Musicality questions

When I teach tango, I ask people to let go of the idea of stepping on the beat. Moving with the music is SO much more than being on the beat. Connecting with the music asks you to step outside the box and look at the whole thing that is tango, including the music; but not just the beat.

Flavors of the dance

Each song has it’s own flavor. It is unique—or else why would we have another song? Like ice cream, vanilla is great, but it can only go so far! “What flavor does this song have?” I ask students. Some answer with musical terms (staccato, legato), some answer in less musical ways (stretchy, sharp, smooth), and some have their own, culinary approach: “Lemon curd!” exclaimed my 11-year-old student! “Because you have to stir it slowly, and then it has a sharp taste!”

I think it is more important to explore that “flavor” than to dance on the beat. How YOU express the tango through your interpretation, it always going to be more interesting than thump-thump-thump for three minutes.

Musical choices

“But Elizabeth,” you say, “Do you remember x who can’t dance on the beat and how annoying that is????” Yes, of course I remember. It’s not that I am saying dancing to the beat is not important; it is just much less important than a lot of other elements of dancing. First, you insist your partner dance around for years, stepping on the beat, and then you complain to me that his dance is boring! Let’s look at ways to make our dances more fun!

What can I do with tango music?

• Tiempo (dancing on the beat)

• Dobletiempo (double time, like “Quick Quick Slow”)

• Half time (step, pause, step pause; like the graduation walk)

• Pausas (pauses, let’s say 1-8 seconds)

• Slow motion (as slow as you can go/as slow as the music goes)

All of these elements are in all tango songs if you listen for them. Try paying attention to the melody instead of the beat. How does it make you feel? There is no wrong way to interpret the music! YOU are feeling the music and moving to it, so that is YOUR interpretation!

Some songs have more of less of one aspect of what can happen; some songs scream what to do “SLOW! NOW FAST!” and others whisper ideas to you. None of them are just about pounding around on the beat.

Help the song stay alive!

Just stepping on the beat makes the song flatline and die. Any time you explore the other musical options, even for a step or two, returning to dancing “tiempo” (on the beat) suddenly feels exciting! Experiment! Be brave! Play!

I would rather dance with someone trying out the feeling of the dance and failing, than dancing the whole tanda on each beat. One of the best feelings in the world is to dance with someone and find something new in a song I think I know well. They heard something I didn’t, and offered it to me! That is exciting. Even after almost 25 years of tango, there are songs I don’t know well. Even after almost 25 years of tango, I don’t know everything about a song from someone else’s point of view. Sometimes I think, “Wow…that’s int-er-est-ing….” but usually we can work out the musicality between us.

Let the follower have a say in musicality

The follower can make or break a dance. As a follower, I try to stay with the leader, tuned into their intentions and suggestions re: musicality. However, I also adjust the dance to make it as rich as I can. One of my former teachers said it was “inspiring the leader” to do a move. I CAN drop my chi and make the leader do what I want most of the time, but I only use it to give a slight spin to what the leader suggested, unless their suggestion was dangerous. I am playing along, suggesting ideas, following up on the leader’s suggestions—it’s a musical conversation with give and take on both sides.

Most people name adornos as the place where the follower gets their say. To me, the adorno is another place where a conversation is going on. I like having moments where the leader basically says, “What do YOU think?” and gives me room to play; but that can happen on every move of the dance :-)

What do YOU do?

Comment and let me know how YOU let your leader or follower interact with you and the music! I am sure there are tons of great ideas out there.

Adornos, Part I

“Pretty feet!”

That’s the second-best compliment I ever received while dancing. A woman I didn’t know tapped me on the arm as I left the dance floor at La Nacional when I passed her table. She smiled at me, nodded in approval and told me, “Lindos pies.” I almost fell over! I was not used to compliments from Argentine women on my dancing.

“You adorn with your soul”

A few years after that other compliment, I was dancing at Los Consagrados with someone I didn’t know, and even the first dance was amazing. I forget what orchestra was playing, but I was really enjoying the music as well as the leader, and my feet just did their thing as part of my dance. When we finished the first song, he accused me, “Hey, you are a teacher!” And I replied, “And so are you!”

