What Is Tango Doing Right/Wrong: Recruiting and Retaining

[Brummbaer]

But I think the goal should be to teach people the skill set to do self-improvement. How else are we actually going to evolve good dancers?

The dance world is full of mediocre, 'intermediate', dancers who have attained 'good enough' for themselves. Some 'students' aren't interested in self-improvement. Perhaps they just want a social evening of 'entertainment' (other options are usually available). They don't aspire to be 'advanced', whatever that means to them; just 'good enough' to have some pleasant tandas, which isn't necessarily 'good' in some ranking. The early impetus was only to be good enough to be noticed by the guy, and good enough to stand out and be noticed by the girl. That's gone (mostly).

Yes, for those who want it, teach the skill set of self-improvement - IF the teacher knows those skills and is capable of teaching them. I don't think you'd necessarily find those skills in schools or universities either. Even worse where there's no syllabus and no required standard for tango teachers. You have to choose teachers and coaches wisely if that's your aspiration.

 

[JournalInTime]

The dance world is full of mediocre, 'intermediate', dancers who have attained 'good enough' for themselves. Some 'students' aren't interested in self-improvement. Perhaps they just want a social evening of 'entertainment' (other options are usually available). They don't aspire to be 'advanced', whatever that means to them; just 'good enough' to have some pleasant tandas, which isn't necessarily 'good' in some ranking.

That's almost everybody at the average milonga. People come to tango looking for all kinds of things, and social goals such as "get out of the house," "have fun," and "meet people" dominate, followed closely by health-related goals like low-impact exercise and keeping the brain active, and a few ego-related ones like "be able to say I dance tango." Shove all that to the side and there are one or two people left on the floor.

The early impetus was only to be good enough to be noticed by the guy, and good enough to stand out and be noticed by the girl. That's gone (mostly).

I think those goals still exist. People with the goals in my previous paragraph soon realize that they can't have fun, meet people, exercise, and so on if they're sitting around being ignored. So, they get caught in an often-frustrating cycle of not caring much about self-improvement but feeling pushed to work on it to meet other goals. What's frustrating is that, for them, the work isn't fun and feels like a price set on the fun stuff, which drives away many dancers.

Making tango classes fun, and admitting during them that the goal is really to be good enough to dance more and have more friends, seem to be missing pieces in actual classes.

 

[lucia_l]

The dance world is full of mediocre, 'intermediate', dancers who have attained 'good enough' for themselves. Some 'students' aren't interested in self-improvement.

The other difficult is that it's possible they think they are improving. "I learned to do an ocho!" They may not know their leads remain indecipherable. They want to "show off"!

You have to choose teachers and coaches wisely if that's your aspiration.

Yes. And this is difficult when you don't know what you don't know.

 

[Bailango]

one achieves some semblance of competence. It's what media-studies people like to call "democratization," which sounds positive until you realize it really means "mediocritization."

This one of primary problems. Not only in tango but certain other spheres including professional. Lowering barriers to entry brings democratization (YouTube video for learning dancing or LLMs for vibe coding) but as you mentioned it also brings unintended consequences of mediocritization. This gets magnified in hobby and social activities where pressure to excel is usually internal self motivation.

Mediocritization also gets boost by others without realization. Like when I said a few years ago I stop asking any follower if she repeatedly dances with mediocre (long time) leaders some reacted I was being unfair. I do not believe in encouraging mediocrity. Support people to get better. I am all for that and will give my time to it.

 

[Bailango]

Agree. However I think there is a gray area for beginner / intermediate leads that they just need practice at the dance in general, so even though they can’t perform movements clearly based on your 4 criterias at milongas, they basically wouldn’t be dancing otherwise since even their basic movements such as walking and leading ochos are sloppy, and in today’s age they’re not going to practice those elements for 2+ years just to begin dancing at a milonga.

It really doesn’t need 2+ years to clean up these particular elements. More like a few practice sessions. That’s not going to make you lead them like an experienced good lead, but at least you could be doing it competently at the lowest rung of the ladder.

Apparently all the beginner/intermediate follows just give him pity dances, since even they are aware how he dances doesn’t really have a tango flow to it.

Instead they should tell him to go and take lessons. Repeatedly giving pity dances for over a year is something that I think shouldn’t be rewarded.

 

[fiesta0618]

This one of primary problems. Not only in tango but certain other spheres including professional. Lowering barriers to entry brings democratization (YouTube video for learning dancing or LLMs for vibe coding) but as you mentioned it also brings unintended consequences of mediocritization. This gets magnified in hobby and social activities where pressure to excel is usually internal self motivation.

