Hello, just curious how was your journey as leaders in Tango? How long it took you?
It’s still taking me. I’ve been leading tango since 2017 with a break during the Pandemic. Really only getting serious about it post-pandemic; so a combined total of maybe 4 or 5 years.
- So, I am in a big city with various Tango studios.
If you’re in a big city with lots of AT options then I would suggest checking out some of the others. Most people find that they become better faster (leading especially) by dancing with various people of different skill levels and backgrounds. Don’t feel like you have to exclusively learn from your current teacher. If you’re in a large enough AT community, then travelling instructors will come into town regularly. Make it your focus to attend their classes when they are in town.
- I've been taking tango group lessons for 6 months. The issue is at practicas there are no beginners.
Many such cases post pandemic. There is a whole generation of beginners to early intermediates who do not exist due to pandmeic era shutdowns of dancing. This is not on you. As more experienced tango practitioners, teachers, and event hosts we are the members responsible for addressing this detriment. But you can bring it up to your fellow dancers. Not everyone is as consciously aware of the detriment even if they can point to areas where it is felt.
- I take lessons in 2 studios and out of 30 beginners taking lessons, I am probably the only one who goes to practicas. Other beginner followers don't go to practicas for various reasons, (other commitments etc.)
I’d be curious what city you’re in or what major metro area you are near. Beginners should attend practicas to get more dance time in partnership. Those hours are what counts when it comes to improvement for social dancing.
- At practicas, I only see followers at intermediate level who have been doing Tango for several years. Once they dance with me, and learn that I am the beginner, they don't want to do anything with me anymore. Some ignore, some greet but don't want to dance. I manage to get several tandas during practicas but it is hard to get dances. All followers want to dance with higher level leaders. In rare cases, I've seen some beginner followers who don't get dances as well. One of them complained to me that she paid for practica, did not get any dances, and decided to not attend practicas anymore as it was not worth the investment. Unfortunately, beginner followers at practicas (and probably just 1 or 2 in total) are not from my studios, so we may not do the same curriculum and even when I dance with them it is not easy as they may stumble, and you get judged by other sitting followers looking at how you dance, and who may decide not to dance with you.
This sounds like you are at a dreaded practilonga. A practice time that people are not keen to treat with the informality practice requires. Again this would be a good thing to bring up to the host of the practica. Speaking personally, one of the changes I make to practicas is to either have no tandas or clear one to two song tandas with cortinas in between. This emphasizes that you are either under lesser or no commitment when offering to dance with someone and the breakdown of the ‘formal rules of order’ as it were encourages people to enter a mindset better for practice I find. You can also search for other practicas in your area if there are multiple options.
- I am fine with basic walk and steps but this is too boring for advanced followers. So, I started adding ochos, giros, paradas, throw in sacada. But it is not always that smooth, and I am kind of following the same patterns that I was taught in the class. Anyway, the journey is rough, I may run out of followers eventually lol.
What feels fun and engaging to followers is more about maintaining partnership with both them and the music rather than executing a complicated series of steps. There are some truly professional followers who may prefer complex patterns but that is not the case for >99% of people on the dance floor. That being said, maintaining connection to your partner while moving in partnership is not easy. It takes time to learn how to not leave each other behind in the dance. As your body gets more comfortable communicating within the AT embrace your mind is freer to focus on the music over just maintaining connection. If you’re practicing on your own, then you likely have some songs that you enjoy moving to. Try dancing to them with a ghost partner. Then try recreating that dream in real life to the same song. This is again something the host of a practica should be able to help with.
- The instructor is moving me to intermediate class now. So, I may end up doing advanced classes eventually, and be good in the class, but I will probably suck at dances because there are no followers to practice unless I end up in the class with advanced followers eventually, and they would want to practice moves. Though, this all is kind of weird, people ignore you at practicas for a long time, and then suddenly become friends and dance with you. I would not want to really dance with people who ignored me for a long time. But I guess all of them are advanced and I don't have a choice lol.
Patriarchy man, what are you gonna do? No one views absolute beginner leads as having any value when they start. But you scale that cliff and suddenly everyone wants something from you. You don’t have to do any of it if it doesn’t feel right to you; and you may as well learn to say ‘no’ at least sometimes because that is the closest to a celebration anyone is going to throw for you. Often people will learn to dance in one environment with one set of people and then life circumstances take them away from there and they continue dancing with an entirely different set. This can alleviate some of the alienation you feel.
- What else am I doing? Listening tango music while working, and dancing at home by myself practicing moves. Anyway, this is my rant. Just curious how other leader's journey.
My personal journey is that I probably first danced AT sometime in 2016. But prior to that I had danced Swing for about a year. Basically sucked at AT for a number of years but practiced it occasionally. Went to a couple milongas but was too intimidated to dance much. Through 2019 my focus was more on other styles of dancing such as fusion and micro-blues. Saw some actually competent sacadas being done at a fusion event (I think it was circa 2019 but cannot really recall) and that re-invigorated me for AT. But the pandemic comes and there’s basically no dancing at all for nearly three years. Sometime in 2023 I start dancing again and it’s almost exclusively AT now. I wish I had been around for the 2003 scene, but that’s simply not how life works. Now I have no trouble getting dances wherever I go, but that’s due to a mix of age and skill.