After the second dance, he told me, “You don’t just adorn with your feet, you adorn with your soul!” That is the best compliment I have ever received on the dance floor in Buenos Aires, and I treasure it. I don’t think of adornos as a separate part of my dance: they are integral to my body and to my tango. I loved it that someone noticed.

I didn’t think adornos were important

I didn’t work on adding adornos to my tango for a long time. I started tango in 1995. There were very few tango teachers around, and if I wanted people to dance with in Eugene, I was going to have to teach them. I already had an M.A. in Dance and was teaching ballroom and folk dancing at University of Oregon. I jumped into tango, and most of my time was spent ensuring that I understood the lead and follow parts of each step I learned, so that I could teach it correctly.

Eventually, I realized that my feet were the part of my tango that needed the most work. I focused on my adornos, foot strength and elastic use of my legs for the next few years, and it paid off with those compliments about my feet.

Adornos are functional

I have come to understand that adornos are a functional part of my dance. They allow me to keep my body relaxed and ready for any movement the leader might suggest. They help me keep a dynamic balance, rather than trying to lock into a complete stop. They use the natural margin of error that we have for balance (the amount our feet and ankles can adjust to help us maintain balance) as an inspiration for small, but full-body, movement.

These days, I teach beginners adornos from their first day in tango. I find that people who learn this way feel more empowered to express themselves in the dance. They are more relaxed because their body is moving, which makes them breathe more fully. They understand that balance is dynamic, and that they don’t have to have a perfect dance.

I encourage people to use “too many” adornos in class to explore what a good level of movement would be. If someone is worried about movement being “wrong” they will dance more stiffly. If dancers are afraid to adorn, they struggle to find a comfortable balance between doing what the leader asks and what they hear in the music themselves. Finding a good balance and understanding that each dance and each partner will differ, is a huge relief to most learners: it’s ok to experiment! Plus, it’s fun to play with your feet and the music, and learning should be fun!

What adorno should I do?

This is the question most learners ask me. There is no should in adornos. I tell my beginners to write their name in the sand. Put energy into the big toes, but don’t spend a lot of time thinking of what to “write” or your time in the pause will be over.

Adornos are filigree to fill in and beautify the dance, commenting on the music/mood/partnership that is happening at that moment. We learn specific adornos in order to train our legs so that we can improvise in the moment.

What is in the video?

This video reviews the adornos we have been doing in my Tango: Toning and Technique class. So far, we have done linea (line), lapiz (pencil), front and back crosses (which I was taught as “amagues” but I just argued about this with a friend, so we will just call them whatever and move on; and an adorno I call “the elevator” because no one ever told me a name for it. When I say elevator, everybody gets the right idea :-)

Improving your axis awareness by working with dowels

Shameless stealing of ideas

My chiropractor (who is also a personal trainer) was demonstrating how to correctly lift kettlebells while I watched and took notes. I had a moment of brilliance and noticed that the exercise could help my tango students use their gluts better to maintain balance and alignment. I showed him my idea, and he agreed that the alignment was solid. Here is the tango version of the exercise!

Core and leg exercises for more elegant tango

I use a lot of different approaches to improve my tango technique and that of my students. For a lot of people, the wish to move quickly overrides paying attention to how the body actually wants to move. I think it’s important to take time to train your body to feel how the muscles, bones and connective tissue are constructed. If you use your body in an organic manner, the movement will look more elegant and smooth.

The video version

Chair drill: connect the core and upper leg

The chair version of this drill allows you to focus on using the deep core to work your legs, rather than the quadriceps. Yes, the quads are still working, but we want to see the long line of the entire leg for tango. That means the core needs to work a bit harder than we are used to in our sedentary lives :-)

Note: Assume that you are cheating on the drill, and reset each time you complete a leg movement. Eventually, you will start to be able to maintain your alignment for the entire drill. At that point, add the standing version to your tango workout.

Standing chair drill: adding balance to core strength

If you can do the chair drill, move up to the standing drill. It takes more focus and balance, but the concept is the same: trace the connections from the deep core out and down to the foot. Allow time for each movement signal to travel down the body!

