Step projection - Proyección del paso

[Gssh]

That's a big "if" in this context. You seem to be subscribing
to Humpty Dumpty's argument:
"words can mean whatever I want them to mean"

Somewhat - i am trying to define what i understand projection to mean. I think different people use the term somewhat differently in this thread, and i wanted to clarify - everybody seems to are this is about the leader doing something, and the followers free leg responding and facilitating their step. There are somewhat different views about how this actually works (and e.g. i really disagree with the body height=step length approach). Your definition

Step projection is leading with the foot and thus leg.

is also somewhat stricter than from other, more general definitions in this thread (e.g.

Furthermore, projection not only works with the torso, it also works with the arms, the head, and even with the eyes.

)

Can you elaborate what "leading with the foot" means to you?

 

[opendoor]

..Can you elaborate what "leading with the foot" means to you?

No, forgot it. Why didn't you ask two years ago?

 

[JohnEm]

Somewhat - i am trying to define what i understand projection to mean. I think different people use the term somewhat differently in this thread, and i wanted to clarify - everybody seems to are this is about the leader doing something, and the followers free leg responding and facilitating their step. There are somewhat different views about how this actually works (and e.g. i really disagree with the body height=step length approach). Your definition is also somewhat stricter than from other, more general definitions in this thread (e.g.
)

Can you elaborate what "leading with the foot" means to you?

Are you serious?
I avoid doing it, in fact I loath the damage
the concept has done to tango and people's
perception of tango.

Tango as a people's dance was about improvised
dancing to the music, specific steps were unimportant.
Now it's about steps, moves, figures and the look.

My dance is the ultimate opposite. I move both bodies
together chest to chest, my partners free leg moves
intuitively to where it is needed and my own does
the same. Legs dont project, they follow.

 

[ArbeeNYC]

To walk elegantly, effortlessly, feel comfortable and aesthetically look good, while dancing in an embrace, I think is the holy grail that all the tango dancers aspire to.

Yes. And it takes a lot of work to get there, to get all those elements in place.

The ones who insist on the toe first landing and the ones who insist on the heel first landing. I can happily do either as a drill.

This isn't all that critical. You can do either or both, depending on circumstances, as you indicate. Perhaps some dancers are inherently toe first or heel first, maybe unconsciously, but either method can be used under the right circumstances.

Whether you are chest forward lean-in type lead-with-chest dancer or maintain-your-axis dance with the core type salon dancer,

Vidort as compared to, say, Dispari?
.

 

[Bailango]

Vidort as compared to, say, Dispari?

Yes, you could say so based on the visuals of their embrace. But that can be misleading. I don't think Dispari leads with the chest. Having a lean in the posture or embrace doesn't mean 'leading with chest'. You only know for sure when you feel that in a dance. The followers and the leaders can both feel when a partner's chest is the first thing they feel move. At my very first private after very first minute of dancing she stopped and asked "were you taught to lead with the chest". I was. It was very subtle by then. In my early days almost all instructors taught leaning in, dancing without the paper slipping between the couple, providing intent with the chest for the leaders and for the followers to receive the intent. 'Salon' came later. The same instructor's very next sentence was "we dance this way......". Which I knew because I had abandoned 'leading with the chest' several years before that.

 

[Bailango]

I think i agree with Bailango here - even people who don't talk about projection, and who don't use the specific (semantic?) framework of the follower extending their leg ahead of time use the same biomechanics. I tend to call it the chain "cadena" (i originally wanted to call it stacking, like the yoga people do, but stacking "apilado" is already used in tango ). In the end all movement theories agree that for movement we need to push off something, and keep our body in a shape where forces are aligned with bones and big muscles. People tall about it differently - "the head floating up - the energy goes up" "pushing into the ground - the energy goes down" "lower your body" "stand tall" "don't fall into the step" "don't extend only your leg, move onto the new base". And the language emphasizes some links in that chain - probably what needs correcting most urgently at the moment - but the whole chain has to be there for movement to actually work. This doesn't mean that all the parts have to be equally emphasized - a lot of tango vocabulary is in my opinion specific aspects of good technique amplified and exaggerated - but that all of them are present in some form. I think everybody leads by projection if we mean by projection "movement starts from the standing leg". How this concept is specifically expressed will vary quite a bit.