Speaking for myself, I am a big fan of democratization and don't find mediocratization to be a problem. In my view, the problem is mostly that people are unwilling to view themselves as mediocre. A little self-awareness that "I'm not very good in the grand scheme of things, but that's okay because I'm as good as I want to be" goes a very long way!

 

[Brummbaer]

Yes. And this is difficult when you don't know what you don't know.

That's why it's sometimes recommended to use different tango teachers to find what helps you. Even in ballroom where, I think, you have some level of accreditation.

I agree it's difficult. Especially if you don't live in a metropolis and need to travel to some obscure tango teacher who's just the nearest (and we should be grateful for those as well!). But you can ask other students, or seek reviews.

We've been lucky. Our first teacher, who fortunately moved on, had by that stage become awful and outdated. Replacements proved much better - but only upto a limit. Still see them! We've discovered other teachers and coaches as we've progressed. But we also know some we'd avoid, even as beginners, and some who are ok to a limit. That also depends what you're seeking, and what you need to learn at that stage. One can't ignore the social aspect either! Learning also needs to be 'fun'.

 

[lucia_l]

I grant that perhaps if you have a practice partner whose level is high enough that they could be a teacher, you might be an exception to this.

Finding a practice partner would could be your teacher would be pretty unusual. It would almost need to be a spouse who is motivated to help you improve. But spouses generally make poor teachers owing to some degree of impatience. Also, you have to compartmentalize to teach a spouse and so does the student spouse.

Also: negotiating what you really need to work on especially if they are at a lower level. Often, one will think more and more step-patterns is "improving"-- this is likely to be the lead. The follow then has to experience being lead badly on more and more things. The follow experiences this as being in hell or purgatory, knows it's "not right", but also has no idea how to fix it. After all: the follow doesn't know how to lead! The lead thinks he's repeating what he was told-- because he listened. But you can't practice your way out of doing things wrong.

And these issues are the problems for lead follow practice partners with cooperative personalities. And any less cooperative personality trait and you get even worse issues.

Under these circumstances, it's little wonder it's hard to find a practice partner.

So, for the ordinary tango dancer – or even the very advanced, talented one – a teacher is on some level the most logical bet.

I'd say this is for pretty much anyone. Even teachers need teachers in dance.

 

[JournalInTime]

This one of primary problems. Not only in tango but certain other spheres including professional. Lowering barriers to entry brings democratization (YouTube video for learning dancing or LLMs for vibe coding) but as you mentioned it also brings unintended consequences of mediocritization. This gets magnified in hobby and social activities where pressure to excel is usually internal self motivation.

It definitely happened in my professional domain!

I studied theoretical particle physics, but my work for 30+ years has been as an editor and writer (which probably doesn't show here . . . discussing my activities on forums is a break from my day job!). When I started, word processors didn't have plug-ins, extensions, and assistants to help you write – and while the Internet existed, blogs came along a bit later, vanity publishing on Lulu, Amazon, etc. appeared later still, and LLMs ("AI") that could write for you were the far future. Much work was done on paper, which even with the Internet got mailed around by the ream, and I learned keyboard skills and did my earliest work on a typewriter. Being published was a big deal that involved significant money spent on printing and shipping books.

In that context, text workers had to get their words mostly right on the first pass, and didn't enjoy many shots at cleaning things up, because the high overhead and slow turnaround times would kill profit. Most apprenticed with an experienced and hopefully better writer or editor, and developed skills at grammar, meeting deadlines, and plain old typing – not to mention coaxing early generation word processors to behave. When the Internet started to transform the domain, add the skillset of troubleshooting network hardware, building LANs, fiddling with dial-up connections, and making SLIP work.

Anyway, times changed and now anybody with a phone can call themselves a "content creator." If their chosen medium is text, they don't need to know how to compose a sentence, never mind a paragraph, much less a full article or book. And they truly believe that their Grammarly-filtered text on some blog means they're a "published author," despite the words reading like a soulless office memo, often full of errors despite all the checking . . . because some errors can't be found algorithmically, only by knowing precedent.

That isn't just "In my day, we walked uphill both ways in the snow! Get off my lawn!" Nor is it unrelated to tango. The exact same thing has happened in dance.

Formerly, nobody had on-demand access to thousands of YouTube videos and Reels showing masters dancing. There were no self-appointed tango teachers making how-to videos. Just about all of the work was done in a dusty studio, in front of a mirror, with somebody who'd spent years in Buenos Aires as the apprentice to a master (if they weren't that apprentice themselves). Skills at dancing in small spaces and understanding the social codes of the milonga were taught at the same time, because the idea of firing up a computer and dancing in your home with no other annoying people around didn't exist. You needed a coach or teacher present, if only because not everybody had a camera on their phone and could just record their progress and pick out their mistakes. Dancing at the milonga was a big deal that involved getting a nod of approval from a mentor.