Note: Be careful with your back. Make sure your core, not your lower back, is doing the main lifting work for this drill. If you can’t do it correctly yet, do the chair drill until you have more core strength.

Idea clouds, drop-down menus and leading tango

So many moves, so little memory

One of my students asked me, “Why can you remember to do so many more moves than my husband can when we dance?”

The question made me pause, as I had just been reading about how people retain information. I knew that my short-term memory did not have more storage space than another person, so why DID I remember more moves while dancing?

Short-term memory

Most of the research I have read suggests we have five to seven slots for short-term memory. A good leader uses several of those for more than just moves:

1. Make your follower feel secure: NAVIGATION is most important.

2. Where is YOUR body? Make sure you are on balance, ready to move.

3. Where is your follower? Make sure they are on balance, ready to move!

4. Musicality (some people put this higher on the list, but as a follower, I would rather that both of us are on balance than off-balance but on the music).

5. Room for a move

6. Room for a move

7. Room for a move

Chunks, not items

I remember more information because I chunk vocabulary into categories, and each short-term memory slot holds a category, not just one move. As I learn new moves, I figure out where they fit in my move storage, and then it’s easier to find and use those moves.

Idea clouds

Some people think better in idea clouds, where the information is chunked, but perhaps not in a completely systematic way. For a relatively new tango dancer, we might start with the categories of: traveling, turning, other things; or something like that. Here is an example from yesterday for one student:

For him, that is the sum of the moves he knows. He knows the concepts of volcadas, ganchos, etc., but doesn’t know how to lead them yet. I introduced the idea of categories so that, as he learns moves, he can figure out how HE thinks of the moves, and use his own categories to store and retrieve information.

Drop-down menus

Other students prefer a drop-down menu approach to storing information. That way, as more and more variations are learned, they are simply plugged into the existing system further down the menu. That way, the leader can think “ocho cortado” and choose “linear” and THEN choose “multiple traspies/rebound” and then pick “lateral cross” as the exit move. Each part of the process is ONE decision at a time, working down the menu, choosing each part of the move.

Here is an example of one category (traveling) from a student who is just figuring out how his categories work (rather than mine).

The advantage of the drop-down menu is that our brains use these every day on our computers, and we are already trained to look for information this way.

Make your categories/method work for you!

Everyone has a different approach to how they classify tango moves. There is not one right way: grab a piece of paper, or a thought-cloud app, or a white board and markers, and see how YOU chunk the information. I have found that some of my students categorize the way I do, and some of my students have very different thoughts about what fits together; give yourself time to develop your own system.

Remember: Try to limit yourself to 4-5 categories, as you will always need to prioritize navigation/safety and musicality over moves. Once you know where your body is, and where your partner is, you don’t have to spend so much energy and time on that, and you can expand your movement list a bit.

Does this work for everyone?

In the course of 23 years of teaching tango, I have only met two students who did not categorize information easily. For both of them, each separate move was a separate thing. An example: for most people, Phillips screwdrivers are in the same family as a regular screwdriver. For these people, there is no “screwdriver” category, and each tool goes into a separate box or drawer, unrelated to the other tools.

If this describes how you approach category-making, be comforted that these guys did manage to learn tango and did manage to dance more than five moves; but it was a struggle. Be kind to yourself! Be patient with yourself! Sigue luchando! (Keep fighting!)

December classes in Beaverton and Portland

Tango Beaverton: Tango Toning & Technique

We are changing up the format of the Beaverton class. As everyone who has come to class so far is advanced beginner to advanced intermediate so far, this class will be a Tango, Toning and Technique class. Although the class is weighted towards follower technique, those of you who want to become advanced leaders will find that the same work applies to you! Everyone is welcome, even total beginners. Everyone is working at their level, and I can adapt what we are doing to make it more basic—or more advanced—for each dancer.

The class has a brief warmup. After that, we do drills focusing on balance, alignment and building strength for your dance. Depending on who comes to class, we might work on: walking, adornos, pivoting, free leg work (boleos, ganchos, etc.). Most of class is dedicated to improving YOUR dance, so that when you dance with someone, you bring the most that you can to your half of the couple.

