Rebooting your Argentine Tango

[Steve Pastor]

After a trip that made it possible to spend a few days in Buenos Aires, and dancing at Lo de Celia and El Arranque, I pretty much lost interest in going to Portland AT events.
Now, though, several things are falling into place, and I just went to my first basic skills class at the same place (in name at least, but with new location) , and with the same teachers, I had when I started over 10 years ago.

It felt pretty dare good, and it was nice to recognize people and be welcomed back.

Has anyone else gone through this?

 

[outdoorman1234]

After a trip that made it possible to spend a few days in Buenos Aires, and dancing at Lo de Celia and El Arranque, I pretty much lost interest in going to Portland AT events.
Now, though, several things are falling into place, and I just went to my first basic skills class at the same place (in name at least, but with new location) , and with the same teachers, I had when I started over 10 years ago.

It felt pretty dare good, and it was nice to recognize people and be welcomed back.

Has anyone else gone through this?

Not at your level. I never got past beginner (or advanced beginner) stage after 3-4 years of admittedly off and on attempts (with my life partner) and then gave up out of frustration. Tango is a very bad "fit" for me in terms of my physical skills and the "personality" of tango culture. However, over the past year my spouse has gotten interested again and goes to relatively friendly milongas once or twice a week, so I'm willing to give it another try. I'd be more than happy to just be able to dance at an intermediate level without having to concentrate so much that I end up sweating like a pig. I literally have to bring enough shirts to change after each tanda, or second tanda if it's freezing cold.

Larry

 

[Steve Pastor]

Doing basic stuff over and over again, like Bill and Megan have us do in this pre practica lesson, is the only way to get that stuff out of the part of your brain where you are thinking about it, into the lower, don't have to think about it, parts.
I am SO happy that they are still doing this so I can get back what ever I may have lost in several years of not doing AT.

Is there something like that available for you and your wife to go to?

 

[outdoorman1234]

There's an upcoming set of lessons called "advanced beginner" which seems about right for me and I've liked the instructors from this group. One of my main difficulties is "body awareness", which I've never been able to get the hang of. I find it hard enough to get my own body to feel/do what it's supposed to, let alone simultaneously having to keep track of the follower. I do other dances where this doesn't seem to be as critical as it is for tango. Even when this gets broken down via simple exercises they do in classes I still have a hard time getting it, even with practice.

 

[LoveTango]

I haven't ever been to Buenos Aires. I can imagine that I might need a break after I visit if I get a chance to go.

I usually do feel a period of low when there is a break in my normal dance routine. In the past it happened after I danced in a foreign country where my way of dance does not always fit in, when I have an intensive private lesson, or after I visited an unfamiliar milonga or get criticized by a partner. It usually started with a shock realizing a major issue in my dance, followed by learning how to correct the issue, then frustration because the corrected dance didn't feel as smooth as usual. The frustration led to withdrawal behavior. However, I usually feel a big boost in my dance when I return after a couple or three weeks of break.

 

[NZ_Guy]

I find it hard enough to get my own body to feel/do what it's supposed to, let alone simultaneously having to keep track of the follower.

Perhaps.. reverse that. (#opinion)

Imho, I think a beginner leader shouldn't bother too much about what their body 'has' to do. It doesn't have to do anything in particular really. The idea is to dance her* anyway. So I'd simply focus on developing awareness of what her body should do and what it is doing, and come back to my own body at a later time when I'm more comfortable with dancing her.

*Her = the follower.

 

[outdoorman1234]

I meant the basic things my body has to do, like lead with the chest, maintain good posture, the basics, more or less. The follower needs those at a minimum. I still have to concentrate like heck to get these right.

 

[Steve Pastor]

The good news is that you can practice those two things anytime you walk or stand.

You may have seen one of my posts where I suggest that someone adopt the Skippy Blair method of correcting posture by simply pressing the area at the back, base of your head (she calls it the centering knob) backwards. You should feel your chest come up and out.
Just by coincidence I read, in an old dance book, the direction to stretch yourslef two inches higher than you normally are! Now, THAT guy had a pretty low opinion of the average person's posture!

