Mr. Moustachio
Active Member
Right. In chest-to-chest contact you have a restricted set of movements available to you, so your dance is different from open embrace. In contrast, "near-by" is pretty much the same as open.
Close Embrace Tango Teachers
- Thread starter Loisa Donnay
- Start date
Mr. Moustachio
Active Member
I don't understand "weight sharing."
I started in Montreal in the mid-'90s. The girls would put their weight on me. They would press down on me. I suspect it made it easier to pivot. After dancing, my back would be killing me. I would lie down on the floor to relieve the pain. So, I don't want to share. I want my partner to support her own weight with her own two feet.
TTanguero
Forum Master
That's not weight-sharing in the apilado sense, though. Pressing down is always uncomfortable. Leaning horizontally on each other is a completely different thing, and I love it in the walk.
itwillhappen
Forum Master
And their technique, your technique, did not evolve in 25 years?!
itwillhappen
Forum Master
I would classify "near-by" as "bad open".
TTanguero nailed it regarding "weight sharing." It's not a "down force." It's a "horizontal force."
You would feel it not as someone hanging on you and pulling you down. Rather, you would feel it as as force that keeps you from falling forward.
Imagine holding yourself as far forward as you can, pretty much literally pushing your toes down to keep yourself from falling forward. Your partner is doing the same thing. and you are standing very close to each other, or even touching. (Close embrace!)
Now your partner relaxes and allows her upper body to "fall" towards you.
(This is best experiened without any contact with the arms.)
When she touches you, and you feel her weight on you, you can compensate by relaxing how much you push into the floor with your toes. You balance the force her body is exerting on you by allowing some of your weight to push against her.
Because men are in general taller and heavier than women, we say that the woman is leaning on the man. That's because it takes less lean forward for a taller, heavier person to put an equal "weight forward" (a horizontal force) than it does for a shorter, less heavy person.
Those words, "weight sharing," are not that helpful, but as far as I know, no one has come up with a better description. As others have written, "close embrace" usually has both partners "maintaining their own axis" independent of their partner.
You would feel it not as someone hanging on you and pulling you down. Rather, you would feel it as as force that keeps you from falling forward.
Imagine holding yourself as far forward as you can, pretty much literally pushing your toes down to keep yourself from falling forward. Your partner is doing the same thing. and you are standing very close to each other, or even touching. (Close embrace!)
Now your partner relaxes and allows her upper body to "fall" towards you.
(This is best experiened without any contact with the arms.)
When she touches you, and you feel her weight on you, you can compensate by relaxing how much you push into the floor with your toes. You balance the force her body is exerting on you by allowing some of your weight to push against her.
Because men are in general taller and heavier than women, we say that the woman is leaning on the man. That's because it takes less lean forward for a taller, heavier person to put an equal "weight forward" (a horizontal force) than it does for a shorter, less heavy person.
Those words, "weight sharing," are not that helpful, but as far as I know, no one has come up with a better description. As others have written, "close embrace" usually has both partners "maintaining their own axis" independent of their partner.
WhiskeyPapa
Well-Known Member
Perhaps at that early stage you were not sufficiently grounded and their semi-apilado style was forcing you to lean back when you should have had a straight back slightly leaned forward toward her, hinged at the waist, leading her through steps that could be felt through your torso?
Just going back to your question...
Does it matter? Why? Curiosity or a desire to emulate someone's perception of 'authentic' style?
There are versions of 'close' and, as noted, it can inhibit certain moves, or make them appear less 'elegant' if you do them close (does that matter to you?). Does 'close' have to be continuous?
I should emphasize that I'm not supporting or denigrating any interpretation. There were (and are) several 'close' styles. We don't really know what was 'authentic' (what era are you considering?). Someone taught a particular way in some area of the US way back; we could go back to AT coming to France in the early 20th century; we could look at some particular 'maestro' from some area of BsAs on some rare video. Or we could consider, what could be called interpretations and developments, from the late 20th through early 21st century - perhaps looking at how some youngish westerner has taught it. Of course there's also the Argentinians who've travelled to, and some settled, in Europe. They're teaching what their public wants- mainly on the grounds of: 'I want to look like that when dancing'.
I don't think there's any consensus on a specific variant of 'close'. There's no 'correct' answer (beyond MY way). These 'maestros' couldn't get beyond just about agreeing some representation of the so-called 8-step basic. Nevertheless I would be interested in hearing some reason for the context of question.
BTW, I think there is 'clarity' within a 'school' (MY way). There's no approved standard for social AT. It's only when you travel elsewhere that you find differences - and sometimes that's just a different explanation of the same thing - although the protagonists strongly disagree.
I don't presume to judge what's "authentic", maybe some other poster did.
My complaint is that the technique may be internally consistent, but the language often isn't. I remember the first few months I was in tango I received various well intentioned instructions that didn't effectively communicate what I was actually supposed to do with my body, it took me another few months to sort that mess out - and I was one of those annoying "talented" people.
We were already familiar with that in another dance related activity. We had a teacher who was officially world-class. They strongly disagreed with another 'world-class' teacher. In a test a judge objected to our teacher's interpretation of some steps; our teacher got the clarification of thid changed to their view.
Sometimes a different explanation of the same thing is useful and gives greater insight.
To be honest, I really don't want social AT to have an official, approved, examined standard.
I don't think there's much danger of that but we can have more effective teaching by giving clearer instructions. "Open your chest" would be another common example of a phrase that doesn't explain anything useful and is more likely to cause people to do something weird with their shoulders in an attempt to do the anatomically impossible.
There are many teachers with poor teaching skills (I'm not good at 'teaching', as in school level, but used to lecture and present, which are different. You may choose to argue with that, but I'm past that).
'Good' or 'great' dancers are poor teachers unless they learn the teaching skills. Social AT in the village hall in the sticks may get neither the great dancers nor the great teachers. You only find what suits you when you expand your horizons.
And the non-native speaker may lack the language skills.