I totally agree! Equal emphasis on all parts and amplified exaggeration, is where a lot of incorrect transmission or the reception of information happens.

P.S. It is a lot less fun to talk technique when not actually dancing, isn't it? I used to spend at least some time every week when practicing with my partner - and sometimes when dancing at the milongas, too - playing with ideas and concepts that did come from discussions here. Now doing only imaginary tangos is not really satisfying.

Imho breaking down technique into written word is like paying taxes without income! Mentally taxing and never sure if the words hold the same meaning for all. During practice on the dance floor it is better to say let's try this way and discuss when feels better than again discussing the mechanics of the technique. Through trial and error, when both feel that it has clicked, you start realizing what part of the emphasis or de-emphasis (in the movement) was the culprit.

 

[Bailango]

That's a big "if" in this context. You seem to be subscribing
to Humpty Dumpty's argument:
"words can mean whatever I want them to mean"

Changing the meaning of step projection to suit your own view
seems to me to negate the whole point of any discussion.
And what you say is not step projection to me.

Step projection is leading with the foot and thus leg.
I lead with my body and, yes, my standing leg is engaged,
obviously.

Interesting. "Step projection" vs "projection". I find "step projection" as a terminology more erroneous than "projection".

Leading with the foot and thus leg, is not Tango. May be football but not Tango.

p.s. - should have checked the thread title!!

 

[Gssh]

Are you serious?

Yes, i am. While my teachers don't use the term step projection i see some relation with what opendoor outlined in the OP and the video and what they teach. On the other hand i have never heard about leading with feet before, and i am puzzled how it is supposed to work. (when i took classes with el pulpo he was big on thinking about using the thighs as leading surface when doing his style of enganches, but that was only a specialized application of leading with the legs for special circumstances). As you are familiar with this technique, and i am not, i am trying to learn?

I move both bodies together chest to chest, my partners free leg moves intuitively to where it is needed and my own does the same. Legs don't project, they follow.

Isn't that step projection in the sense opendoor uses just described differently with a different emphasis? the leader leading/projecting the followers leg using the torso, and the followers leg following the leaders chest by moving where it is needed based on the lead? The standard "the leader marks, the follower steps, the leader follows". (the main difference seems to be as usual that close embrace language emphasize the freedom of the follower, while nuevo emphasizes how the leader controls everything)

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Leading with the foot and thus leg, is not Tango. May be football but not Tango.

Yes, but maybe the meaning might be better expressed as leading from the leg--the leg's energy and thrust. My favorite instructor (for privates) is always emphasizing pushing off the floor. Obviously, if you are connected at the solar plexus, as we are, the energy travels upward form the leg and through to her.

 

[JohnEm]

Yes, i am. While my teachers don't use the term step projection i see some relation with what opendoor outlined in the OP and the video and what they teach. On the other hand i have never heard about leading with feet before, and i am puzzled how it is supposed to work. (when i took classes with el pulpo he was big on thinking about using the thighs as leading surface when doing his style of enganches, but that was only a specialized application of leading with the legs for special circumstances). As you are familiar with this technique, and i am not, i am trying to learn?

That sort of is the whole critical point, leading with the feet
is leading your own body, but not the body of your partner.
Often that lead then comes from the arms - or a frame -
not really by means of an embrace but by a hold.

I do think you are over-thinking again although
I realise that in these times it is tempting.

Isn't that step projection in the sense opendoor uses just described differently with a different emphasis? the leader leading/projecting the followers leg using the torso, and the followers leg following the leaders chest by moving where it is needed based on the lead? The standard "the leader marks, the follower steps, the leader follows".

This "standard" is guilty of muddying the tango waters.
No, it isn't step projection as opendoor describes.
Step projection is about big visual movement
for appearance.

It is the opposite of social tango where movement
was/is movement of two bodies as one, bodies move
and legs follow to where they are needed for the next
axis (a regularly used tango term).

Do compare videos of Ricardo Vidort (delayed free leg
which lands under arriving body weight) with Jorge Dipari,
he of so-called Villa Urquiza, or today also known as Salon
both of which are really incorrect. Dispari takes long heel-led
steps and has toned arms which augment a weaker chest
connection and sometimes replace it.

