Can’t you sneak out during the cortina? Unless you wanted to skip out the Vals and Milonga tandas.
Tango Diaries
- Thread starter Bailango
- Start date
Can’t you sneak out during the cortina? Unless you wanted to skip out the Vals and Milonga tandas.
opendoor
Forum Master
You're confusing cortinas with tandas! A cortina should last no more than 1 minute.
I don't think she would want to dance with them...
Saw her dance last year in BA for a special performance. I feel like most people wouldn’t recognize her unless they’ve been around for awhile + she’s kinda frail / have limited mobility now so also probably wouldn’t dance with random people.
Tango Distance
Well-Known Member
MiradaMiranda, I enjoy your posts, keep posting!
My dear wife (DW) is similar! It's rare she misses a tanda. She'll be completely beat by the end of the night, I'll mention maybe she should sit out the occasional tanda, and she looks at me like I'm crazy. She wants to get to milongas before they start to be sure no tandas are missed, and we almost always dance to the very end.
The marathon thing is interesting. I finally went to one, and was surprised at the reserves I had to dance double the time of a usual milonga, for multiple days. At one I was mostly but not quite 100% recovered from a broken femur. Near the end of the last night I took a big step that needed a strong rebound, ran out of strength, and almost fell! I had to dance smaller and cut out my fast acceleration steps for the rest of that night. My DW did actually want to leave before 5 a.m. that time, it was totally out of character.
I don't know if this is the case for you, but I've had some very good tandas when I have been very tired. I think it is because I was so tired it slowed my beehive of a brain and I only had cycles left for the dance. MiradaMiranda why do you think a marathon gets you into a trance-like state?
Regarding dancing with 75+ year old ladies: I remember one lady who is 81. You'd swear she is in her 50s, both by looks and her dancing skills. She says Tango is keeping her young. I don't know who is above 75, but often older ladies do have some things going for them:
- Survival of the fittest, in the sense that if they are still doing tango they often have good skills. Part of this is having danced with many leaders.
- Total focus, and exuding joy. I was shocked to learn recently a lady I call "Tango Goddess", I have written about her before, is well into her senior citizen years. I'd bet most people would say she is in her 40s or even 30s. She dances very well, but more importantly she somehow communicates total enjoyment and appreciation. She is very popular, but it's a mystery to me why she ever sits unasked.
- I have had to dynamically figure out some ladies had limited mobility. Once I figured out to take small steps things went very well. I wish people would just say something like "Please take small steps with me." Sidetrack: I had a great visiting instructor lesson where he taught us how to test the range of motion a follower could do, and then be sure to dance within that.
- A thing I have found where young and athletic ladies leave the senior citizen ladies behind is in speed (hah! joke! Leave behind ... speed ... hahahaha). If it is a fast song and I feel like doing some quadruple times I'll look for a younger athlete. Plan B is to open up, make the follower the center, and do fast things in circles around her. Having said that, I did have an amazing big and fast dance with an older lady -- she mentions it every time I see her and asks to do it again! Unfortunately I have not been able to replicate the magic.
- A more age independent fun thing are memorable dances with a taller and strong follower. Really accelerating into big steps is fun. Some of them I'm sure were senior citizens.
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TTanguero
Forum Master
I've often said that the final milonga of a festival is frequently my favourite because by that point we're all so tired that expectations are low and we all relax as a result.
itwillhappen
Forum Master
Dear Diary...
...I think it's time for me to develop my tango dancing further.
Usually, I'm of the opinion that one year of learning in (several parallel) group classes was more than enough. (You can get an idea of whether it's really worth taking additional classes by looking at these in your own tango school.) Maybe if you're not very talented, that it might be advisable. But after a year, I only took lessons when the opportunity arose, usually in selected workshops or private couples lessons, decreasing over the following eight years.
And I'm not a bad dancer, it's unclear who would benefit from me dancing better. But with my not-only-tango-partner (SO), the wind changes. Recently, we were at an event for great dancers (and even more so for those who consider themselves to be such). It was unusually difficult to find suitable dance partners.
Okay, we have a small dance room, a good and affordable teacher for private lessons, and our own workshop group, my DJ experience, the smartphone camera. I think it shouldnt be very difficult to reach a level in our dancing together where we can also show off a little.
...I think it's time for me to develop my tango dancing further.
Usually, I'm of the opinion that one year of learning in (several parallel) group classes was more than enough. (You can get an idea of whether it's really worth taking additional classes by looking at these in your own tango school.) Maybe if you're not very talented, that it might be advisable. But after a year, I only took lessons when the opportunity arose, usually in selected workshops or private couples lessons, decreasing over the following eight years.