And for walking, practice a walk where you have less of a heel strike. Move your body forward more over the balls of your feet, and land more on the front of your foot. When I walk barefoot at home, and the same thing that caused my last bout of plantar fasciitis makes my heel hurt, I move my weight way forward, landing on my toes. Back in the day we thought of this as an Indian walk, as you would walk in the woods if you were wearing moccasins.

In the basics class one of the women asked why it was so hard for them to walk forward, one of our instuctors demonstarted; but to me it was pretty obvious that her movement started with her upper body, rather than the foot that she was going to step on.

Both of those things, as you mention, are basic, and can be practiced whenever.

 

[NZ_Guy]

I meant the basic things my body has to do, like lead with the chest, maintain good posture, the basics, more or less. The follower needs those at a minimum. I still have to concentrate like heck to get these right.

So did I. But you disagree with my opinion on this, which is fine.

I'd however recommend taking Steve's suggestion of practising those things when you are not with a partner. The lead with the chest thing in particular can be detrimental in my opinion if it's something you actively do when dancing - as opposed to happens naturally as a consequence of the posture you've been practising while waiting for the lift/bus/taxi or driving or walking or whatever.

 

[NZ_Guy]

After a trip that made it possible to spend a few days in Buenos Aires, and dancing at Lo de Celia and El Arranque, I pretty much lost interest in going to Portland AT events.
Now, though, several things are falling into place, and I just went to my first basic skills class at the same place (in name at least, but with new location) , and with the same teachers, I had when I started over 10 years ago.

It felt pretty dare good, and it was nice to recognize people and be welcomed back.

Has anyone else gone through this?

Sorry Steve I've not addressed the thread topic..

I've never been in your position in my 2-3 years of Tango, so can't really comment :-/ I've never really had much interest in chasing tango (going to BA, Berlin, New York, Istanbul etc.) - I dance where I happen to live. If I have to travel for other reasons I might look at the local milongas but I'd always want to keep my dance compatible with my home community.

 

[tangomaniac]

I danced at the milongas you mentioned. My style of dancing changed. The Argentines showed me that less is more.

 

[opendoor]

My style of dancing changed... less is more.

We can understand style in different ways. I would say, your style (if I can judge at all from the distance) remained the same, but refined and developed.

But in my career I´ve thrown my tango over several times: mean changing the body concept, the muscles used, the body mechanics and so on. There are so many different approaches to tango that actually look identically but got nothing to do with each other from an inside perspective.

 

[tangomaniac]

We can understand style in different ways. I would say, your style (if I can judge at all from the distance) remained the same, but refined and developed.

Maybe my style didn't change but my focus definitely changed. The Argentines only know seven or eight figures and they are content to use them over and over without being bored. Their focus is on connection not on fancy figures that take up a lot of space because there is little space on the floor. Adapting Pareto's principle to tango, 20% of the figures I know are used 80% of the time.

 

[Lui]

My congratulation - and a little bit envy - to those who can go back to their origins. For me this option doesn’t exist anymore. Most of the places I started dancing are closed, the parts of town changed drastically and new people form the scene, now. Most teachers and customers have left in one way or the other: Some left the dance, some the town, some the country or some even life. When I visited Hannover the last time, I meet only a handful of dancers, who knew me as a person. For the rest I was a traveling teacher.

My first visit to Buenos Aires changed my whole perception of tango, before it was only a dance to me. There, I found it interwoven in all aspects of art, reflecting Argentine history and self-conception. Afterwards, it was a little hard at the beginning to cope with the limited possibilities back home.

Nevertheless, that new gained understanding later enabled me to build a style purposely.

 

[jantango]

I'll have to admit that I had to "reboot" my tango after dancing in BsAs milongas in 1996. I learned all the complicated stuff from a partner in Chicago and visiting teachers who assured us that what they taught was the real thing danced in BsAs. I saw another tango with my own eyes and felt something else in the embrace. I rebooted my tango on subsequent visits -- I started over from the beginning learning this social dance in which two become one. I put tango choreography behind me. Dancing with milongueros viejos changed me forever.

All the tricks and choreography attract people to tango, but it requires years of training. Unless you're in your 20s, forget it. Go for the embrace and feel the music. That you can dance at any age. The milongueros in BsAs are proof.