The Pain of Close Embrace dancing...
- Thread starter Mario7
- Start date
bastet
Active Member
Pleas read dchesters comment and you will understand why i think the way I do.
Close embrace is close embrace. Standing in front of each other very close so you can go back and forth and nearly/barely touching is just open to me, not close., but that's just my opinion and experience. I have had training in all three reference points. Open, truly closed and the almost closed that goes back and forth (from master teachers) and I agree with dchester that what i think of as Salon is more related to what I know of open dancing, not what I know of as close embrace so I group the 2 together.
From Marios original post, photo and question, and previous posts I have seen from him...his question was not abut the style you dance and are referring to as Salon or Elegant. If I thought his question was in reference to that style, I would probably not have commented at all, as it is not my most experienced or preferred style.
I tried to give him an explanation based on my understanding of the close embrace that doesn't open versus open...and the posture is different which is why he may be experiencing the things he has and ended up with in the photos of the embrace he posted. They aren't interchangeable and are different skillsets to learn so it may be that both parties are jsut trying to work within their skillsets and it isn't meshing because neither may know how to adjust for the dance.
My basic advice is no matter what style you prefer or dance, if the person you are dancing with can't or won't match what they feel from you embrace-wise (and this includes your Salon Elegante), then you'll have a hard time with them. It's not what style you were dancing that was important, but whether the lead and follow have been trained how to match other peoples embrace. I certainly have a preference, but I can also match adequately.
A private lesson with someone to discuss it and help him find positive working adjustments would be my suggestion.
Mario7
Member
I'm afraid I may have confused the matter by posting that link to the image...I thought that an image would appear not a link and that it would be groovy because it shows a painting I did of a tango embrace...and no, it is definately not a good apilado.
I also agree that we continuously have to define what we are talking about now that there are sooooo many forms of so-called Argentine Tango. I found Orlando Piava's videos elegant and interesting but not a style that I would ever want to imitate and his son's dance (Orlando Piava Jr.) is sooo uprite that it almost looks ballroom to me.
I'm only focused on apilado as I only want the music and the embrace. It seems that the same women who dance open in a gracefull way, freeze up and are unmoveable in close embrace...I say to them in the beginning, "I'm only going to listen to the music and walk, nothing fancy." and they nod their head OK....that seems to be the last thing we are able to communicate, it's like moving a truckload of bricks after that.
I had been away from this particular studio for 9 months and after all these months of classes (Nuevo) their Open dancing is a little smoother (still looking down at their feet, though) but their close embrace is no where and even worse in some cases...this leads me to think that we have two different dances here and they have chosen one while I have chosen another...there are still a milonga or two, in town, where about 1/3 of the time you can find someone who will dance close embrace ok..I will have to go there if I want to dance with people other than my practise partner.
Having had a practise partner for the past several months has done the wonders for my dance that I thought it would...both of us have progressed sooooo much that even on a dance floor made up of good dancers (close embrace) we are one of the better couples...so I am thrilled about this and I am looking to find others to dance with in order to keep my lead 'honest'...to make sure that I am really leading every step.
I also agree that we continuously have to define what we are talking about now that there are sooooo many forms of so-called Argentine Tango. I found Orlando Piava's videos elegant and interesting but not a style that I would ever want to imitate and his son's dance (Orlando Piava Jr.) is sooo uprite that it almost looks ballroom to me.
I'm only focused on apilado as I only want the music and the embrace. It seems that the same women who dance open in a gracefull way, freeze up and are unmoveable in close embrace...I say to them in the beginning, "I'm only going to listen to the music and walk, nothing fancy." and they nod their head OK....that seems to be the last thing we are able to communicate, it's like moving a truckload of bricks after that.
I had been away from this particular studio for 9 months and after all these months of classes (Nuevo) their Open dancing is a little smoother (still looking down at their feet, though) but their close embrace is no where and even worse in some cases...this leads me to think that we have two different dances here and they have chosen one while I have chosen another...there are still a milonga or two, in town, where about 1/3 of the time you can find someone who will dance close embrace ok..I will have to go there if I want to dance with people other than my practise partner.
Having had a practise partner for the past several months has done the wonders for my dance that I thought it would...both of us have progressed sooooo much that even on a dance floor made up of good dancers (close embrace) we are one of the better couples...so I am thrilled about this and I am looking to find others to dance with in order to keep my lead 'honest'...to make sure that I am really leading every step.
bastet
Active Member
Personally, I don't like the "Paiva" look myself either. I came from years of ballroom, and it just seems too much like that in terms of posture for me.The vids I saw looked like they were almost connected at the pelvis and that's what I spent months (more than just a few) training myself out of when I started AT.
But that is personal taste, and IMO, beside the point with regards to your OP.
What you have, IMO, is two different skillsets. What I think you may need to appreciate (and here I have absolutely no knowledge of the level of adequate teaching for what the follows you speak of are learning in open embrace) is that if a person is a good dancer in open, it doesn't mean they automatically have the skills for the type of close embrace you want to do...and vice versa for yourself. Just because you can dance close, doesn't mean you've automatically acquired all the skills and posture for open dancing. That's why I said open and that particular type of close embrace aren't interchangeable. You have to actually go and learn the skills for both of them and they both have harder parts and easier parts.
It also doesn't mean that the other person is doing something wrong. (I am assuming they are actually using good technique for the style the dance). IMO, you are both wrong, because neither of you even tried to accommodate the other.
For the embrace that shifts back and forth, I can't speak, except that my experience with it feels more like posture for open rather than what I think of as "close", so I apply my knowledge of open embrace dancing with people that dance this way with me.
Unless one or both people can or have learned how to "match" what they are getting from their partner you end up with a pretty bad dance experience.
