opendoor
Forum Master
Of course, but the reality in some community is even worse!
Tango Diaries
- Thread starter Bailango
- Start date
JournalInTime
Forum Master
I'll use my own tango journey as a concrete example of all the claims I made in my previous post:
In 1995, I became a full-time remote worker who spent long days behind his computer. There were weeks when I didn't leave the apartment! In the early 2010s – after not quite 20 years of that – my doctor made it clear that for my physical health, I needed to do something more active than walking around on sunny days or when I had shopping to do, and that for my psychosocial health, I should take up an activity that would involve leaving the apartment and interacting with new people. As I was in my mid-40s and had had a serious health issue that required surgery, she recommended that I aim for something lower-impact than running or gym workouts, and proposed social dance, as it would also address my not-great mental health.
So, I looked around for that. I saw the word "TANGO" in big letters on the windows of a sunny studio that filled the entire second floor of a building on a major commercial boulevard where the rents were famously high. I knew it probably wasn't a dodgy operation because nobody would have that much floorspace in that area without a business plan, a long-term lease, and financial backing. At that point, Google had been the #1 search engine for a decade, so I searched to be sure, and found lots of good reviews. When they started their next session, I signed up.
Like many people, I found group lessons mostly useful for making contacts. Some of those contacts were other people of my level to dance with. Others were teachers at the school. Less than a year after starting group lessons, I started private lessons with some of those teachers. In total, I took privates with four of them, at a couple points with three teachers at a time in different private sessions. They all used the studio for these sessions.
At the same time, by virtue of being at the studio all the time and a good client of its teachers, I ended up becoming a course accompanier for up to 20 hours a week, also the barman for every second milonga (and eventually every milonga), also the person who gave the free intro courses (and eventually some of the open classes), and also the co-organizer of the práctica. This greatly increased my list of contacts.
When the studio closed in 2017, I no longer needed a studio to stay in touch with the local tango scene. I found out most things by word of mouth. I also had a couple of hundred tango friends on Facebook, and was a member of four or five tango-events groups there. I heard about every new teacher to come along, and had the means to find out everything right down to their shoe size via gossip. I also knew who wasn't a whole lot different from me except that they were trying to convince others they were a teacher.
My private lessons have become coaching these days. Sessions take place "wherever space is available": Sometimes in studios, sometimes in somebody's apartment or loft. I'm not concerned about reputation because I know who I'm working with. When I feel the need for special expertise, I know who to ask and to bring in for a few sessions . . . I don't have to rely on advertising or ask around at a milonga.
I still go to studios for milongas and prácticas, obviously. I stand by my belief that advancement requires coaching/instruction, practice, and actual social dance – leave out any of the three and you'll fall short in some way. I also stand by my belief that advancement is necessary to avoid boredom from sameness, but that's a personal quirk. And when someone I meet at a práctica or milonga asks me about local studios or teachers, I serve as their contact, letting them know whatever I know and sometimes providing them with contact info or even an introduction.
After 12 years of nonstop weekly instruction/coaching (with a pause for COVID-19), and of a few milongas and one or two prácticas a week (or, during the pandemic, daily practice with my partner at home), I'm an okay dancer. I'm asked several times per week whether I teach (three times this past weekend). I'm honest and say that I don't, but that I can name experienced private instructors with good reputations.
As of this year, I'm starting to think about teaching. After consulting with real teachers, I've decided that prerequisites to that are learning the follower role and studying movement theory. Some people with far less experience than me who have done neither of those things are already teaching, but I can't in good faith recommend them to anyone; so if asked directly, I'm honest about that. I'm sure they hate me for it!
I think that's a pretty typical set of experiences where I live.
