Contradictions in teaching “caminar”

ArbeeNYC said:
a couple of years
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I have to admit that this is somewhat beyond my framework of what i was thinking of for "early" and "late". I tend to think of "early" as "has finished beginner class", which would be somewhat like 15 weeks, and "late" as something more like one year.

I started dancing at the university tango club, and i don't think that anybody would have lasted if the time horizon had been "well, if you start as an undergraduate by the time you got your Ph.D. you can go dancing for fun". Actually i would question the very existence of university tango clubs if they timewise are not able to get anybody to even start social dancing.

What we did there was that at the end of each year the tango club did a outing to a milonga with everybody, and we tended to encourage people to go to a milonga and at least observe as soon as they finished the first semester.
 
Gssh said:
I have to admit that this is somewhat beyond my framework of what i was thinking of for "early" and "late". I tend to think of "early" as "has finished beginner class", which would be somewhat like 15 weeks, and "late" as something more like one year.

I started dancing at the university tango club, and i don't think that anybody would have lasted if the time horizon had been "well, if you start as an undergraduate by the time you got your Ph.D. you can go dancing for fun". Actually i would question the very existence of university tango clubs if they timewise are not able to get anybody to even start social dancing.

What we did there was that at the end of each year the tango club did a outing to a milonga with everybody, and we tended to encourage people to go to a milonga and at least observe as soon as they finished the first semester.
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University tango clubs have mixed results. Near me two are within greater metropolitan area and other two are at close distance. Two of the four consistently produces good dancers. The third that has regular classes given by good instructors invited from the community throughout the school year doesn’t. At the fourth the tango is taught by the university tango club members themselves. The one of the first two and the third regularly hosts milongas when school is in session. One that produces good dancers has well attended milongas with good level of dancing. Most dancers are non-university affiliated. At the other school milonga attendance is far lower and the level is lower too. The non-university affiliates dancers from general tango community don’t attend due to low level. All four are elite universities.
 
Gssh said:
I have to admit that this is somewhat beyond my framework of what i was thinking of for "early" and "late". I tend to think of "early" as "has finished beginner class", which would be somewhat like 15 weeks, and "late" as something more like one year.

...

What we did there was that at the end of each year the tango club did a outing to a milonga with everybody, and we tended to encourage people to go to a milonga and at least observe as soon as they finished the first semester.
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It's not what most people think, I know. As a teacher once said to me (quoting Gavito) "You're a beginner for the first 20 years." Maybe that will provide some perspective. After 15 weeks as a leader, you can't really be expected to know much, same for a follower. For a follower, a year or so might be enough to start dancing regularly. All I know is how I progressed, how others progress, and what I see. And it always seems to take far longer than you expect. Encouraging people to go to a milonga to see how it works and how people dance is certainly worthwhile.
 
itwillhappen said:
My SO also teaches yoga, so they have been on the same wavelength regarding that.
(By the way, my SO states that yoga was masculine in ancient times, and tantra was feminine.)
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The modern or classical yoga seen today, dating back 2000 years was indeed practiced exclusively by men till early 20th century. Tantra and tantric practices preceded modern/classical yoga by several thousand years. Most modern yoga positions were developed for male anatomy. Yet you see a lot of statues engraved in ancient temples that depict females in various poses (that would require same flexibility as yoga positions). Some of them are consorts and some are dancers. There are attempts to link Tantra to Yoga but as the words are used in Indian languages they mean different things.
 
ArbeeNYC said:
It's not what most people think, I know. As a teacher once said to me (quoting Gavito) "You're a beginner for the first 20 years." Maybe that will provide some perspective. After 15 weeks as a leader, you can't really be expected to know much, same for a follower. For a follower, a year or so might be enough to start dancing regularly. All I know is how I progressed, how others progress, and what I see. And it always seems to take far longer than you expect. Encouraging people to go to a milonga to see how it works and how people dance is certainly worthwhile.
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In my personal experience it takes about a decade or more before majority of dancers start appreciating that dancing is more than physical movement. When I started standard advise was at least a year of training before average man could lead, navigate and dance at a milonga. At some minimal acceptance level. Some teachers said two years if you are lucky. For ladies who wanted to follow it was about half of that.

Five years later I came across new set of teachers that would take the class out for milongas. That is a good practice. It included fresh beginners as well as six month beginners. At least it exposes people to milonga atmosphere, what to expect and where their dancing stands in comparison.

As a zenism I will agree to the statement that “you are a beginner for first twenty years”.
 
Thank goodness Gravito doesn't show up at the practica where I do my AT ! And when that woman whom I had seen dancing a while ago asked me if I'd like to dance, and I lead what I consider to be not beginner stuff with her and told her that I'd seen her dancing and that I knew she wasn't a beginner... Well, shoot, I don't think she's old enough to have been doing AT for 20 years, and I'm not quite at 20 years into it yet...
Having snarked that out, I will say that I took lessons for 6 months before going to a practica.
Just don't want anyone to be too influenced by that 20 year comment.

it takes about a decade or more before majority of dancers start appreciating that dancing is more than physical movement
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My feeling is that some "good" dancers never get it.

