center, and can feel your partner's.

Do you dance ballroom? I ask because your username. It is unfortunate, but quite common for ballroom studios to pick up Argentine as a novelty flavor of the month, and teach it after watching some DVDs. Dance Vision, or DVIDA, is one of the more common methods. We learned DVIDA so that we could cure the students who came to us as refugees from that system. Toward the end of the bronze DVIDA syllabus, there is a combination that goes something like this:

The man walks and leads the lady to cross.
She steps forward to the man's right and walks around him
He makes circles with his free foot as she walks
He stops her foot with the foot he was making circles with
She steps over his foot (to his right side)
The lady may hook here, or may not
She swivels twice, or four times
He walks her forward, side, close.

If that combination is what you were shown on a first lesson, I urge you to study tango somewhere else. Not only is that shamefully advanced for a first lesson, but it is being presented as a pattern, without any of the necessary elements of how to lead or follow it.

 

[bastet]

You'll have to excuse the "ridiculous tilt" description of the hold, it was a late night after a long day and those were the only words that came to mind that managed to describe what I meant. Same with the "ronde action."

I was told that, indeed, most of the leading happens from the torso due to the close embrace in AT. Haven't had the chance to experience it to figure out how exactly (a) it feels and (b) works. It was indeed a group class, and while there were only two couples, mainly we were just introduced to the steps, and then left to our own devices, to so speak, but it's understandable -- it's a AT Intro class, no one is going to get all technique savvy on me.

But that's why I turned to the good people of this place

About that cross:

The crusada is a fairly involved chain of events. The way I was originally taught it was walk-2-times-outside and the lady crosses. I was exceedingly unhappy with that. The next way I learned it (thankfully through some master teachers) was pure lead and follow of the leaders torso motions. It involves the leader walking outside partner using a little dissociation then rotating back to square to cause a crusada. Try explaining that to a day 1-2-3-4 beginner without resorting to patterns...oye. I won't say it's impossible, but I have seen from experience that the muscle and partner awareness just isn't there to carry it out, which is why I think the step 2 times rule developed.

Timing depends on the music and the leader. At the start, I have usually seen it taught as a step occurs on each slow beat, with the double time option being show also. Other variations (almost crosses or crosses that uncross) and timing changes are like icing on the cake for creative exploration but not the meat of the matter (ie- understanding how a basic crusada works).

I personally think you are being done a disservice if you have a teacher who gives you a pattern to play with because teaching partner connection, lead and follow, timing and step variation, dissociation and musciality liek musical phrasing are too complex for a beginner so they should just have a pattern instead. The patterns (steps/combinations/etc) are built off the core elements. It's easier to focus separately on them before combining them and all of these basic ideas can be taught with the use of simpler linear walking elements and variations to prepare a person for later.


I don't understand the foot block cue and ronde' thing at all. It sounds like a stop gap measure to get you by instead of the teacher taking time to teach it as a lead and follow.

 

[bastet]

I'm glad you came here, Br0nze. Keep the questions coming!

I just want to stress that the best Argentine instruction you can get is very simple and very clear. As a beginner in a beginning class, you should be working on walking, your balance/core/center, and feeling your partner's balance/core/center. Interpretation of the music comes later. Finding your partner's foot on the floor comes later on when you have discovered your walk, your center, and can feel your partner's.

Do you dance ballroom? I ask because your username. It is unfortunate, but quite common for ballroom studios to pick up Argentine as a novelty flavor of the month, and teach it after watching some DVDs. Dance Vision, or DVIDA, is one of the more common methods. We learned DVIDA so that we could cure the students who came to us as refugees from that system. Toward the end of the bronze DVIDA syllabus, there is a combination that goes something like this:

The man walks and leads the lady to cross.
She steps forward to the man's right and walks around him
He makes circles with his free foot as she walks
He stops her foot with the foot he was making circles with
She steps over his foot (to his right side)
The lady may hook here, or may not
She swivels twice, or four times
He walks her forward, side, close.

If that combination is what you were shown on a first lesson, I urge you to study tango somewhere else. Not only is that shamefully advanced for a first lesson, but it is being presented as a pattern, without any of the necessary elements of how to lead or follow it.

