Ampster
Active Member
Breaking out the popcorn and watching... Oh, my brain aches even more :uplaugh: :shock:
The apilado equation
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Breaking out the popcorn and watching... Oh, my brain aches even more :uplaugh: :shock:
OK, Spectator, I'll make a comment here.
I thought about this a few months ago. I approached it as a vector problem to calculate the angle between two individuals when they share a given about of "weight". If I weight 180, as in your example, and I want to direct 3 pounds of that weight toward my partner, I would have to "lean" at a certain angle. If I stand on my own axis, the "vector" of my weight would be 180 units "tall" and would be completely perpendicular to the ground. To "share" 3 pounds of weight with my partner I would move myself toward them. The "vector" model for this would be a horizontal line 3 units long. That leave 127 units as the force that is perpendicular to the ground. My "angled" line would 180-3 = 127 units long. Solve for the third line in this triangle, etc.
This is of course a simplified model. The shared weight doesn't come from the top of my head. My partner probably won't be as tall as me, etc.
This "model" applies only when both parners are at rest.
When I start to move forward, I increase the weight I am sharing, which is the lead for the woman to begin moving her foot and leg backward. She would actually be, for the most part, keeping her foot under he center. But her upper body obviously moves when mine moves, if we are chest to chest.
I actually worked my way through this and solved for the angle in the "at rest" example. The angle was pretty small.
I did all of this on the back of a printout, and I'm sure I threw it away when I was done, and went on to something else.
I have posted the link to photos of dancers in Buenos Aires that clearly show the changing angle thing. It is my belief that the same thing happens in when dancing in an open embrace, only much less so.
If anyone is interested, I find that link and post it here.
I am very weak in trigonometry, but by borrowing a couple of physics texts, I was able to get through it.
P.S. I just used the Pythagorean Theorem to do a few calculations and make sure the hypotenuse doesn't end up being "longer" or "more units" than 180. That checked out. Now all I have to do is use a trig function to calculate an angle.
Come on. Someone beat me to it!
I thought about this a few months ago. I approached it as a vector problem to calculate the angle between two individuals when they share a given about of "weight". If I weight 180, as in your example, and I want to direct 3 pounds of that weight toward my partner, I would have to "lean" at a certain angle. If I stand on my own axis, the "vector" of my weight would be 180 units "tall" and would be completely perpendicular to the ground. To "share" 3 pounds of weight with my partner I would move myself toward them. The "vector" model for this would be a horizontal line 3 units long. That leave 127 units as the force that is perpendicular to the ground. My "angled" line would 180-3 = 127 units long. Solve for the third line in this triangle, etc.
This is of course a simplified model. The shared weight doesn't come from the top of my head. My partner probably won't be as tall as me, etc.
This "model" applies only when both parners are at rest.
When I start to move forward, I increase the weight I am sharing, which is the lead for the woman to begin moving her foot and leg backward. She would actually be, for the most part, keeping her foot under he center. But her upper body obviously moves when mine moves, if we are chest to chest.
I actually worked my way through this and solved for the angle in the "at rest" example. The angle was pretty small.
I did all of this on the back of a printout, and I'm sure I threw it away when I was done, and went on to something else.
I have posted the link to photos of dancers in Buenos Aires that clearly show the changing angle thing. It is my belief that the same thing happens in when dancing in an open embrace, only much less so.
If anyone is interested, I find that link and post it here.
I am very weak in trigonometry, but by borrowing a couple of physics texts, I was able to get through it.
P.S. I just used the Pythagorean Theorem to do a few calculations and make sure the hypotenuse doesn't end up being "longer" or "more units" than 180. That checked out. Now all I have to do is use a trig function to calculate an angle.
Come on. Someone beat me to it!
Chris Stratton
New Member
I doubt that this is true.
Differening heights, differing masses, differing shoes, differing traditions... very unlikely that the partners are at equal and opposite angles.
