Joe
Forum Master
Apparently. You've just described what I characterized as a "convex at the top" posture. Your chest (top) is in front of your toes. If you were sticking your bum out, you would be concave at the center.
Milonguera to me: "You have a ballroom frame"
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bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
I've suspected this for some time. :wink: However, I can't say more. I must be vewwy, vewwy quiet. Don't want to endanger any baby kittens. :wink: Aside: You guys kill me, in a good way, but kill me nonetheless.
He does, you know, but as you say, straight is straight.
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
I think discussing Camus is not a kitten threatening topic, though arguments might arise about Existentialism...
Well you wouldn't settle the argument by reference to Camus, he was a rubbish existentialist and should have stuck to popular novels.
samina
Well-Known Member
thanks for clarifying. seems like much ado about nothing to me, then.
samina
Well-Known Member
true...it's unlikely.
but back to the OP's specific scenario...i'm not seeing that applies.
anyway, i've always enjoyed discussion about the subject of different mechanics behind AT & ballroom "frames" when it comes to tango. always interesting what comes up.
I've been looking through a few texts, to see if I can identify where I've got some of my cranky ideas from, and have been re-reading David Turner's A Passion for Tango. He was a refugee from the BR world, but took little or nothing with him when he switched, and the book is full of little digs at BR (the zeal of a convert getting the better of him, mainly). One thing he didn't abandon, though, was the concept of a frame, and writes at some length on the topic in Ch. 5 of his book.
In Ch. 4 he writes, briefly, about the carriage of the body's weight, and quite unambiguously writes about the use of the toes, rather than just the ball of the foot to maintain balance, for both leaders and followers. He cites a pretty impressive list of teachers, and if he is wrong in that basic aspect of posture, I feel sure one of them might have mentioned it to him. So, there are at least three of us: him, me and Christine Denniston, who carry our weight very forward. I've always carried my own weight well forward, anyway: I am a BR dancer, and it goes with the proper posture, so the adjustment to AT was just for more of the same. YMMV.
I very rarely annotate books, but my copy of Turner's tome is actually full of little notes, because in almost everything he says, when making a comparison between BR technique and AT technique, he is just plain wrong in what he says about BR technique. In that tendency, he shares a great deal with the AT community. I wonder how/where they get such funny ideas: is it from watching TV programmes like Dancing with the Stars/Strictly Come Dancing, or the extremes of some high-level competitive dancesport, for if so, the fairest comparison would be with Tango Fantasia, as being representative (and a point of reference) for good AT technique.
In Ch. 4 he writes, briefly, about the carriage of the body's weight, and quite unambiguously writes about the use of the toes, rather than just the ball of the foot to maintain balance, for both leaders and followers. He cites a pretty impressive list of teachers, and if he is wrong in that basic aspect of posture, I feel sure one of them might have mentioned it to him. So, there are at least three of us: him, me and Christine Denniston, who carry our weight very forward. I've always carried my own weight well forward, anyway: I am a BR dancer, and it goes with the proper posture, so the adjustment to AT was just for more of the same. YMMV.
I very rarely annotate books, but my copy of Turner's tome is actually full of little notes, because in almost everything he says, when making a comparison between BR technique and AT technique, he is just plain wrong in what he says about BR technique. In that tendency, he shares a great deal with the AT community. I wonder how/where they get such funny ideas: is it from watching TV programmes like Dancing with the Stars/Strictly Come Dancing, or the extremes of some high-level competitive dancesport, for if so, the fairest comparison would be with Tango Fantasia, as being representative (and a point of reference) for good AT technique.
That's an interesting point.
bordertangoman
Well-Known Member
make that four amigo.
bastet
Active Member
I also have his book, and if i remember correctly, one of the teachers he lists having taken classes from is one I have studied with for some years now whenever I get a chance. I don't get to Portland much, and he doesn't travel much anymore, so I don't see him as often now, but I do know he doesn't advocate engaging the toes. In fact, when he teaches embrace and posture he says engage the toes, then back up because that's too far (at least in one class I assisted him with, that was what I recall being taught at that time). I had multiple lessons with him on when I should be engaging my toes (as a last ditch balance maneuver) and he'd spend time trying to push me over to increase my reaction times and to engage or disengage at different times.
Luciana Valle is also one I remember having lessons about body movement and walking with and she was always about us relaxing our feet.
The more traditional teachers I take from regularly or have taken from don't like it when you "work too far forward". I don't know about Christine's training, but when Silvina Vals tells a person they are too far forward, I got no problem listening. And when it gets repeated by several other teachers at different times, then I prefer to find out why and not just put it down to some sort of personal preference or whim of the teacher.
For me, the trouble with books, students and passed on information is you just never know how a person has interpreted what someone else has told them and how it's been absorbed and the written word isn't really a good substitute for feeling what a teacher is asking for "in action". Regardless of what I may read, the feedback I get from my instructors is usually what I go with, especially if I can get a match up on a problem from different sources.
On that note, if you (as someone who is well educated in BR teachniques) knows that what he is saying about BR technique is iffy, wouldn't that lead you to wonder about the AT stuff as well? Especially if when you train with a live instructor they tell you something opposite?
Subliminal
Well-Known Member
I dunno. I have been taught to relax my toes while walking but to be pretty far forward in general. I wonder if this is one of those things that is related to personal center of gravity and balance. Perhaps the best way to put it is to relax the toes for static balance but engage them as needed for dynamic balance.
re: Silvina
I like her a lot, but she also told me not to lean at all with my partner. I think she has just decided to teach the close embrace with no weight sharing. So I took her advice on everything else and went with what my other teachers said on close embrace.
re: Silvina
I like her a lot, but she also told me not to lean at all with my partner. I think she has just decided to teach the close embrace with no weight sharing. So I took her advice on everything else and went with what my other teachers said on close embrace.
bastet
Active Member
I dunno. I have been taught to relax my toes while walking but to be pretty far forward in general. I wonder if this is one of those things that is related to personal center of gravity and balance. Perhaps the best way to put it is to relax the toes for static balance but engage them as needed for dynamic balance.
re: Silvina
I like her a lot, but she also told me not to lean at all with my partner. I think she has just decided to teach the close embrace with no weight sharing. So I took her advice on everything else and went with what my other teachers said on close embrace.
I don't say no weight forward at all, but to leave the chest in place forward and then bring the bottom portion back to relax the toes and take a chunk of weight off the partner. There's still pressure, still chest connection, but you aren't carrying your partner. Like i said, if it had just been one teacher, I'd have said "personal preference" but several, not so much.
One thing I have found different when I work with weight sharing versus non weight sharing teachers is where they want my rib cage- forward versus back. I work mostly with close embrace teachers nowadays and so keep my chest forward, but have in the past wanted to have enough training from both sides of the fence to be able to get where I think a leader wants to be in an embrace.
My teacher indicated a very distinct weight sharing (call it what you will). In that embrace I have no reason to have my toes engaged. Sometimes I have my heels engaged.