All of that has been democratized by much of the same technology that democratized text work, with a similar proliferation of subtle errors and technically correct-but-soulless expression. While excusable for an ordinary dancer, much as self-"publishing" a cookbook is excusable for an ordinary home cook, it isn't excusable for a soi-disant teacher or coach. We now have a lot of these – I could name a dozen were I live – and they're not doing tango any favors by democratizing it. They're just spreading mediocrity.

I started tango just before it underwent this transition, so I was in the generation for whom pre-and post-democratized teaching overlapped. It might sound snobby, but I can see the difference. Personally, I can't say it's a good thing.

 

[JournalInTime]

Speaking for myself, I am a big fan of democratization and don't find mediocratization to be a problem.

To be very clear on my stance: I agree completely for ordinary dancers. I disagree completely for anyone claiming to be a coach, instructor, teacher, or whatnot.

In my view, the problem is mostly that people are unwilling to view themselves as mediocre. A little self-awareness that "I'm not very good in the grand scheme of things, but that's okay because I'm as good as I want to be" goes a very long way!

As a dancer, this is my attitude. I am a fan of self-improvement, not self-delusion. I know full well that pretty much anybody who is a festival invitee, even the third or fourth billing, is better than I ever will be; that all the couples who place or even show in the Mundial are better than I ever will be; and that 75% of the local teachers are better than I ever will be. I started too late (age 45), with no prior experience in a movement discipline, and I'm not athletically or musically gifted. I am comfortable saying, "I'm a mediocre dancer."

Something similar explains why I don't teach. I am training to maybe, possibly one day teach beginners . . . a little. I'm not claiming that 12-13 years of dance lessons, dance practice, and dance make me anything but a slightly less mediocre potential teacher than dancers without those efforts behind them. As a teacher, I'd be subpar. And this is where I reiterate that mediocrity is not acceptable for teachers.

A crucial distinction is the skillset. In the dancer case, I'm talking about being mediocre at dancing. In the teacher case, I'm talking about being mediocre at dance pedagogy.

Mistaking dance skill for dance teaching skill is a leading cause of mediocrity among teachers. Someone who dances at the 5/10 level but who can explain every stage from 1-5 out of 10 is a better teacher than someone who dances at the 10/10 level but who can barely explain how to get to 2 out of 10. I've met both sorts . . . they're real, they exist. All the 10/10 dancer does better is inspire students, which provides a motivation to stay with the lessons but no actual skill in itself – and if the lessons the students stay with level out at 2/10, they'll eventually need the less inspiring 5/10 teacher to go any further.

 

[lucia_l]

And this is where I reiterate that mediocrity is not acceptable for teachers.

Sure. But what's the fix? In ballroom, there are some certifying groups that test to see if some people meet some minimum criterion of knowledge, ability to demonstrate steps and also ability to explain. That's testable and likely a necessary criteria to teaching. But it's not sufficient.

Mediocre teaching is also not acceptable for K-12 teachers. It's also difficult to enforce superb teaching (for many many reasons. Some are 'political', some are just related to the difficulty of identifying "good teaching".)

Mistaking dance skill for dance teaching skill is a leading cause of mediocrity among teachers.

I think the leading cause of mediocrity in teachers is that teaching is more difficult that many suspect. This is especially true for teaching in a group setting. It's even more difficult if the students in the class do not have homogeneous backgrounds relative to the topic taught.

I think it's easier to achieve some homogeneity in k-12 than in hobby dance lessons! And eve there it's not necessarily easy.

Someone who dances at the 5/10 level but who can explain every stage from 1-5 out of 10 is a better teacher than someone who dances at the 10/10 level but who can barely explain how to get to 2 out of 10.

Sure. The same can be said k-12, college, university. But I think it's something of a myth that people who do "x" at 5/10 level generally have any advantage over explaining relative to ones who do "x" at 10/10 level. Perhaps the 8/10 have an advantage over the 10/10 owing to their own interests. But less performance skill doesn't magically make one better at explaining.

I've met both sorts . . . they're real, they exist. All the 10/10 dancer does better is inspire students, which provides a motivation to stay with the lessons but no actual skill in itself – and if the lessons the students stay with level out at 2/10, they'll eventually need the less inspiring 5/10 teacher to go any further.

Maybe. I'm sure some 10/10 dancers are terrible teachers. But some 5/10 dancers are also terrible teachers.

