Embrace...open or close?

[Elian]

Esto podría ser terminológico: eso no suena como la definición habitual de "retención abierta". La posición de Homero y Cristina en la imagen de abajo es lo que la mayoría de la gente de tango que conozco asume que usted quiere decir cuando dice: "Bailo abierto".

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Exactly, this would be an open embrace for me, good idea to posting a picture to describe it better

 

[Elian]

Mucha gente tiene que dividir su cerebro en "tango" y "no tango", y usar diferentes estándares de intimidad para cada dominio. No tengo que hacer eso. Mi novia lo hace. Si no pudiera, dudo que siguiera bailando tango

@JournalInTime I have to say that's a good argument and all your explanation about the enviorement we were raised

 

[Elian]

The woman putting her hand on the man's collar is not that unusual, as we see in the video below at 08:30.
But I wouldn't caress every woman's bare neck because of it.
As it's also not "common sense" to lick her earlobe to the beat

I definitely cannot stand that! sorry.

 

[Elian]

Then perhaps a serious consideration of whether you're suited to Argentine Tango, or even dance in any form?

@Brummbaer Thanks for your consideration, I usually (always) dance with the same short group of women, and they´re clear (thanks to myself) about what is my comfort zone, and I still dancing with them enjoying tango

 

[Elian]

But it is a very normal tango figure or pose. She just doesn't dance it with her feet, but rather she accentuates the music with her left hand on your neck. The gesture is important. Actually, tango wouldn't be tango without the hand at that point, Elian ! And remember, many figures and poses in tango have a ritualized erotic background. It's not disreputable, it's pleasant instead. And because it's ritualized, it's non-binding. This stuff is part of the DNA of tango.

@opendoor No I'm so sorry, I can barely understand your sensation or fundamentalism of that woman's hand there, but I just simply cannot stand that, I feel it extremely invasive, again sorry if that works for you awesome! but it is not the same for me

 

[Elian]

If I could not stand physical closeness, I would largely avoid changing partners, i.e. show up with a similar structured partner from the classes and mainly dance with her. The risks of misunderstandings with foreign partners would be too high for me.

@itwillhappen Yeah I always tends to dance with the same small group of women, because they already know how I like to dance, my type of dance...etc so with a new woman I have to transmit all that without knowing also how she treats the man or leader, so yeah I usually don't like dancing with women that I don't know or I haven't see them dance

 

[Elian]

The woman putting her hand on the man's collar is not that unusual, as we see in the video below at 08:30.
But I wouldn't caress every woman's bare neck because of it.
As it's also not "common sense" to lick her earlobe to the beat.

@itwillhappen sorry but that's a horrible sensation/feeling for me, I just simply cannot stand that of a woman, sorry if you like it but I consider it extremely invasive

 

[Elian]

Esto podría ser terminológico: eso no suena como la definición habitual de "retención abierta". La posición de Homero y Cristina en la imagen de abajo es lo que la mayoría de la gente de tango que conozco asume que usted quiere decir cuando dice: "Bailo abierto".

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@JournalInTime Okay yes, that picture reflects the way I like to do it, my perfect embrace. Nice idea posting this picture! thanks

 

[opendoor]

..I'm so sorry.. if that works for you, awesome! but it is not the same for me..

You don't have to justify yourself, after all we can't argue about taste. Each of us has developed our own personal dance style, sometimes more, sometimes less obvious. And for your open style there are role models too, so I posted Copes' promo vid above. I also dance openly when the music offers it. I was only interested in my contributions to this thread to show the socio-cultural origins. Dancing in general developed from courtship rituals. Even Christian religious dances have sexual connotations. Saint Augustine, who as a young man had many changing sexual contacts, assumed in his old age that angels should dance in heaven. Karl Barth, a strict Protestant theologian, added that the angels were not listening to Johann Sebastian Bach, but were dancing the Minuet to Mozart. Mystical literature is also full of sexual allusions and erotic metaphors.

 

[itwillhappen]

@itwillhappen Yeah I always tends to dance with the same small group of women, because they already know how I like to dance, my type of dance...etc so with a new woman I have to transmit all that without knowing also how she treats the man or leader, so yeah I usually don't like dancing with women that I don't know or I haven't see them dance

It seems to me like a beach holiday for a non-swimmer. Eventually the group will swim away from me to an island I can't reach, that's pretty much for sure. So I would ask myself critically whether I don't want to unconsciously provoke this situation. Like reliving a trauma from my past over and over again...

 

[TTanguero]

I also relish the opportunity for being able to walk more expansively,

Me too – and this is the one benefit of a free-for-all area in the centre: quite often it's possible to take large strides, you just have to find the direction of the free space each step!

 

[TTanguero]

Okay yes, that picture reflects the way I like to do it, my perfect embrace.

Please don't take this the wrong way – I'm in no way saying there's anything wrong with that, and there are people who dance in that kind of embrace – but it does sound to me like you'd be happier in another form of dance. Certainly in the places I dance, such an open embrace would be incredibly unusual, and I know very few followers who would enjoy it.

 

[Greybeard]

Where else are you going to acquire it?

You learn to execute floor craft on crowded dance floors, but you have to learn the theory somewhere else. This forum discusses too many examples of people with bad floor craft to say the milonga is enough. They learned their floor craft from watching the earlier (bad) examples.

I attended a class on dancing in small space a few years ago. One exercise we did involved moving chairs onto the floor to restrict the space and then dance a tango. The instructor was at one end urging us to move up as soon as there was space. She didn't even wait for me to finish the ocho I was using to keep from stepping on the previous couple, it was move up now.

 

[TTanguero]

You learn to execute floor craft on crowded dance floors, but you have to learn the theory somewhere else.

I'm in this camp, too. Maybe if you learned to dance in BsAs, you just absorb it, but for the rest of us, it has to be taught.

Like you, I was lucky enough to have teachers who taught it as a specific skill. Both dancing small, and awareness of the ronda as a whole. Exercises like being hemmed in by four chairs and dancing an entire song in that space for the former, and using a line of chairs to gradually reduce the space available to the entire class for the latter.

Another hugely valuable thing for me was a teacher in a private just putting himself in my way the whole time (when leading a fellow student), so I had to learn how to abort any planned movement and turn it into something else. That exercise also had me discover for myself variations which I'd never seen, and which had never occurred to me until I had to come up with them on the spot.

 

[Elian]

Please don't take this the wrong way – I'm in no way saying there's anything wrong with that, and there are people who dance in that kind of embrace – but it does sound to me like you'd be happier in another form of dance. Certainly in the places I dance, such an open embrace would be incredibly unusual, and I know very few followers who would enjoy it.

@TTanguero Don't worry, thanks for your comment, however when the women I usually dance they understand what type of embrace I like and they're agree with that considering me to dance with them