I'd also second Joe's questioning if the forward weight is achieved by inclining the entire body at the same angle. Although that may be closer to being true in AT than it would be in ballroom, you still need to be careful to direct any force you are sharing more forward than forward-down-on-top-of-partner - meaning that you may want to actually move forward from somewhere lower than your top, such as your center of mass. You could even be forward poised over your partner, but still move from lower down so that the poise is over but the push is forward rather than forward-down-on-top-of.
I didn't put that very well.. let me try again. Even if you want to be poised leaning over your partner, you might want to produce forward force by displacing your knees or hips forward of your foot, rather than by increasing your amount of lean.
And then there's the question of how much role actual pushing force really has in various methods of partner dancing...
delamusica
Active Member
Oh, but spherical cows are great for explaining the importance of surface area to volume ratio.
Let me say again that the stick people, and any mathematical model, are a very simplified version of reality. It's a useful "model" in that it reduces things to a point where we have some hope of understanding what the heck is going on.
When the man moves forward, it is not top down motion because the woman will move backwards at the same time. The woman accepts the energy from the man, and channels it into the ground by moving and stepping. Since people aren't composed of a single line, what actually happens is that the body moves forward from the knee. There should be no bending or folding forward from the waist. The free leg, meanwhile, remains under, and perhaps slightly behind the center of gravity. The reverse happens for the woman.
It's almost a falling over so you have to step feeling. But, you don't have only two legs when you dance tango. With four legs (which happens with a good, physical connection) the motion feels quite natural.
The man's movement looks quite aggressive.
No one asked for this link, but here it is anyhow.
http://www.tangoandchaos.org/4%20FormFunction/4%20TurnTip.htm#TurnTop
Nobody with a working knowledge of trig out there?
Let me say again that the stick people, and any mathematical model, are a very simplified version of reality. It's a useful "model" in that it reduces things to a point where we have some hope of understanding what the heck is going on.
When the man moves forward, it is not top down motion because the woman will move backwards at the same time. The woman accepts the energy from the man, and channels it into the ground by moving and stepping. Since people aren't composed of a single line, what actually happens is that the body moves forward from the knee. There should be no bending or folding forward from the waist. The free leg, meanwhile, remains under, and perhaps slightly behind the center of gravity. The reverse happens for the woman.
It's almost a falling over so you have to step feeling. But, you don't have only two legs when you dance tango. With four legs (which happens with a good, physical connection) the motion feels quite natural.
The man's movement looks quite aggressive.
No one asked for this link, but here it is anyhow.
http://www.tangoandchaos.org/4%20FormFunction/4%20TurnTip.htm#TurnTop
Nobody with a working knowledge of trig out there?
Look at how old this thread is!
This subject was mentioned in the I'm New thread, so I thought I would bump it.
I know we have people around now who have a much deeper grasp of physics than I do. Maybe they'll add to this.
I also found a spreadsheet I created with a collection of related information, since I seemed to remember having done more on this.
This subject was mentioned in the I'm New thread, so I thought I would bump it.
I know we have people around now who have a much deeper grasp of physics than I do. Maybe they'll add to this.
I also found a spreadsheet I created with a collection of related information, since I seemed to remember having done more on this.
I found this paper to be helpful in trying to gain a deeper understanding of this subject.
There seem to be several to many sites where you can download a copy.
There seem to be several to many sites where you can download a copy.
| Human balance and posture control during standing and walking by D A Winter |
opendoor
Forum Master
Sorry, spectator, lean is just an illusion.
ArbeeNYC
Forum Master
So, are you reposting because of recent references to apilado or an urgent need to do the math? It keeps coming up but no one seems to have a clear idea of what they mean by it. Other than a few Gavito videos, that is.
This is exactly the question that was raised by a well known BR coach. He suggested the head , and the counter argument was the Knee ( with which I agree )
12 years ago I participated in a memorable workshop given by Susana Miller (who is often credited with introducing the term "milonguero style", and who was to a considerable extent responsible for this style of tango dancing to spread in the US). Susana talked a lot about how people misinterpret the lean of apilado and how Gavito stage-tango videos completely misrepresent the extent of the lean, and then spent almost half the class just walking around and hugging leaders to show just how much lean is involved in apilado. In short: very very little: there is a real hug, and the two axes are not completely independent, but the follower is not leaning as much as to fall ahead if the leader suddenly got vaporized.