And I'm not a bad dancer, it's unclear who would benefit from me dancing better. But with my not-only-tango-partner (SO), the wind changes. Recently, we were at an event for great dancers (and even more so for those who consider themselves to be such). It was unusually difficult to find suitable dance partners.
Okay, we have a small dance room, a good and affordable teacher for private lessons, and our own workshop group, my DJ experience, the smartphone camera. I think it shouldnt be very difficult to reach a level in our dancing together where we can also show off a little.
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opendoor
Forum Master
Were they above or below your level?
Are you toying with the idea of switching to the professional camp? Are you doing it for yourself or just to offer something to your girlfriend?
For group lessons (not counting the premilonga ones), I think it varies wildly on the teacher. For the average teacher, I think group classes can be good for exposure to new vocab + getting to know other dancers / community building. After you get past the intermediate level, I agree that stuff is less useful unless you just want to meet new dancers. However, for really good teachers that drill into the foundational skills + body mechanics, I think group classes can be very good, especially if the other students are at a high level and you don't have to "dance down".
In NYC there are all types.
Quite a few teachers here that have a little community and have a sequence of the week they work on - generally a positive environment, but when you dance with their students you can tell all their core aspects of their dance are on the sloppy side.
Also like I said the type of students really shape the group class - for example there's a good teacher but unfortunately her students are older and forever stuck in the beginner-intermediate stage (in large part due to mobility issues) and I basically don't get good reps in unless I dance with the teacher or bring my own partner.
Miradamiranda
Well-Known Member
Achhh, if only more people had an approach to their tango ambitions like itwillhappen. Too many people do the opposite, wanting all the fancy stuff and executing flashy moves badly before developing solid basics and understanding the essence.
Having the desire to add a little more spice to one’s dance for one’s own satisfaction and to fit one’s partner’s style is how I understand itwillhappen’s post. Good!
opendoor
Forum Master
Fundamentally, I agree with you, Miradamiranda. However, I would like to explicitly express a different opinion here, because the call for "solid basics first" has become too loud and too dominant for me. I want to rebalance it, because otherwise purist or even puritanical ideas are nurtured. Since I started dancing, this moralist view of tango has become increasingly stronger and more dominant. This ahead.
It's the fancy stuff that promotes "solid basics", not the boring beginner moves. Only by learning off-axis moves can you learn that there's more than just the stationary axis. The overrotation during back saccadas trains the torsion of the spine. These are examples that really train fundamental dance skills. And bodywork isn't just physical; it trains new areas of the brain.
My notian of essence has changed, swapped, or been reversed more than twelve times during my tango live. If you want to wait until you reach a certain understanding, you don't even need to start. I, for one, won't get old enough to reach what you're suggesting here.
itwillhappen
Forum Master
There were definitely many dancers above my level, which is what I expect at such a selective high-level event. Incidentally, this meant that I didn't had better dance partners than at good regional milongas. Because especially followers are tense with the desire to dance with particularly well-known and great leaders. This makes inviting tiring for me, and I see no reason to exert myself.
Who turns the hobby into a business might soon need a new hobby!
Well, I have no ambitions to teach, maybe organize events, will try to expand my DJing.
But the conditions are currently extremely good for me to learn.
itwillhappen
Forum Master
It's good and important to achieve a satisfaction, however. I had the impression early on that there was no correlation between dance level and satisfaction, and if there was such, it was more of an opposite one.
itwillhappen
Forum Master
I suspect that the needs of followers and leaders collide here.
Of course, it's usually more comfortable for followers to "simply" walk than to be pushed through half-baked figures. But that doesn't mean that followers are satisfied with it, nor that leaders early on aren't more likely to experience success through figures than technique. Walking elegantly and musically is beyond the reach of still mediocre dancers anyway.
opendoor
Forum Master
It all depends on the subpopulation of followers. I used to dance in different communities back then. There's definitely the tanguera, who wants to be twirled through non-stop pirouettes, giros, spins, and colgadas. There's also the LA-style salsera, who wants to bounce back and forth in the slot at light speed, in contrast to the casinera, who seeks rather elegance.
Bro, that's how it was and still is for me. Tango always was just a means to an end for me, a challenging pastime, an incentive to further my education, then climbing up the pecking order, having access to the opposite sex. And the better I got at tango, the stronger became the desire to really learn to dance and to start modern dancing. Enjoyment and satisfaction never came.