Over twenty years ago in Omar Vega’s milonga class, he used me as a helper to show moves. The whole time he told me, “Higher, higher, higher . . . NO! Lower! No! Higher!” I had no idea what he was talking about until the day he finally said, “Yes, that’s it!” I could sense how stretchy my body felt at that moment and tried to memorize how I had achieved the feeling he wanted. It took so much core strength to do what he wanted!
I have a much stronger body now than back in 1999. Yoga has helped me build and maintain my deep core, and that improves my tango as well. You can have a stronger body too if you incorporate a few exercises into your week.
Shoulder blade to sacrum
My trainer, Seth Watterson, helped me focus on the line from the bottom of my shoulder blades to my sacrum to build my back strength and anchor my shoulder blades on my body. This helps me avoid injury from followers pulling on my shoulder to balance themselves. It also helps my technique as a leader and a follower because I can connect to the floor on axis and thus communicate my intent to my partner more clearly.
Forearm planks for shoulder blade stability
All planks can help with shoulder blade stability, but I find it harder to cheat when doing forearm planks. In this video with one of my yoga teacher trainers, the first exercise is forearm planks. She explains it very well: try it!
Armpit to belly button
My Portland yoga teacher, Suniti Dernovsek, helped me identify another place that I lacked connection and strength in my practice: the line from my armpits to my belly button. Before that, I had worked hard on my pelvic floor-to-belly button line, but still face-planted when trying to do any move that required me to trust my arms to hold me up. After working on it in yoga, I realized the same focus improved my tango posture, even if there are no arm balances :-) Omar Vega would be proud of me.
Side planks to build core stability
Out of all the possible ways to build core, side planks help me connect my armpit to belly button line of my body. Again, there are many planks that will build your core, but I like side planks because I can focus better on the armpit-to-belly button line of my body while I work. I don’t study with the woman in the video, but I know other dancers who do. She explains some variations of side plank clearly here.
Human kinesiotape
I add one more thing to my side plank: instead of reaching my free arm up, I wrap my hand into my armpit and LIFT up to help me connect better to my deep core. Like kinesiotape, touching the skin above the muscles you want to use triggers the muscles to work better. I use this approach in many of my tango exercises to get my muscles to work more efficiently for me. Try it!