I'm in total agreement with this and have viewed all the DVIDA stuff as well and have seen that teaching in action (unfortunately).

 

[Mladenac]

i thought about a pause in moving leaders body.
You can always "stop" (not really stop and wait) your movement and lead in sth new.
but not definitely on his level.

how i was being taught to cross:

step to left with small torso rotation towards partner, going aside (on her right side).
on my left leg slight additional outward torso rotation, she crosses,
I rotate my torso back and shift my weight to my right foot,
during which my partner shift her weight for right to left leg.
to the end of finishing back rotation i step in her line.

I recommend you walking and rotating your torso and going completely opposite on torso hips dissociation.

try to walk on music.
recommendation for music:
http://www.tejastango.com/tango_music_beginning.html

 

[dchester]

I don't understand the foot block cue and ronde' thing at all. It sounds like a stop gap measure to get you by instead of the teacher taking time to teach it as a lead and follow.

If leading someone who was taught that the cross is automatic (like a lot of Argentines are), then the leader needs to do something if he doesn't want the follower to cross.

Leaders need to be able to deal with followers of both philosophies (cross is lead, and cross is automatic).

 

[bastet]

If leading someone who was taught that the cross is automatic (like a lot of Argentines are), then the leader needs to do something if he doesn't want the follower to cross.

Leaders need to be able to deal with followers of both philosophies (cross is lead, and cross is automatic).

I'm vary aware of that philosophy, and I guess I'm still very thankful one of my first teachers (an Argentine couple) taught it as a lead and follow movement as I was on the verge of stopping the dance because my other teacher wouldn't answer questions about lead and follow. I very promptly found a new teacher after that.

My own hypothesis on the historical development of the automatic cross is that it got taught to beginners, who didn't have the body awareness to lead it, so got taught it as an "automatic" sequence and has persisted ever since.

This, to me, has always begged the question of why then should we have ever bothered to say AT is improvisational if you are just going to have "automatic" sequences. Just memorize the steps and cues and be done with it.

Another take on this idea is may be something like one of my other teachers said once in a class. His main jist was "I am going to show you this excersise (the basic eight) and even if I didn't show you any lead and follow for it, if you practiced it every day for several months, you would find the lead and follow in it yourself...but then I'd be out of a job."

So historically, perhaps it was taught and the people practiced it enough to develop their own lead and follow for it (not a bad thought since Stephen Payne spent an entire year last year teaching different ways to cross) but the fact remains that a lead and follow will probably develop, IMO, just by practicing correct body positions and so forth.

 

[Steve Pastor]

So does that mean you are looking in on Alex's site from afar? Did Steven move when I wasn't looking?
(I took six? weeks of lessons on the "cross" from him, but that was several years ago.) The vast majority of people do not dance at a level that really allows the variation that is possible ("weak connection" combined with "pattern think", ect).
Steven was my favorite teacher, you know.

 

[Steve Pastor]

It's difficult to determine how things were taught in the past. Written records rarely address lead / follow the way we address it currently. If anyone has any material from printed sources that, sorry, is in English, please share because this is of particular interest to me.
I wonder, too, (just thinking out loud here) if the ananlysis of the nuevo movement (NOT what we use the word to describe a certain dance style) when combined with the evolving of gender roles didn't lead to our current teaching paradigm.

 

[bastet]

So does that mean you are looking in on Alex's site from afar? Did Steven move when I wasn't looking?
(I took six? weeks of lessons on the "cross" from him, but that was several years ago.) The vast majority of people do not dance at a level that really allows the variation that is possible ("weak connection" combined with "pattern think", ect).
Steven was my favorite teacher, you know.

yes- that was last year. It was something like all of 2008 he spent on various ways to cross. I wished we had been able to go to some of that.

 

[bastet]

It's difficult to determine how things were taught in the past. Written records rarely address lead / follow the way we address it currently. If anyone has any material from printed sources that, sorry, is in English, please share because this is of particular interest to me.
I wonder, too, (just thinking out loud here) if the analysis of the nuevo movement (NOT what we use the word to describe a certain dance style) when combined with the evolving of gender roles didn't lead to our current teaching paradigm.