This is why I dislike it when students try to fix each other in a class whether I am the teacher or another student. Invariably the one who speaks up to correct the other turns out to be the one causing the problem. The more their attitude is "you need to..." (rather than "this isn't working for us") the more likely it is that they are actually the one at fault.
I took a class with Rebecca Shulman and she had a strict "No talking" policy. Work it out without talking, or get the teacher involved. In a class I taught, I had to constantly separate one married couple because the man, who was clearly the dominant personality in the marriage, kept trying to teach and correct his shy submissive wife everytime my back was turned. (I paired him up with the most advanced follower who wasn't having any of his nonsense, and had his wife dance with a gentle shy man who needed her to take an active part in working out problems.)
I can't understand for the life of me why anyone who is TAKING a class and is a STUDENT in the class feels they are in a position to TEACH anyone else in the class. I don't do it when I'm taking someone's class, and I have been a teacher! When there are local workshops with visiting world class teachers, I might even be a fellow student to someone I've taught myself.. and I don't even take it upon myself to teach THAT person unless they ask. (and even then, I keep it minimal because its disrespectful to the actual teacher to "teach" in their class. Often I tell my student in this sort of situation that I'll see about their question or issue during a break or sometime later)
Oh, so we can't blame the embrace for the dancing, but we can blame the planets for posts...
(Its a joke)
:friend:
Can we blame our dancing on the planets too, cuz I could use an excuse right about now!
What do you do when dancing with leaders who vary the embrace? Or does that not happen much in your area? I admit that few leaders I know are adept at moving in and out of a close embrace during a dance, (most dance one or the other) but I have danced with a few who vary the embrace well. My personal opinion is that a varied embrace is harder than dancing open OR closed as a fixed embrace. It is especially difficult if the close embrace when used is a shared axis embrace.
Oops... posted my other post before I got to this one. This pretty much answered my question
This is why I was saying that moving in and out of the embrace is hard when using closed AND open... I was referring to an actual close position, not the "close, but not true close" thing.
I've danced with someone who actually goes to an apilado close embrace and to open. Its very difficult and requires an exceptional leader to shift from shared axis to independent axis. However, I've also danced with those who go in and out of a close independent axis position that is still true close (just not apilado)... the full-on chest contact is made, the arms are irrelevant, follower looks over his shoulder rather than to her right, etc.. Again... very difficult.
The majority of leaders who vary their embrace around here, as you say, do not go to a true milonguero close-embrace position and certainly not to apilado. But then most of our community leads one or the other.. close or open.
Subliminal
Well-Known Member
I think my teacher has been sneakily guiding me toward learning to switch freely between open and close. From the very beginning she never declared one specific arm position as open, rather she made me move my right arm in and out to different lengths as we danced, forcing me to change it during figures to the most comfortable position for the follower. Sometimes very far out, sometimes so near all it takes is a pause and a moment to reconnect into close. I'm still a little iffy on how to smoothly re-assume closed after breaking it, but I guess that's probably just something that requires practice and good timing.
Light Sleeper
New Member
Oh, so we can't blame the embrace for the dancing, but we can blame the planets for posts...
(Its a joke)
:friend:
Can we blame our dancing on the planets too, cuz I could use an excuse right about now!
Sure can, Mercury retrograde is all about problems with communication!
Light Sleeper
New Member
I would argue that everyone should have learned to dance on his own axis before sharing it with someone else !
!!
cheers
Yes, it cuts both ways, I wonder if you've only learnt shared axis if you wouldn't find it hard to be on your own axis?... assuming you've not done any other kinds of dancing previously where you've learnt to be balanced and on your own axis.
And I don't know about you, OD, but my partner and I vary our hold throughout the dance and it works well. Granted we don't go into strong apilado but we do go from shared axis to open, to more of a v frame and out again.
opendoor
Forum Master
My way "was a long and winding road" , and I made the mistakes, I mentioned above. I run away from my first lesson, b.c. I felt so overstrained, and wrestled through for years on my own as an autodidact. I wanted to dance apilado and did so, but my axis was bad, indeed. In the beginning, no one became aware of it, b.c they were all beginners. When I worked my way up to the top dancers it happened every now and then, that I was asked to change into open embrace. What has been the reason? Followers did not feel so comfortabel with my apilado. This was a real midlife crisis for me. I had to learn anew from the beginning, and this meant axis, body technique, axis, body technique. (there still must be my thread: "Is Salón healthier than Milonguero?"). I took privates then by a former ballerina. It was like brainwashing (cerebrellum had to be programmed anew). And, from the moment on I found my axis, I could dance apilado, too!
As you, I dance "liquido" now: flexible change from V- to open hold.
I'm curious, did they ever come back for another one of your classes? If yes, then you get an "A+".
A lot of people are that way, and not just men either. I've had several women try to fix my problems during workshops. Although sometimes it's rather annoying when it occurs, they often are humorous when looking back.
I remember a few months back, I was at a workshop with some traveling teachers. The woman I rotated to, started complaining and telling me how I need to change this, that, and several other things. Now I was fully aware that I didn't have it down quite right yet, but I really didn't think any of the things she was telling me to do would help. However, rather than argue with this "legend in her own mind", I decided to just do what she said while just praying for the teachers to say "switch partners", so I could then have a chance to actually figure out the step better. At this point, one of the teachers told me, "no, you are doing it all wrong", and then basically told me to stop doing all the things she had told me to do. It got funny then, as she started complaining to the teacher. He did the step with her, and told her what she was doing wrong. The really funny part was when she came back to me, and once again started giving me different "suggestions" on how I needed to fix my problems. At that point I was just thinking, when are we going to switch partners.
You know, I've never once asked her to dance at a milonga. I wonder why that is . . .