Note: back when Susana started to visit the US in the end of the 1990s, she (and other like-minded instructors) focused on the embrace and on apilado because they mostly faced students whose dance was characterized by an open dance hold, a focus on show-tango figures, etc. But students who were receptive to the call of the embrace then started to push the pendulum to the other direction too far, and by taking note of the extreme leans of Gavito in his exhibition videos, started to completely misinterpret the extent of the lean of apilado. The mentioned workshop was a late attempt by Susana to correct this overreaction. (I can't find it now, but I recall a milonga video with Gavito dancing socially amongst the crowd: in his dance there was no trace of the lean that is so characteristic of his exhibition dances. People should not mistake a show tango performance of a performer with jazz dance background with dancing appropriate to a social dance environment.)
Anyone who is teaching that followers need to lean heavily on leaders in social dance do a great disservice to both the follower and to her leaders. The lower back will not be able to take in the long term the heavy lean for either of them. I am a close embrace leader, but in the past few years I stopped dancing with heavily leaning followers, since I know the lean will hurt my lower back by the end of the tanda, and then my night is over.
If someone hadn't mentioned apilado in the I'm new thread, I wouldn't have bumped this.
I have the habit of researching the heck out of things, taking notes, satisfying my own curiosity, then going on to something else. On review I often find that I didn't nail things down enough to completely understand what I'd done. That computer printout I did calculations on was history long ago, but I have the Apilado spreadsheet. There are shortcomings in documenting what I see there.
But first let's step back a bit and talk about the term itself. As with most dance (and music) terms, it's sufficiently vague. As Opendoor consistently comments, many people consider the "lean" to be an "illusion."
Like gyb I had at least one lesson with Susana, and one with Cacho Dante, who taught with her when they started their thing.
gyb's relating of how she wanted people to be connected, including how much lean there should be, was, "very very little: there is a real hug, and the two axes are not completely independent, but the follower is not leaning as much as to fall ahead if the leader suddenly got vaporized."
I don't have much in the way of notes from my class with her, except that people were other people who weren't very happy with the class, and her comment on my posture and how it was going to lead to back problems (she's still wrong about that !)
As usual we are left to define things such as "very, very little" and "not leaning as much as to fall ahead."
Portland was? known for a long time as a "close embrace" town, less so as the years went by in my experience. Out of all the local instructors, one had a degree in physics. That was Alex Krebs. https://pamplinmedia.com/sb/75-feat...hysics-major-turns-tango-teacher-in-southeast
When asked how much pressure there should be between partners in what he taught as "close embrace," he would answer 3 pounds.
-to be continued-
I have the habit of researching the heck out of things, taking notes, satisfying my own curiosity, then going on to something else. On review I often find that I didn't nail things down enough to completely understand what I'd done. That computer printout I did calculations on was history long ago, but I have the Apilado spreadsheet. There are shortcomings in documenting what I see there.
But first let's step back a bit and talk about the term itself. As with most dance (and music) terms, it's sufficiently vague. As Opendoor consistently comments, many people consider the "lean" to be an "illusion."
Like gyb I had at least one lesson with Susana, and one with Cacho Dante, who taught with her when they started their thing.
gyb's relating of how she wanted people to be connected, including how much lean there should be, was, "very very little: there is a real hug, and the two axes are not completely independent, but the follower is not leaning as much as to fall ahead if the leader suddenly got vaporized."
I don't have much in the way of notes from my class with her, except that people were other people who weren't very happy with the class, and her comment on my posture and how it was going to lead to back problems (she's still wrong about that !)
As usual we are left to define things such as "very, very little" and "not leaning as much as to fall ahead."
Portland was? known for a long time as a "close embrace" town, less so as the years went by in my experience. Out of all the local instructors, one had a degree in physics. That was Alex Krebs. https://pamplinmedia.com/sb/75-feat...hysics-major-turns-tango-teacher-in-southeast
When asked how much pressure there should be between partners in what he taught as "close embrace," he would answer 3 pounds.
-to be continued-