Kind of like ballet dancers.
Dancing with beginners in close embrace
- Thread starter Mario7
- Start date
Kind of like ballet dancers.
Captain Jep
Active Member
Dont you think it's good though for people to get their toes stepped on?
In open embrace you can always cheat by looking at your feet. In CE you cant. The leader has to project his movement forward and the follower has to be prepared to really step out backwards. I think getting this right at the start is crucial. Because some people dont, and then they never really get it right later on.
I was a blues dancer and it was still a big deal. The tango embrace is much more intrusive, intense and personal than the play-sexy camp stuff people do in blues.
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
intense possibly but intrusive, I would hope not; if the follower is not comfortable( on an emotional/psychological level) in a close embrace with me what possibility is there of a nice dance?
It's a prolonged cheek to cheek, chest to chest close contact. We do not normally have that kind of physical closeness with anyone except our own children or lovers. But tango demands that level of contact, often with complete strangers. How can it seem anything other than intrusive until we learn to adjust and desensitise ourselves to it?
As with the pseudosexual contact of blues dancing we toughen ourelves up so that what might otherwise be a heightened sensual/psychological experience is utterly mundane and workaday. The opposite of what the Victorians did, in fact - their repression and prudery meant that the smallest physical contact or exposure could be invested with powerful meaning.
Mario7
Member
This all reads very true to me. In fact, I have not yet 'desensitised' myself sufficiently and I sometimes worry that I will be 'found out'..
:roll:'
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
I'm obviously dancing with a different crowd..but I know what you mean
but usually I'm trying to dance with the thumping thing inside the ribcage rather than the lumps outside it.
Ampster
Active Member
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
I recall one lady in Cambridge whose boobs were always rather hot, literally. Made me wonder.........
Dave Bailey
Active Member
OK, now I'm thinking about it...
opendoor
Forum Master
Suspended
Had no real dance experience before I started TA. And in my second tango week at all (I am an autodidact and learned in milongas first) a huge woman stood up and told me that since I had done my first tango steps I should dance in close hold from now on. She picked me up and I felt almost paralyzed, my nose suspended somewhere between her boobs and my legs dangling somewhere in the nirvana, not to be about to do any step at all... When I was put down on earth I realy felt relieved. Dancing with beginners today I actually introduce it the soft way now: changing embrace to and fro fluently within a dance from close to open and to beginners´frame. Think it is important for a follower to learn, that the man´s shoulder is a slide. And I think it is also important to show a (female) beginner how to use the left palm when she does not want to dance that closely with someone.
Had no real dance experience before I started TA. And in my second tango week at all (I am an autodidact and learned in milongas first) a huge woman stood up and told me that since I had done my first tango steps I should dance in close hold from now on. She picked me up and I felt almost paralyzed, my nose suspended somewhere between her boobs and my legs dangling somewhere in the nirvana, not to be about to do any step at all... When I was put down on earth I realy felt relieved. Dancing with beginners today I actually introduce it the soft way now: changing embrace to and fro fluently within a dance from close to open and to beginners´frame. Think it is important for a follower to learn, that the man´s shoulder is a slide. And I think it is also important to show a (female) beginner how to use the left palm when she does not want to dance that closely with someone.
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
perhaps thats another good reason why women dont lead women in BsAs??
Have Argentinian women got some unusual feature in the chest department that we poor European ladies do not possess?
Peaches
Well-Known Member
Now thinking of the term I heard somewhere, probably here on D-F: interlocking boobies.
Gotta say, having danced with a woman leader a few times...it's kinda tricky. Boobs have something of a muffling effect on the lead. Mine are big enough...add in another girl's, and it can be kinda difficult to feel what's going on. OTOH, I've danced with women leaders who are small and slim and *ahem* not so gifted *ahem* and it's easier to feel the lead, but they also feel so...breakable. Granted it's the same as dancing with a very small, slim guy...who also just feels breakable.
(What can I say? I'm very self-conscious about my size--both boob-wise and otherwise. But it can, actually, affect how physically pleasant a dance feels.)
Gotta say, having danced with a woman leader a few times...it's kinda tricky. Boobs have something of a muffling effect on the lead. Mine are big enough...add in another girl's, and it can be kinda difficult to feel what's going on. OTOH, I've danced with women leaders who are small and slim and *ahem* not so gifted *ahem* and it's easier to feel the lead, but they also feel so...breakable. Granted it's the same as dancing with a very small, slim guy...who also just feels breakable.
(What can I say? I'm very self-conscious about my size--both boob-wise and otherwise. But it can, actually, affect how physically pleasant a dance feels.)