In 1995, I became a full-time remote worker who spent long days behind his computer. There were weeks when I didn't leave the apartment! In the early 2010s – after not quite 20 years of that – my doctor made it clear that for my physical health, I needed to do something more active than walking around on sunny days or when I had shopping to do, and that for my psychosocial health, I should take up an activity that would involve leaving the apartment and interacting with new people. As I was in my mid-40s and had had a serious health issue that required surgery, she recommended that I aim for something lower-impact than running or gym workouts, and proposed social dance, as it would also address my not-great mental health.
So, I looked around for that. I saw the word "TANGO" in big letters on the windows of a sunny studio that filled the entire second floor of a building on a major commercial boulevard where the rents were famously high. I knew it probably wasn't a dodgy operation because nobody would have that much floorspace in that area without a business plan, a long-term lease, and financial backing. At that point, Google had been the #1 search engine for a decade, so I searched to be sure, and found lots of good reviews. When they started their next session, I signed up.
Like many people, I found group lessons mostly useful for making contacts. Some of those contacts were other people of my level to dance with. Others were teachers at the school. Less than a year after starting group lessons, I started private lessons with some of those teachers. In total, I took privates with four of them, at a couple points with three teachers at a time in different private sessions. They all used the studio for these sessions.
At the same time, by virtue of being at the studio all the time and a good client of its teachers, I ended up becoming a course accompanier for up to 20 hours a week, also the barman for every second milonga (and eventually every milonga), also the person who gave the free intro courses (and eventually some of the open classes), and also the co-organizer of the práctica. This greatly increased my list of contacts.
When the studio closed in 2017, I no longer needed a studio to stay in touch with the local tango scene. I found out most things by word of mouth. I also had a couple of hundred tango friends on Facebook, and was a member of four or five tango-events groups there. I heard about every new teacher to come along, and had the means to find out everything right down to their shoe size via gossip. I also knew who wasn't a whole lot different from me except that they were trying to convince others they were a teacher.
My private lessons have become coaching these days. Sessions take place "wherever space is available": Sometimes in studios, sometimes in somebody's apartment or loft. I'm not concerned about reputation because I know who I'm working with. When I feel the need for special expertise, I know who to ask and to bring in for a few sessions . . . I don't have to rely on advertising or ask around at a milonga.
I still go to studios for milongas and prácticas, obviously. I stand by my belief that advancement requires coaching/instruction, practice, and actual social dance – leave out any of the three and you'll fall short in some way. I also stand by my belief that advancement is necessary to avoid boredom from sameness, but that's a personal quirk. And when someone I meet at a práctica or milonga asks me about local studios or teachers, I serve as their contact, letting them know whatever I know and sometimes providing them with contact info or even an introduction.
After 12 years of nonstop weekly instruction/coaching (with a pause for COVID-19), and of a few milongas and one or two prácticas a week (or, during the pandemic, daily practice with my partner at home), I'm an okay dancer. I'm asked several times per week whether I teach (three times this past weekend). I'm honest and say that I don't, but that I can name experienced private instructors with good reputations.
As of this year, I'm starting to think about teaching. After consulting with real teachers, I've decided that prerequisites to that are learning the follower role and studying movement theory. Some people with far less experience than me who have done neither of those things are already teaching, but I can't in good faith recommend them to anyone; so if asked directly, I'm honest about that. I'm sure they hate me for it!
I think that's a pretty typical set of experiences where I live.
In NYC the space issue is a bit tricky as most don’t own/rent their own space but rent individual rooms from much larger dance studios, and can also be rather inconsistent with their location. The best beginner teacher here (imo) doesn’t even appear on the first page of google but he does teach classes before his milonga. In fact the teachers with the best marketing here are more on the average side and you learn about the better ones via word of mouth.
But NYC probably has the most number of tango teachers in the world outside of BA, or at least is in the top 5 cities.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
Yeah, I think that's typical: You follow the marketing not to find "the best" but to avoid "the worst." That usually gets you "average," and you stay with "average" for just long enough to learn who's good. But a total newcomer has to enter the cycle somewhere, and unless they have friends already in tango (I certainly didn't), they're going to have to rely on marketing for the first session or two.