If you have 1 lb. leg weights, please bring them along. Wear layers, as we are the first people in the room for the day, and it’s not always warm at first. Bring your dancing shoes: practice shoes are also ok.

• Noon on Wednesdays

• Global Art of Dance

• 12570 SW Farmington Rd, Beaverton, OR 97005

• $15 drop in, or 10-class punchcard for $120

Portland FUNdamentals: Holiday goodies

FUNdamentals class is designed to work on tango basics for beginners and anyone else who wants to polish their dance. As people have difficult schedules over the holidays, each class will be a stand-alone class. I will design one basic combination for each week so that we can practice all the things, but also walk out with usable content.

This is a great time to get a head start on tango for the New Year, or for coming to polish up your basics in a small group setting.

• 7 PM Thursdays

• Om Studio

• 14 NE 10th Ave. Portland

• $14 drop in, 10-class punchcard for $120

Continuing Tango: Sacadas & other combinations

Like FUNdamentals, December will be a month of working on one combination (and variations, you know me) per week. By popular demand, we will keep working on sacadas, but integrate them into the dance musically, combining them with other elements to make a fun addition to your dance each week. Don’t worry if you haven’t been in class before: this is a friendly group!

Continuing Tango class is aimed at intermediate and advanced intermediate dancers. You may bring a partner, or switch partners. I encourage you to work both roles of the dance to understand the moves more holistically.

• 8 PM Thursdays

• Om Studio

• 14 NE 10th Ave. Portland

• $14 drop in, 10-class punchcard for $120

If you are not willing to look stupid

“If you are not willing to look stupid, nothing great is ever going to happen to you.””

— Gregory House, in House

I have been thinking a lot about learning (and looking/feeling stupid) this week. I took a workshop on preparing wool to spin and started to learn new-to-me movements that I will need to practice. Washing wool and doing something to it make it spinnable? That looks easy! Hmm, apparently watching YouTube videos on how to do it only gave me some of the information! And I am already wondering about the magical twist the teacher gave to her wool cards in the middle to get all the wool on one: how can I forget that quickly what it was?

I also have been reading books about Aspergers for teens that stress how important it is to learn neurotypical rules and expectations in order to thrive in the adult world; and how much practice is needed to be successful at that. As the parent of a gifted kiddo who struggles daily in the neurotypical world, I see how hard it feels to translate your smarts from what you excel in, to what baffles you.

Tango can seem like a different world with unspoken rules and movements that mystify the beginning dancer. The moves also seem very easy, but then cannot be easily mastered. Where is that self-help guide to tango that will explain everything? Aaahhhh!

Use what you know

Remember that you have learned other things in your life, and you know HOW you learn. Maybe it was not dance. Have you learned a sport? Do you have training in how the body is put together? Perhaps you are very good at seeing patterns, or analyzing situations, or flying a plane. Are you a visual learner? A kinesthetic learner? An analyzer? Pretty much every time you have learned something new, you have improved your learning skills. You may not know tango, but you know YOU: apply that knowledge.

Restrain your perfectionist tendencies

Lock your perfectionism in a closet. Give yourself a workable timeline. Remember: You are doing tango for FUN! I know, I know, it’s hard to see that sometimes in the midst of a difficult class; or when you run into someone on the dance floor; or when you cannot make your body do the same move to the left that you can do just fine to the right. The focus is FUN, improving your strength and balance, socializing with nice people, expressing yourself. The focus is NOT doing it perfectly.

Risk looking stupid

Just get out there and do it. YOU are the only person worrying about if you look stupid. The others are worrying about THEMSELVES looking stupid and they don’t care :-)

Babies learn by falling down and messing up. Guess what? Humans learn this way. My computer programmer husband tells me that his job means he messes up daily (or more) and then has to fix it. Making mistakes is the way our brains work: we learn from our past behaviors. Oops, you are normal!

