Where's the BEEF?? or is it LEAD??

[bordertangoman]

Blimey, I've got about 800 hours to go I reckon

But I think you're right in principle. I'm going to start (re-)learning nuevo this year, and I only feel comfortable doing that now that I'm relatively relaxed in close.

as a Dutch teacher who was following Castro's format of combing different steps between leader and follower said:: this will be easy once you've done it a thousand times.

 

[bordertangoman]

I almost fear now continuing this conversation.

I'm not disputing Jenny and Ricardo's connection nor that of many other established couples on the semi-professional teaching circuit.

Nor am I disputing the connection you feel born out of your intense concentration in the moment. Crikey, I respect it.

But most of the people I come across in Nuevo, or whatever you want to call it, aren't like that. Too much floor/foot watching, concentration on the moves rather than their partner and the music. In Tango it's each and everyone of us to their own.

Nor do most have any idea of their relationship to, and co-existence with, the rest of the people on the floor . . . . . . . . which brings us back to Mario's original post I guess.

Well i would say that it is probably true. i dont find that there are many dancers who are capable of dancing nuevo well in the uk; they simply dont have the balance and axis control.
But I've seen Homer and Christina dance and they have a fabulous connection however they dance. I would say that there are just a lot of low to medium experienced dancers in the UK (DB can tell you what the London scene is like) But I would say that there are a lot of 'traditional' tango dancers who have the same faults

Too much floor/foot watching, concentration on the moves rather than their partner and the music.

 

[Dave Bailey]

(DB can tell you what the London scene is like)

It's tough. Real tough. It's like a Darwinian process with regards to floorcraft.

Last night, I was at a milonga and I counted 10 teachers dancing on the floor. All of them were dancing nuevo, even the ones who made a song-and-dance about the wonders of traditional. Maybe it's a marketing thing.

But I would say that there are a lot of 'traditional' tango dancers who have the same faults

Sure - but because it's not so visually-obvious when something goes wrong in traditional as it is in nuevo, it's easier to think that nuevo dancers are simply rubbish.

 

[Steve Pastor]

If we forget the usual semantics of "what is nuevo" and think about it as a way to analyze, understand, and "synthesize" movement in tango, the idea of there being "nuevo milongeuro" makes sense. There for a while, I would see references to this.
(Whereupon there occurred the standard arguments about what nuevo means and sos and so is doing this to sell lessons... etc)
My favorite teacher approached all of what he taught in a very systematic, and when you got down to it, analytical way. He never used labels. Never uttered the words milonguero, or apilado, or nuevo, etc.
Still, his approach to teaching a close embrace, weight sharing style of tango was... nuevo.
And yeah, it's pretty easy to see bad things when people are dancing large and energeticly. With close embrace you can watch someone dance and even have the facility of being able to see the very small shifts that happen within the couple, and STILL not know how a potential partnership will go.