TTanguero
Forum Master
Yeah, in London I think there's only one school with their own premises. I'd agree that you start with Google, see if any of the teachers impress you enough to book them for privates, and then see what recommendations you get further down the line.
I was very fortunate in finding two excellent teachers in my first school (though sadly they've more-or-less retired from teaching after having a few dozen* kids.
*I'm not very good at estimating numbers where kids are concerned – it might only be one or two.
This is a typical pattern. Who you end up taking first classes is a matter of chance. Either a friend introduced or recommended you, you searched online, or you go to a nearest or most convenient.
If you ended up with a below average instructor, within the first couple of months to six months you find better instructors. If you end up with average instructor that is popular attracting a bigger cohort of students, you stick around because of the social contacts you make.
Most dancers, naturally go to or try out classes by two or three different instructors during the absolute beginner phase (two to six months). That’s assuming the choice is available. If the community has only one or two instructors, the story is different. With rare exceptions, the average level of dancers in such communities is low. It is unusual to find a really good instructor who lives in a small community for a long time. The small communities also have less incentives to offer for getting better. May be the social media changes that these days. Unlike before social media exposes a person in a small community to wider Tango universe beyond their pond.
For most dancers, privates come later. It is when they start becoming serious. Privates also cost money. Ability to pay is a critical factor for many dancers. Only a few take regular privates. Whether that is once a week or once a month. Most people take privates without a plan and more randomly.
If you ended up with a below average instructor, within the first couple of months to six months you find better instructors. If you end up with average instructor that is popular attracting a bigger cohort of students, you stick around because of the social contacts you make.
Most dancers, naturally go to or try out classes by two or three different instructors during the absolute beginner phase (two to six months). That’s assuming the choice is available. If the community has only one or two instructors, the story is different. With rare exceptions, the average level of dancers in such communities is low. It is unusual to find a really good instructor who lives in a small community for a long time. The small communities also have less incentives to offer for getting better. May be the social media changes that these days. Unlike before social media exposes a person in a small community to wider Tango universe beyond their pond.
For most dancers, privates come later. It is when they start becoming serious. Privates also cost money. Ability to pay is a critical factor for many dancers. Only a few take regular privates. Whether that is once a week or once a month. Most people take privates without a plan and more randomly.
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Within the North American cities, NYC is unique. Not only is it densely packed with a very high population size, but it boosts an excellent public transportation system.
It has pros (larger pool of potential students) and cons (high rent/lease).
pianistamediano
Forum Master
Reminds me of a couple who started teaching one or two years ago under the auspices of one of the bigger tango schools in a city I was in some time ago — they were relatively unknown to me and most experienced dancers there, and I was sure they'd been in the city for at least a few years. What's very likely is that they're probably some of the earliest students/the first [?] proteges of the tango school owners, who brought them in after what I sincerely hope was a years-long, rigorous, intense training in tango pedagogy, but was probably just a year or two. I've seen them dance and watched some of their demos posted on social media, and honestly, they're just okay. Personally a bit too stiff and formulaic and too much like their teachers for me.
They don't dance much socially either even though I've seen them at many milongas; though to be fair, maybe their interests lie in performance and teaching, and their school probably has an in-school practica/milonga thing. I'll probably poke around and try to find out more, now that I'm actually interested in how they've just popped up.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
This underlines a crucial point, which is that dance is one skill and pedagogy is a totally different skill. Bitter people like to drag out the old, "Those who can, do; those who can't, teach." I could even riff on Woody Allen and add, "And those who can't teach, teach dance," but I think that's unfair, because I don't buy into the basic premise.