Remember: Sometimes messing up creates colossal, fabulous new creations! You can get mediocre at something without messing up a lot, but to be brilliant, you will need to really fail from time to time. Apparently, Thomas Edison is quoted as saying that he had found 1000 ways NOT to build a light bulb. So get out there and look stupid! It may take 1000 tries—but it may only take a few.

See you on the dance floor!

Games help you learn better and faster

Naughty Toddler, Shark and Fishes, Traffic, Touch My Foot: My tango students are invited to play a lot of different games, especially in my beginner and my FUNdamentals classes. Why make up all these games?

Humans learn best by play and experimentation, not rote memorization. Look at kids: they are constantly learning, and incorporating huge amounts of data. They play games themselves, and teachers have kids play games to learn. Adults learn better playing games as well. The only problem: adults are afraid to look stupid, and it gets in the way of their learning!

Here's my question: Are you willing to risk looking silly and maybe making mistakes, in order to learn faster and better? Here are descriptions of two of the games I play in class and WHY we play them.

Game 1: Shark and Fishes

Shark and Fishes is my newest game. It helps everyone on the dance floor pay attention to the flow of the room AND avoid crazy drivers on the dance floor.

When I interviewed dancers in Buenos Aires for my M.A. thesis on tango, I was told that dancers "back in the day" rarely ran into each other. The whole room of dancers would get into a groove, aware of all of the other dancers, and would move as one. If one person messed up, the others would adjust to avoid crashes and return to a group groove. I wanted to help dancers relearn this skill.

I thought about how I have seen schools of fish whirl almost as one unit, and reassemble. Could I apply this to tango? And what about the occasional "bad driver" who plunges across the dance floor, oblivious to other humans?

Rules of the game

1. Everyone moves on their own, but trying to mimic a school of fish. Fish swirl, curve, flow and clump together for safety. That means the people have to move as close to each other as possible, without hitting, swirling as a close-knit group around the dance floor. No one fish stays fixed in the grouping. Each person needs to be aware of their personal space and work together as a group at the same time.

2. Grabbing a partner, we try to keep flowing in this "school" of fish around the room. Don't worry about traditional rules of staying in front of and behind the same person; focus on rolling with the group. If a crash looks imminent, the leader should ALWAYS protect the follower by putting the follower on the far side of the crash. Do not use your follower as a sacrificial victim to be given up to the shark!

3. Here comes the shark! Someone (usually me) announces, "Here comes the shark!" and just walks straight through the school of fish. All the dancers swirl away from the shark and recombine into one school of fish as soon as possible. As the game continues, the shark stops giving verbal warnings and just walks through the school.

What does Shark and Fishes teach?

• How to navigate in bad traffic on the dance floor
• How to protect the follower, no matter what happens
• You have more room to dance if you tune into the other couples in the room
• Dancing in community with the other dancers feels better than dancing alone
• You are all in this together as a community: it's not a competition for space!

Game 2: Touch my foot

Beginning tango dancers (and sometimes more advanced dancers) are afraid to step on their partner's toes. This results in strange sideways leaning as couples try to keep the embrace intact while wandering with their legs.

What if dancers felt comfortable and knew EXACTLY where their partner's feet were? How could I get folks to dance closer and in a more relaxed way? What if I got everyone comfortable with touching feet and legs so that they would stop worrying about it?

What if we knew exactly where the partner's feet were, based on the embrace and what we could feel of the upper body?

Rules of the game

1. Practice walking in a straight line, right in front of your own belly button. The partners are slightly offset, as the follower's middle goes down the middle of the leader's right side; this creates a a slight V, based on the shape of the two people (or a big V if you are have cultivated the beer pansa/belly). For those of you who like to argue that this is walking "outside" you can call this whatever you like as long as you do it!

2. Whoever is currently walking forward (let's say the leader first), will try to touch the side of the follower's foot or ankle that is closest to the leader. The follower is just walking backwards in a straight line. If you are in parallel, that would mean the leader's left foot touches the inside of the follower's left foot; and then the leader's right foot touches the OUTSIDE of the follower's right foot. It will feel like a zigzag to the person going forward. If you are not using correct contrabody, this is much harder to do.

