Styles anyone

[Zoopsia59]

I'd go further than that, and say that collecting between any step
is fundamental to the possibilities of the dance. It's emphasised
quite rightly for women and less so for men but helps in many ways.

And yes, it then enables adornments/embellishments/decorations
but that is not the fundamental reason for collecting.

But I'm mystified why any teacher would call collecting an adornment,
though of course it is one of the distinguishing visual effects of tango.


Yes, total agreement.
Again!

And I also agree with your post. Collecting is fundamental to every step, although I have begun thinking of collecting differently than I did at the beginning.

The purpose is to make effective and solid weight transfers. Therefore the position of the foot (or leg) is not as important as I thought in the beginning of my tango journey. It's the body that "collects" or comes to "neutral". This is clear when someone does an ocho with a sweeping leg motion that never passes through the official "collected" position. As long as the trailing or wide sweeping leg does not alter the balance or solidity of the weight over the supporting leg, it's not a problem (where there's room for it, of course)

I believe most people need to learn to come to that neutral collected position of the leg and foot to learn to properly collect their body. I also believe that failure to collect the leg/foot is more often due to lack of control of the body than a deliberate alteration for an effect. So I teach to collect in the traditional manner until someone has mastered the body. Then they can alter the leg.

Not passing the leg through neutral while still collecting the body is an advanced skill. Leaving the leg somewhere other than fully collected and still being able to go in any direction when led is also an advanced skill. However, both are possible.

With that in mind, coming to a collected position with the leg and foot could be considered "adorning" by an advanced dancer, since it would not be required to remain in control of the free leg.

 

[chanchan]

Am I right to think that these are two styles of tango: the older one, rigidly rhythmical, and the more recent one, with a changing tempo?

I won't define them "styles", but two options that often you can use also in the same dance. Although, there are some musical styles that clearly fits better with the first, and other with second.
Anyway, the second option is not just changing tempo or inserting pauses at random: you must follow the melody. Otherwise you will be out of the music, and this is not tolerated: maybe this was the case with your husband.

 

[JohnEm]

And I also agree with your post. Collecting is fundamental to every step, although I have begun thinking of collecting differently than I did at the beginning.

Oh dear!

The purpose is to make effective and solid weight transfers. Therefore the position of the foot (or leg) is not as important as I thought in the beginning of my tango journey. It's the body that "collects" or comes to "neutral". This is clear when someone does an ocho with a sweeping leg motion that never passes through the official "collected" position. As long as the trailing or wide sweeping leg does not alter the balance or solidity of the weight over the supporting leg, it's not a problem (where there's room for it, of course)

Enabling solid weight transfers is not the only reason by any means.

Are you actually talking about dancing in more open holds?

In the embrace sweeping the leg wide is disturbing to your partner
because he can feel the result of the need to control the moving weight displaced from the axis.

I think that allowing the free leg to collect to neutral is fundamental.
For practicality, looks and social compatibility I couldn't recommend this.

I believe most people need to learn to come to that neutral collected position of the leg and foot to learn to properly collect their body. I also believe that failure to collect the leg/foot is more often due to lack of control of the body than a deliberate alteration for an effect. So I teach to collect in the traditional manner until someone has mastered the body. Then they can alter the leg.

Not passing the leg through neutral while still collecting the body is an advanced skill. Leaving the leg somewhere other than fully collected and still being able to go in any direction when led is also an advanced skill. However, both are possible.

With that in mind, coming to a collected position with the leg and foot could be considered "adorning" by an advanced dancer, since it would not be required to remain in control of the free leg.

Collecting the body to me is just mysterious.
The nearest I can get to trying to understand you is that ability
to be stretched upwards yet be grounded (oh that again).

But that tone and "centered" posture is required all the time.

 

[AndaBien]

Oh dear!...

I would say that Zoopsia is right, if dancing in OE. In CE, I think JohnEm is correct.

A follower can take a good, strong step and arrive solidly and not collect her leg. However, that will effect the tilt of her upper body, and therefore my feeling of her step. I'll think it is not completed yet.

In the middle of a big sweeping ocho the follower does not need to collect, but then, she has not completed the step yet. At the end of the ocho I think she should be collected.

The only time a follower should not collect at the end of a movement is when the leader leads her not to.

 

[ant]

Exactly. .

I would suggest if you descibe a step as a fundemental step of tango then "exactly" cannot be a correct answer.

but the gancho itself is merely a consequence of certain body parts interrupting the flow of a step

I don't think this is correct, as there is also directed movement in order to achieve the interruption. There is no directed movement in an adornment.

