The thing that I have been wondering about is how do you maintain your concentration within the embrace you have with your follower. I would have thought that in open embrace especially your eyes should be concentrating on your partner's body postion and its alignment to you, subject to keeping a check of the floor.
Connection and Eye contact
- Thread starter Flatfoot
- Start date
The thing that I have been wondering about is how do you maintain your concentration within the embrace you have with your follower. I would have thought that in open embrace especially your eyes should be concentrating on your partner's body postion and its alignment to you, subject to keeping a check of the floor.
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
Just goes to show that everybody has a different idea.
But how do you maintain your concentration within the connection if you are not looking within the connection?
sixela
Well-Known Member
Puzzled as well.
An open embrace can still tell you exactly the same things as a closed embrace, just like Border Tangoman was saying. No need for eyes, except to admire the follower adornos when you leave room for them (or even better, when the follower DEMANDS room for them and you gladly oblige).
What is looking "within the connection"? I'd be hard pressed to look at the infinitesimal space between me and the follower even if I wanted to, in close embrace.
An open embrace can still tell you exactly the same things as a closed embrace, just like Border Tangoman was saying. No need for eyes, except to admire the follower adornos when you leave room for them (or even better, when the follower DEMANDS room for them and you gladly oblige).
What is looking "within the connection"? I'd be hard pressed to look at the infinitesimal space between me and the follower even if I wanted to, in close embrace.
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
Huh. I think exactly the opposite - if you need to look at your partner to know where she is either your technique is off or you have not enough connection. The same way that the embrace communicates to the follower where she "should" be, it communicates to the leader where she actually is. I always tell insecure followers that they don't need to worry about stepping "wrong" - we are dancing together, and just like i lead her i also follow her, and i will find her again if she surprises me.
Leaders who need to look and check their partners footposition and body positon to dance something are usually leading something that is above their level. If you are not sensitive enough to know where your partners feet and axis are don't do backwards saccadas.
Gssh
No, not when we dance. I prefer to have my eyes closed or look down if the floor is crowded that I need to watch for our safety. I don't like to make eye contact even when I dance open. I don't expect that my partner would look at me during the dance either. My attention is with the music and our dance and hope he does the same. I do make eye contact before to accept/make invitation and immediately after to show appreciation.
opendoor
Forum Master
I (leader) would appreciate it. Dont be so stiff. Find your real and unfiltered self! Wipe off that liability to correctness. Tango is communication. I communicate while dancing by glancing, smiling, body language (in open hold),
by my face mimic (in salón-V), and by the motion of my sholders, the position of my right hand, and the modulation of my voice (in apilado). Sometimes we use to sing or joke, too ! And of course, dancing sometimes also is the moment for intimate talking and exchanging of secrets.
..you cannot separate the eye contact from other communication channels.
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
I doubt whether any follower could cope with that; its like an Uruk Hai on acid with the musicality of a Klingon...
Peaches
Well-Known Member
Have you ever asked her what that is about? I mean, you've already decided that one single movement means that she's bored and are holding it against her...and you don't even know that's what's going on! That's awfully harsh, and not at all fair.
As a follower, my gaze can travel for all sorts of reasons. Yes, sometimes it is boredom, I'm not gonna lie. (Although usually it's less boredom and something really unpleasant that's going on that puts me in a mind just to get through the tanda.) But all sort of other things can divert my gaze. Quick movement, watching the floor for floorcraft reasons, probably looking around without realizing it... Who knows. If I'm in open embrace, when I'm looking around I'm often checking to make sure that the movement I've been led to do is actually safe to do. A lot of time, even if I'm sort of randomly "looking around" I'm not even actually focusing on things, or registering what I'm seeing.
Don't be so quick to judge.
I most certainly can separate eye contact from the other communication channels... I can feel where my partner is perfectly well without using my eyes at all, and were it not for floorcraft considerations, I would dance happily with my eyes closed.
I would go so far as to say that eye contact, chatting, even glancing at one's partner, are all distractions from dancing. Yes, you can create some kind of connection(s) with your partner via other methods, but they will be on a level other than tango.
Also, as far as talking while dancing goes, I find it very annoying when I have to listen to other people talking on the dance floor. If you want to talk, then by all means, sit down and talk. If you want to dance, just dance! If it's not satisfying enough by itself, why bother doing it at all? (Just my perspective.)
You do not feel the difference between a leader concentrating on you and your connection together and compared to one that is stare pensively ahead when in open embrace?
@ bordertangoman, sixela and GSSH
You would rather be looking pensively ahead of you rather than concetrating on you partner?
Peaches
Well-Known Member
I want my leader to be concentrating on leading well, which includes keeping me/us safe, which means floorcraft, which means looking around. That IS concentrating on me, just fine. I'm not apt to notice eye contact anyhow, because I rarely make it myself while dancing. It's not that much different than dance in CE, where I can't see his face anyway.