Maybe a subject for another non dance thread, I've seen some not appropriate for DF stuff in Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan that has to do with "poses."
And this immediately came to mind
www.npr.org

Those Yoga Poses May Not Be Ancient After All, And Maybe That's OK

In her new book, Michelle Goldberg traces the Western practice of yoga to a Russian woman named Indra Devi. Goldberg says that many of the poses in modern yoga can't be traced beyond 150 years ago.
www.npr.org www.npr.org
 
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itwillhappen said:
I think the severe contradiction here is, that "milonguero style" sounds quite masculine. And what she teaches is a feminine style, very sensitive, influenced by her yoga teaching, that is in my opinion far beyond the likely style and skills of "the old milongueros".
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Well, this might be not the case, as the Spanish spoken version rather refers to the style.
"Estilo milonguero" is masculine because "milonguero" is the adjective describing the "estilo", and estilo is a masculine word.
So the first asssociation of native Spanish speakers like myself don't associate it to anything masculine.


If you already knew all of this, sorry... It's partly my desperation to be able to offer something to this conversation, too, as I opened it and at times it is just flying over my head.. :)

On another trivial context:
I've been dancing for a little less than a year now, and yesterday I went to my second Milonga.
As I know many of the people there, it was a lot of fun!
On one hand I fully understand the position that dancers should wait until they are "good enough" to go to a Milonga, as Tango is so interactive among the couples dancing on the dance floor, too..
So if you don't control you may create a chaos on the whole dancefloor.

On the other side, there are many skills you can only practice there, as you all know.
As the number of practicas we have here is quite reduced, there is no alternative than going to Milongas from time to time. I try to choose well when and where I dance, and so far I didn't have any feeling that I disturbed anyone.
Also - if Tango wants more dancers, especially young ones, Tango must open a little bit and offer different types of Milongas. This unspoken "Karate system" with "I only have the yellow belt, so I'm not allowed to go social dancing yet" can be a turn off for many.
I'm not saying all Milongas have to transform intro practicas, not at all. But I think there should be a variation of Milongas with different ambiances than just this perfection and codes everywhere.
I really like that whole magic around it, but in smaller cities this leads to just seeing the same faces again and again because many people feel excluded.
In BA, this has happened long ago. I was at the known traditional Milongas and other ones in less popular neighborhoods with lots of hipster dancers with dreadlocks or looking like punkers. Only watching, I couldn't really dance yet.

I would like that variation here, too, to make Tango more popular.
 
latinjazz said:
..This unspoken "Karate system" with "I only have the yellow belt, so I'm not allowed to go social dancing yet" can be a turn off for many...
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My experience is different. The character of the milongas has changed towards a more beginner friendly environment in the last decades. This happened simply due to financiel reasons: the music became straighter and it is frowned now on swapping lanes or doing giros. I called this ballroomization of tango. And ten years ago there was an exodus of the good and skilled dancers that moved to the emerging encuentro scene.
latinjazz said:
..there should be a variation of Milongas with different ambiances than just this perfection..
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There is another blurring of the milonga, at least in my hometown: two of six studios offer an format called “milonga nueva“ especially for newcomer and students.
 
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opendoor said:
My experience is different. The character of the milongas has changed towards a more beginner friendly environment in the last decades. This happened simply due to financiel reasons: the music became straighter and it is frowned now on swapping lanes or doing giros. I called this ballroomization of tango. And ten years ago there was an exodus of the good and skilled dancers that moved to the emerging encuentro scene.
There is another blurring of the milonga, at least in my hometown: two of six studios offer an format called “milonga nueva“ especially for newcomer and students.
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That sounds nice, I wish we had something like that here!
 
opendoor said:
In one case a beginning student took the initiative. You have already activate a lot, so why not host and promote a milonga nueva yourself at your preferred studio every three weeks?
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I'm actually about to start a project like this, first meeting with a cultural association is next week...
For a start, I'll focus on a platform for live Tango acts, though. But my next step would be to offer Tango introduction courses by local teachers before the concerts and combine them with Milongas open to everybody.
The sad side is that I smell I will probably be overvoted... We'll see.
 
opendoor said:
There is another blurring of the milonga, at least in my hometown: two of six studios offer an format called “milonga nueva“ especially for newcomer and students.
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And what is the difference between a milonga nueva and a normal milonga, except for the profile of the participants?
 
latinjazz said:
I'm not saying all Milongas have to transform intro practicas, not at all. But I think there should be a variation of Milongas with different ambiances than just this perfection and codes everywhere.
I really like that whole magic around it, but in smaller cities this leads to just seeing the same faces again and again because many people feel excluded.
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Events that don't make new people welcome are committing long term suicide. And I think it's important for both learning and the health of the community that newcomers are able to start social dancing asap. The teaching methods should be optimized for that goal.

The schools around here which consistently produce the best dancers are the ones run by primarily social dancers who also run practicas/milongas and encourage people to start social dancing early. Experienced dancers from outside the school, visitors etc also attend these events.

How long it takes to learn depends on each individual person, since a good dancer uses many skills that are not exclusive to tango. Someone who already comes in with a high level of some of these: balance, flexibility, muscle control, proprioception, empathy, rhythm, musical expression, creativity, social awareness (I'm sure I forgot a few things but you get the idea) is going to progress a lot faster. Note to the newer people - don't feel frustrated if someone progresses faster than you do - they probably just had a bunch of these skills already.
 
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