Sacadas are also an adornment for this reason,

Again I disagree. In order to complete the sacada at the very least there has to be a transfer of weight from the leader (non-invasive sacadas accepted and I can see an arguement for these to be considered adornments)

as are boleos

.
Boleos are lead either by impulse or contra body movement and are therefore not adornments. OK if the follower wants to do one on her own I can see your argument that it may be an adornment but then I would not call that a boleo.

 

[ant]

Originally Posted by JohnEm
But I'm mystified why any teacher would call collecting an adornment,
though of course it is one of the distinguishing visual effects of tango.

When I read that my first thought was that the teacher considers collecting should always be a time to consider it as an opportunity to make but not neccessarily take the opportunity to make an adornment.

When a lady knows how to do that it always looks so gorgious.

 

[Zoopsia59]

I would say that Zoopsia is right, if dancing in OE. In CE, I think JohnEm is correct.
A follower can take a good, strong step and arrive solidly and not collect her leg. However, that will effect the tilt of her upper body, and therefore my feeling of her step. I'll think it is not completed yet.
In the middle of a big sweeping ocho the follower does not need to collect, but then, she has not completed the step yet. At the end of the ocho I think she should be collected.
The only time a follower should not collect at the end of a movement is when the leader leads her not to.

I meant in open hold and mostly in nuevo/neo styling that is very dissasociated and fluid (think those overplayed alternative tracks). If someone is dancing a very traditional close hold to traditional music, then large sweeping free leg movements are already probably out of place for the dance the leader is trying to create (except when he leads a large sweeping movement like a volcada... however, IME, the people who dance primarily traditional embraces and music do only very small volcadas if any).

Also keep in mind that ENDING a step is not the only place someone is meant to use the collected neutral position. We are taught to pass through that position going from one step to the next even if there is no pause at that point. Many followers remember to collect at a pause but don't quite get there as they are moving between steps. I would say that passing though collect is every bit (if not more) important than ending in collect. However, it's still about being clean and solid on the supporting leg and making a smooth weight transfer that does not interfere with the lead. If someone can do that without passing through neutral (as in the sweeping/trailing ocho) then fine.

So the use of a sweep that doesn't pass through neutral in an ocho is an example, but there are others. Most of them do seem to involve pivots of some sort.

I would also say that if her upper body tilt is affected, then something isn't right about how she "collected" her body. After all, I can reach back (or any direction) a certain amount without affecting the tilt of my body, therefore logically I should be able to have the leg back there when collected without affecting the tilt of my body. Anyplace that a follower can reach while paused without the leader feeling change in her body means that is a place she can have her free leg while her body is "collected". That's the fundamental concept behind being able to do quiet embellishments, so it should also apply to where her leg can be in a pause without affecting the leader's feeling of her having "arrived".

I didn't say it was EASY! (or that I can do it consistently)

In reality, arriving without your leg is of course rather tricky. I was speaking more of not passing crisply through neutral as one moves from step to step. One of the differences between traditional and nuevo styliing as it was explained to me (by someone at some point.. YMMV) is the absence of always being in that feet/knees together position when pivoting, and a "freer" (often "trailing") free leg.

I would posit that if I am solid on my standing leg, a leader wouldn't be able to tell without looking whether my legs were together below the knee. (heels together is often, but not always, taught as the collected position for followers. I myself try to think of it as knees) From that point, it would also be possible to not have the knees together, just as reaching in advance of a step or embellishing does not have to alter the follower's connection to the leader or stability on her standing leg.

However, as John Em points out, it wouldn't really even occur to me to style this way in a milonguero style CE and since I do very little V embrace, I would probably stick to basics in that embrace until I'm better at it. It's more of an open hold thing.

 

[Zoopsia59]

Collecting the body to me is just mysterious.
The nearest I can get to trying to understand you is that ability
to be stretched upwards yet be grounded (oh that again).

But that tone and "centered" posture is required all the time.

I think AB expressed it well with the term "arrived". It's not about the tone and posture which needs to be constant, it's about having completed the weight transfer and feeling (to the leader) that you have arrived and are neutral (and therefore ready for the next thing) I'm saying that this feeling isn't created by the position of the foot/leg, even though achieving it without having the "collected" position of the free leg is hard (but possible)

 

[Zoopsia59]

if the follower wants to do one on her own I can see your argument that it may be an adornment but then I would not call that a boleo.

I would call it a hazard. Or at the least a "safety violation"

 

[AndaBien]

...Also keep in mind that ENDING a step is not the only place someone is meant to use the collected neutral position. We are taught to pass through that position going from one step to the next even if there is no pause at that point. ...

A very good rule about standard, basic technique.

 

[JohnEm]

I meant in open hold and mostly in nuevo/neo styling that is very dissasociated and fluid (think those overplayed alternative tracks).