Reality is that for most people, it's better to get dancing at the 3-4 out of 10 level taught by someone who teaches with a 95% success rate – conveying, say, 2.8 to 3.8 out of 10 dancing – than it is to get dancing at the 10 out of 10 level taught by someone whose approach to teaching amounts to "I just did it. So just, like, do it!", which might reach 1 student in 10 or, to be overgenerous, 5, conveying on average 1-2 out of 10 dancing. I don't really care about a teacher with world-class dancing teaching some person who's gifted and not me to be as skilled as they are one day; I care about what average students of that teacher are probably going to get. Everyone will improve past that point anyway, so why not start with a near-certain edge rather than bet that you're one of the gifted ones?
Thus, I've never actually cared about a teacher's dance aesthetics. I care what they can teach me to do, which might be a lot more than some WAY better dancer's WAY worse teaching could teach me to do.
I do make an exception for floorcraft because I think there's nothing worse than a teacher who acts like a jerk setting a rotten example for beginners. That damage is difficult to impossible to undo. So, I do care how polite a teacher's dancing is, because I don't want to be tarred with the brush of their shortcomings ("Oh, it's one of so-and-so's students. Yikes, don't accept their invitation. Don't make the mistake of dancing behind them"). Interestingly, wonderful aesthetics seem positively correlated with terrible floorcraft.
And yeah, I'm totally aware that this is a weird minority view, yada, yada, yada. Most students are drawn to flash, not to academic qualities. It's certainly better marketing.
ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
Organizers can help but it's something that students or beginners should learn before they go to a milonga.
JournalInTime
Forum Master
I feel the same way. I'd love for milongas to be more welcoming to beginners, but in reality it doesn't work very well. One studio here has a special milonga-before-the-milonga (more of a guided práctica on the codes of the milonga, if we're being honest) to help teach these things, and I feel that's an excellent idea. Unfortunately, other studios encourage people who almost have panic attacks and freak out if other couples are within 2 metres to get over that reaction at the milonga, which I do not feel is wise at all. The "tough love" or "immersion" approach to difficult social situations isn't widely regarded as successful in any other domain, after all.
As is to be expected some of the good teachers and instructors may not be aesthetically most pleasing social dancers. Also in my experience the really good instructors and teachers don’t do performances. May be once in a while when they are pressed. This has been my experience with both visiting ones from BsAs and elsewhere from USA. Sometimes we might get instructors from Europe but that’s rare.
Other thing I have noticed is that the better and more meticulous an instructor is, less students they tend to attract. I am talking about those dancing for more than two years. Those dancing less hardly know where they can get good instruction. The better instructors attract less of students because most dancers feel they aren’t learning useful, when these instructors insist on having good technique, musicality, floorcraft, etc. Which for some reason is an. anathema to many dancers who survived in the scene for more than 2 years. When I happen to drop in the class or workshop by these type of instructors, it means you are able to get more individual attention. Which for me works well. If would be most useful to attend these classes with a follower of an equivalent level, but that has never happened in my tango journey ever.
Tango Distance
Well-Known Member
It's not a huge sample, but I have had good luck asking experienced follows to help or critique me.
I'm surprised I have seen that teachers often don't dance with the students in the practica right after the lesson. I often run up and ask "Will you please dance with me and check I understand the lesson?" These mini-privates have been very valuable.
A twist on this is to ask an instructor couple to demo something for you. They are generally happy to walk you through how to do it then (IME).
I'm surprised I have seen that teachers often don't dance with the students in the practica right after the lesson. I often run up and ask "Will you please dance with me and check I understand the lesson?" These mini-privates have been very valuable.
A twist on this is to ask an instructor couple to demo something for you. They are generally happy to walk you through how to do it then (IME).
- at practicas or milongas?
- in small community (less than hundred dancers and maybe one milonga per week) or large community (more than few hundred active dancers and several milongas per week)?
- friends/acquaintances or strangers?
Aren’t those guided practicas? You can ask those leading practicas to dance with you and help you troubleshoot. That is my understanding of guided practicas. They could be led by instructors or an experienced dancers.
opendoor
Forum Master
So your unique selling point will be quality of movement? I would appreciate!