(the main difference seems to be as usual that close embrace language emphasize the freedom of the follower, while nuevo emphasizes how the leader controls everything)

While I disagree with the detailed terminology,
I think you might have these the wrong way round!

 

[JohnEm]

Yes, but maybe the meaning might be better expressed as leading from the leg--the leg's energy and thrust. My favorite instructor (for privates) is always emphasizing pushing off the floor. Obviously, if you are connected at the solar plexus, as we are, the energy travels upward form the leg and through to her.

Interesting observation about the solar plexus,
when my objective is to avoid that. It seems you may
have had a teacher subscribing to the view that your
partner should be lead from your centre of gravity
to her centre which is roughly solar plexus level.
This is ballroom influence of course but not Tango.

Tango is a Latin dance with African influences and
all such dances are lead much higher by the arms
of course which are connected to the upper torso.
The dancer needs body tone so that internally
within her body her centre moves accordingly.
It's a skill every latin dancer needs whether it be
salsa, rumba, cha cha, and in this case tango
which in the case of Ricardo Vidort was lead from
the upper chest.


at roughly
shoulder level roots

 

[ArbeeNYC]

Interesting observation about the solar plexus,
when my objective is to avoid that. It seems you may
have had a teacher subscribing to the view that your
partner should be lead from your centre of gravity
to her centre which is roughly solar plexus level.
This is ballroom influence of course but not Tango.

Tango is a Latin dance with African influences and
all such dances are lead much higher by the arms
of course which are connected to the upper torso.
The dancer needs body tone so that internally
within her body her centre moves accordingly.
It's a skill every latin dancer needs whether it be
salsa, rumba, cha cha, and in this case tango
which in the case of Ricardo Vidort was lead from
the upper chest.

Well, solar plexus and upper chest are not disconnected. So there is that. You lead with one, you lead with the other. Leading with the arms? I have never heard that with respect to tango. Usually, it is one of the things we are taught *not* to do ever. I've been reading through these threads and cannot believe the disparity and contradictions in the descriptions of how to lead, where the impetus comes from, and so on: standing leg, hips, chest, solar plexus, upper chest, now upper torso and arms. So far, we've covered the entire body from foot to head. Vidort -- I used to like him much more. I don't want to dance like Vidort though. There's something of the marionette about him in his movements.

 

[WhiskeyPapa]

I find it interesting that only few leaders here on the forum lead by projection. So the following vid can be a good introduction to this technique.

My lessons in tango began with projection, a pronounced distinction between placing the foot forward, sideways, or back, followed by the transition of a weight shift, fast or slow, but under control.

But as I learn to dance rhythmic tangos (D’Arienzo, for example) or milongas, I am told to step without projection (that is, step and weight shift at the same time).

The use of projection depends on the music. Slower, melodic tangos, of course, but not for all music.

 

[WhiskeyPapa]

I aim for a delayed
weight transfer but as immediate as possible.
We are at opposite ends of the tango spectrum.
For me, tangoforge has little relevance.

How can you have a “delayed” weight transfer without projection??? Where is your foot during the delay?

The projection doesn’t have to be huge or demonstrative. It can be a pause before the weight shift. Are you never tempted, say dancing Salamanca, to project, and slowly move into the step? Why can’t that be tasteful salon dancing in a small space?

Cayengue doesn’t use projection, but it more closely resembles milonga than tango....

 

[WhiskeyPapa]

The most serious problem that this idea of step projection causes
is an inability of the dancers to dance in small spaces but it makes
rhythmical connection unlikely, or difficult at least, because all the
time interval is occupied with movement and weight transfer.
My dance maximises the time spent on one foot and minimises
the time spent on weight transfer. This way of dancing produces
something else entirely - a way of connecting or "feeling" the music.

I lack your experience, but I simply disagree that projection cannot be used crowded spaces. It certainly can to the right type of music. You describe an appropriate way to dance to fast, rhythmic tangos, but not to melodic moaning and complaints about how the girl abandoned you to your fate. The latter requires projection and slow, meditative weight shifts, giving time to reflect on the bitterness and unfairness of life.

(while the girl who has left you is off dancing D’Arienzo—no projections—with her new lover)