Thanks for the clarification.

Also keep in mind that ENDING a step is not the only place someone is meant to use the collected neutral position. We are taught to pass through that position going from one step to the next even if there is no pause at that point. Many followers remember to collect at a pause but don't quite get there as they are moving between steps. I would say that passing though collect is every bit (if not more) important than ending in collect.

Even better is slowing down the arriving (to collect) leg
and then speeding it up again if the step is continued.

I would also say that if her upper body tilt is affected, then something isn't right about how she "collected" her body. After all, I can reach back (or any direction) a certain amount without affecting the tilt of my body, therefore logically I should be able to have the leg back there when collected without affecting the tilt of my body. Anyplace that a follower can reach while paused without the leader feeling change in her body means that is a place she can have her free leg while her body is "collected". That's the fundamental concept behind being able to do quiet embellishments, so it should also apply to where her leg can be in a pause without affecting the leader's feeling of her having "arrived".

Well my view is a little different. You might think that your body is
unaffected by reaching with your leg but in the embrace your body
would tell me that it is reacting to balance your leg movement.

It works the other way round. Very occasionally I might be unbalanced slightly
and without conscious thought I'll circle my free leg as a stabilising moving
counterweight to recover a balanced position. An observer might view it
as a man's embellishment but it would be entirely practical.

I would posit that if I am solid on my standing leg, a leader wouldn't be able to tell without looking whether my legs were together below the knee. (heels together is often, but not always, taught as the collected position for followers. I myself try to think of it as knees) From that point, it would also be possible to not have the knees together, just as reaching in advance of a step or embellishing does not have to alter the follower's connection to the leader or stability on her standing leg.

I would know if I was trying to change your weighted leg.

However, as John Em points out, it wouldn't really even occur to me to style this way in a milonguero style CE and since I do very little V embrace, I would probably stick to basics in that embrace until I'm better at it. It's more of an open hold thing.

Yes, understand that and of course the open hold just doesn't
really interest me. That said open hold dances of any type do allow more
individual stylistic freedom to be either good or bad for that matter.

 

[Zoopsia59]

I would know if I was trying to change your weighted leg.

The whole point is that the follower needs to be ready to go wherever the leader next indicates. If she can't do that because of her leg position, then there's a problem. The problem isn't that her leg isn't collected. The lack of foot collection may or may not present a problem... the problem in your scenario is that she isn't ready to go anywhere he might lead. "Anywhere" includes a weight transfer in place.

Obviously if she can't do an in place weight transfer because of where her leg is, she probably can't go some other directions as well. I'd say she also can't do an inplace weight transfer while she's embellishing either, therefore it still is up to her to gauge the time she has for her own thing unless she's very adept at getting somewhere quickly once led.

There is a certain amount of "likelihood" when it comes to what a leader will or won't do at any given time. I'm trying (unsuccessfully) to think of someone leading multiple small weight transfers in place mixing that with the sort of style that lends itself to what I'm talking about with trailing and sweeping. Typically a decent follower can sense based on the leader's use of movement up to that point whether it will be a small subtle dance or a large sweeping dance, especially if they've danced together before.

Just because I said it's possible doesn't mean it's appropriate all the time or that it's something I would try with an unknown leader. But it works rather nicely with some "alternative tango" types.

 

[dchester]

They were rude, for sure, but I think it was a valuable lesson: dancing with older women local women in BA, be mindful that you might be expected to step on every beat, or expect to be lectured

How old is "older"? I'm just curious, because nothing like that happened when I was there.

 

[dchester]

That's not my interpretation of an adornment. There are steps necessary to get into a position to perform a gancho, and there is movement that's necessary to lead it, but the gancho itself is merely a consequence of certain body parts interrupting the flow of a step. Sacadas are also an adornment for this reason, as are boleos. And like any adornment, they ought to be used sparingly, when the music calls for it. People are free to do otherwise, of course, but it's ugly when done wrong, too frequently, or at inappropriate times. People are free to dance in an ugly manner, but why should that be encouraged?

There are a lot of different usages for different terms in tango, but your idea of what adornments are, seem different from any I've ever heard. According to everyone else I've ever talked to, a sacada is a type of step. Now as a result of the leader doing a sacada, it might encourage the follower to do some type of embellishment, but the embellishment is not the sacada.

The most typical argument about adornments or embellishments is about whether they can be led (a boleo could fall into that category), but I've never heard someone claim a sacada was an embellishment before.

 

[dchester]

LoL!!!

Must be a language/translation problem then.

Or maybe it's all smoke (signals) and and mirrors.

How about a peace pipe?