Leaders. How was your Tango journey?

JournalInTime said:
Not sure how it can be sexist when it doesn't mention the sex of anyone. I said "leaders" and "followers." I didn't imply "men" and "women."
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Well, there are only an low number of men dancing in the following role, and no one suspects that men follow more musically than women do.
My conclusion: You are of the opinion that women follow the music more musically than men.

JournalInTime said:
My experience is that people who listen for a signal to move and then interpret it ("followers") generally need a better feel for the music than people who do the signaling ("leaders"). This might be an artifact of how I was taught and how the people I prefer to dance with were taught:

I was taught that leaders should flow their steps together into a single respiration with a clear beginning, middle, and end, but not worry about the intermediate steps individually – as long as they keep the follower in front of them and comfortably embraced, they will be followed correctly.
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For many men - myself included - this is certainly a relief. ;)
 
My closed embrace has improved significantly, and I only started walking to the music (different instruments...). I've taken intermediate level courses, but just walking feels so good, that I've given up all the moves. I may just do an occasional ocho and that is it. I even wonder should I be taking classes anymore with all the fancy elements if all I can do is just walking to the music.
 
Pharaoh said:
..even wonder should I be taking classes anymore with all the fancy elements if all I can do is just walking to the music.
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If that satisfies you, do it. You can even stop walking and just stand in close hold on the spot and breathe to the music. That's tango too.
 
Pharaoh said:
My closed embrace has improved significantly, and I only started walking to the music (different instruments...). I've taken intermediate level courses, but just walking feels so good, that I've given up all the moves. I may just do an occasional ocho and that is it. I even wonder should I be taking classes anymore with all the fancy elements if all I can do is just walking to the music.
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Depends what you are getting out of the classes. Most likely you still have a lot of room to improve the quality of your walking and other basic movements. However if the teachers don't really focus on the fundamentals and just teach moves, the classes might not be very helpful.
 
Rabbit said:
if the teachers don't really focus on the fundamentals and just teach moves, the classes might not be very helpful.
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That depends on how the whole lesson is taught. You might see 'moves', but there can be technique involved in those moves. And, at some stage in the learning process, you need to develop a vocabulary of moves. Sometimes through learning the move you also learn technique - which that move needs. Too much emphasis on raw technique is probably going to lead to students departing for more interesting lessons.

I think 'intermediate' is way too early to consider a minimalist vocabulary of walks. I mean, you may as well not bother, sit at home, watch the video, tap your feet to the rhythm...

Your dance partner may wish for something more.
 
Pharaoh said:
My closed embrace has improved significantly, and I only started walking to the music (different instruments...). I've taken intermediate level courses, but just walking feels so good, that I've given up all the moves. I may just do an occasional ocho and that is it. I even wonder should I be taking classes anymore with all the fancy elements if all I can do is just walking to the music.
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I've had intensive, nonstop tango coaching for over a decade, and I would be lying if I said that I don't have a large vocabulary. Sure, there are movements I'm not good at, and a few that escape me, but overall I have an unusually broad range for my community. Which said: I often walk not just a tango, but an entire tanda. I think you're headed down a good path!

Walking is underrated because it's hard to sell in lessons . . . A teacher can say, "A walk has infinite variations: linear and curved, parallel and cross, in various lanes, with many different sizes and speeds of steps, and changing dynamics, marking any part of the music and any instrument. It's worth 1,000 figures." It's hard to sell, though. Still, if you find a teacher like that, I'd strongly encourage you to continue classes.

As it happens, my current private coaching is almost entirely about the lines, directions, and dynamics of the walk. There are a few figures in there to illustrate what the walk can most smoothly and naturally start from and end in, but the walk is the thing.
 
Brummbaer said:
That depends on how the whole lesson is taught. You might see 'moves', but there can be technique involved in those moves.
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Yes. This is something I've become acutely aware of lately, for two reasons:

1. I've started to help a teacher with her classes, and that has taught me that for all of my grumbling about "moves" and sequences being oversold, you can't teach musicality and technique to normal people without pedagogical patterns. You can teach musicality and technique directly to the gifted, sure, but to teach them to Mr. Dragged Here By My Girlfriend and Mrs. I'm 80 And Want To Learn Tango Before I Die – who are more representative of real-world class makeup – you have to pass through movements. Want to teach foot placement, posture, and vals timing? Invent a flashy set of steps that won't work without foot placement, posture, and vals timing, and watch the typical student slowly get it right, thinking, "I'm finally getting this pattern," when reality is that they're finally getting the skills that make the pattern work.

2. I have an abysmal, terrible, no-really-it's-awful memory for sequences. I can see them 20 times and forget everything after the second count. This is why I'm helping a teacher rather than being a teacher. Anyway, I recently asked my coaches whether we could go directly to technique and skip the patterns that give me headaches. They explained to me that most technique cannot be taught directly even to the gifted – it needs context. I brought up drills and they were unequivocal: Yes, there's technique that's drillable, but at my level I don't need a coach for that . . . I need a mirror. Technique that needs coaching needs the context of dance.

So, I'm generally skeptical of claims that lessons without "moves" are useful. To which I'll add, "moves" includes walking. Lessons on walking are very useful. When you should start those is a hard call, but my personal experience is "Don't wait more than 4-5 years after starting tango." The catch is finding lessons in walking, because it lacks flash.
 
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