Very true. So of course, it's only my pet theory about the development of the "automatic cross" but either one or both together make sense when you think that how they taught the dance back then (see what I did? Now do it...) is not usually how it is taught now (thank goodness). Just because it was done a certain way before doesn't mean we can't improve on it to make it easier to understand...or do people just prefer that tango mysticality when it comes to how the steps and combinations work?

 

[dchester]

How long is the pause there?

As long as the leader wants it to be. You can put a pause after any step, BTW. That's nothing unique to the cross. The leader has a lot of thinking to do, and when to pause (along with when to take quip steps), is just one of the things you have to decide/improvise when dancing tango. It should fit the music, though.

is it a hesitation every time?

No. While the cross is a perfectly good place to pause, there is no rule that says it should happen.

but perhaps more advanced Argentine Tango-ers are more skilled with it and thus require less time?

There's some truth in that.

Also, along the same line, in the Block, I was told that one should aim for the in-step of the lady's foot so as to let her know the block is occurring and she is not to go into the Cross. Since Argentine Tango is danced in an ridiculously tilted hold, does the hold allow for the "ronde action" to always hit the in-step or is it possible for miscommunication to occur?

As I mentioned in a prior post, there are two (equally valid, IMO) philosophies on the cross. One philosophy is that the follower will automatically cross in certain situations, and the other is that it is always led. When starting out, I thought the automatic cross thing was foolish, but the more I dance, the more I've learned to appreciate it.

In any case, it sounds like your teacher is in the automatic cross philosophy. I think it's very important for a leader to learn how to deal with both types of followers. At some point, you'll need to take classes from someone who teaches that the cross is always led, so you can be comfortable with both types of followers.

To be honest, I would not be concentrating on how to block the cross, so early on. To me, it seems a bit strange to be teaching the block in a beginners class. For starting out, I think you should just let the women cross every time, until you've become more comfortable with things. IMO, it's a more advanced technique.

 

[Me]

Re: Cross

Hmmm.

Funny how something so simple can suddenly grow so complex when we really think about it.

I guess my answer is, I follow the cross.

Which, btw, confuses a lot of dancers.

If my lead closes too soon, I don't have time to commit my weight to the crossing foot, so my foot passes... we are then in "crossed" feet, and he is confused as the dickens when I ocho to close.

If my lead gives me space but does not move his body into it, I stop in the middle and do not take the cross. He hasn't moved me onto my back foot, so I wait. He stares at me, confused, waiting... I look at him, waiting... do I move to my back foot? Automatically? In these cases, I choose to. He's waiting for me to do so, after all.

So, I guess my decision to auto-cross is determined by who I dance with.

 

[Peaches]

This discussion is making me, once again, very grateful for my first teacher and how he taught me. I couldn't really even tell you how I learned the cross. He didn't speak much English, and I speak no Spanish really, so most was done hands-on and by feel. The thing that stands out from the first day is "stay in front of me" and "stay focused on me." Close embrace. At least for the first day, that kept me busy and got me started pretty nicely, I think.

Looking back, I know he had to have been overleading unbelievably, to compensate enough where he could get me to follow what he had me do. Poor guy. But I will always be grateful.

 

[Mladenac]

I had some great excercise of lead and follow.

my partner stands in front of me, and must mirror my every movement.

like ME said, if i move she moves, nothing in advanced.

Yesterday i danced with advanced dancer, but i don't like dancing with her,
that i lead her in sth, and she finishes on her own i.e. i am still moving and she has already done the figure.

maybe she is not so advanced after all

 

[bastet]

So does that mean you are looking in on Alex's site from afar? Did Steven move when I wasn't looking?
(I took six? weeks of lessons on the "cross" from him, but that was several years ago.) The vast majority of people do not dance at a level that really allows the variation that is possible ("weak connection" combined with "pattern think", ect).
Steven was my favorite teacher, you know.

on second thought, it may have been 2007, but I can't remember if it was 2 or 3 trips back...