I really think the issue of poor teaching is difficult to fix especially in a hobby like dancing.

 

[Brummbaer]

I really think the issue of poor teaching is difficult to fix especially in a hobby like dancing.

And there's the dilemma for tango, in the social sense that we're focused on. With teacher accreditation, a syllabus, some governing body, even vetting, then you can do something. You've got a 'yardstick' for any metrics deemed relevant! But tango's history, if we believe it, doesn't have that type of environment. We had prácticas, where guys gathered to learn in an apprentice-like system, allegedly to be noticeable to attract the girl of their desires. That's all gone (maybe some remnant in BsAs). We now have a dance, in name popularised and stereotyped by Strictly/DWTS. A culture, which alienates some, but others wish to promote as integral. We have Argentinians, schooled in BsAs, seeking their fortune sofa-surfing whilst teaching/performing in the US and Europe, but not necessarily good teachers - and probably with a different cultural viewpoint than any students

The dilemma is to keep that informality whilst providing appropriate teaching to recruit newcomers but retaining the large crowd of mediocrity and motivating them to 'improve'.

Oh, and a surfeit of followers with the common problem of attracting males to dance.

There is competition at, let's say, a 'professional' level, but it's not a motivation for the majority of the mediocre.

 

[lucia_l]

There is competition at, let's say, a 'professional' level, but it's not a motivation for the majority of the mediocre.

Competition is not the motivation for the majority of ballroom, country western or WCS dancers I know either. I'm in the US. It's simply not and never will be.

What competition does do is make people pay attention to somewhat objective metrics of "good". These somewhat objective metrics are those that allow both partners to do their respective parts.

As an example-- in cha cha, my husband was sort of grumpy that I didn't do something "quickly"-- simple thing. Under arm turn. I would hesitate. My perception is that he sort of "didn't let me" actually "do" it. Now, we did kinda sort of do the move. If we'd just been doing social we'd have just been like "well... ok. That's that." We accomplished what I call "surviving" the pattern.

We brought up this issue to Coach. Coach watched us. She identified that when moving his hand from the previous move to the upcoming one, he swooped it down and back up in a semi circle. This takes time. She explained he needed to do "windshield wiper". This gets his hand from where it was to where it needed to be, and also gave me time. Otherwise, I'm sort of "waiting around".

Was his old way "wrong"? Nope. There are circumstances where he would have been moving his hand from down to up. But this wasn't optimal. We moved on to better understanding many things are "not wrong", and even right in some circumstances. But we were only motivated to better understand "optimal" because we were trying to do this simple move at a somewhat higher level.

This also interlaces a bit with "good" or "bad" teaching. Would it be "bad" teaching for a teacher to not get into this in a group lesson? Probably not. It all depends on who is in the group class.

However, rarely would a group lesson involve a bunch of people near the same level all of whom are currently ready for this small detail associated with a lead. Bringing it up would be bad teaching for the students who are just now learning an underarm term. It would be bad for any who already grasped this issue of optimization. Only in the equivalent of "tutoring" can this be brought up and also be "good teaching"/

 

[Bailango]

Speaking for myself, I am a big fan of democratization and don't find mediocratization to be a problem. In my view, the problem is mostly that people are unwilling to view themselves as mediocre. A little self-awareness that "I'm not very good in the grand scheme of things, but that's okay because I'm as good as I want to be" goes a very long way!

I am not against democratization. It is lack of motivation to be better with time. BTW I find this cultural. When I have danced in East Asia and Eastern Europe, the social dancers take learning far more seriously than in the USA and Western Europe. Their technique is better and their fundamentals are also better. This might cause controversy but the observation has been consistent among salsa dancers who acknowledge this cultural difference. I have also seen the same when it comes to tango.

In the USA I find there is more arrogance about one’s skills (despite lacking skills).

 

[Brummbaer]

I am not against democratization. It is lack of motivation to be better with time. BTW I find this cultural. When I have danced in East Asia and Eastern Europe, the social dancers take learning far more seriously than in the USA and Western Europe. Their technique is better and their fundamentals are also better. This might cause controversy but the observation has been consistent among salsa dancers who acknowledge this cultural difference. I have also seen the same when it comes to tango.

In the USA I find there is more arrogance about one’s skills (despite lacking skills).

There is some truth there: it is partly cultural. As the UK has just had A-Level exam results, the media has stories containing: chronic under-performance of boys..., or some ethnic group, or some region... As has been observed: you don't know your own culture until you know another. There are also always exceptions! I've observed similar traits working with colleagues across Europe.