3. When you get to the end of the room, don't turn around; just reverse. Now the FOLLOWER is doing the touch my foot, and the leader is just walking backwards normally.

4. Now, practice finding the OTHER side of the partner's foot: walk three steps in front of yourself (L R L), and use your next right step to step in between the other person's feet, again touching their foot or ankle. Some of my students who have been taught tracks/skis say, "My track, my track, my track, YOUR track" under their breath while doing this.

5. Now walk in front of yourself, not trying to touch feet and notice HOW MUCH ROOM you really have when walking well in close embrace!

What does Touch My Feet teach?

• How to identify EXACTLY where the inside and outside edges of the partner's foot are
• How to identify the only place you can't step: on their foot
• You have better balance for dancing if you dance with your feet right under you
• Feeling like you have no space in close embrace is just a perception, not reality
• Followers need to learn to walk forward too!

Optimal pelvic alignment and movement for tango

Many people have asked me how to relieve their lower back pain from dancing tango. Part of the answer I addressed in the "Heels up vs. down" post and video last year. Correcting how you use your pelvis and iliofemoral joints (hip joints) will also make your dance pain-free and beautiful at the same time. Efficient movement looks better and feels better!

Walking, pausing and balance

Tango differs from normal walking in that you must be ready to change directions at the end of each step. Yes, you might take a few steps before doing something else, but you need to be prepared at all times to avoid other dancers, deal with your balance and your partner's balance, and to respond to inspiration.

The reinitiation of movement after each step feels like a heartbeat to me. The movement is not continuous, but has a pulse with each new step. The observer may not see the "stop" after each step, but the dancers have a split second at least where they could stop, or simply begin the next step from a more balanced position.

The best way to be prepared, is to train yourself to arrive on balance after each step. Both feet should be able to land under your body, with the free leg relaxed and the support leg strong but not tense. This means that your head, ribs, back, hips and legs need to be stacked up and aligned to avoid using extra muscle wear and tear.

I find it helpful to think about how your inner thighs and gluteal muscles hug UP into your pelvic floor. Then, think about how your abdominals and back muscles hug your body DOWN into your pelvis. You are always in upper-body/lower-body alignment every step you take: this is the ideal. How you line your pelvis up with your feet and legs, helps you maintain this ideal balance.

Side-to-side (pendulum) motion at the sacrum

When you walk normally, your pelvis adjusts from one leg to the other to allow your upper body and head to move smoothly. Put your thumbs on your sacrum, right at the base of your spine where it connects to your pelvis. Now, walk "normally" (which seems to be very hard to do while we are thinking about it!). Can you feel how your pelvis tips slightly side-to-side? This is normal and we want it in tango.

The amount of pendulum will vary depending on the pelvis. Men have narrower hips, so the movement will be slighter. Women with wide hips will tip more than women with narrow hips; but still more than the average guy. We are not trying to add extra movement here: a small amount is efficient and helps with balance. This is NOT the time to drag out your ballroom "Latin motion" hips! What is the smallest movement that works here?

Note: some people have been taught not to move their hips. If the adult who raised you walked with stiff hips, you will probably also do so; we learn from the adults who parent us. Or, a dance teacher might have told you to hold your hips parallel or flat while moving; this is just not good for you! Time to learn/relearn efficient movement.

If you have had any injuries that make you clench your lower spine or pelvic muscles, you may be fighting your own body in an effort to avoid pain. This movement should NOT create any pain: have your doctor/PT/chiropractor check that you are moving well.

Front-to-back hip tip

I've been discussing hip placement with my chiropractor, physical trainer and Pilates teacher recently. Why is the motion for tango different than for strength training? The answer: tango needs the body to be able to rotate at the hips or the torso A LOT more than in daily walking and running. It's about mobility, not stability. Therefore, there is a tiny bit more tip at the hip joints to facilitate that readiness to move, while remaining as stable as possible at the same time. Whew!

Grab your butt

Those of you who have been in lessons with me know what I'm going to say here. In order to find how your hip joint works, grab your sitz bones (your ischial tuberosities if you prefer), and tip yourself over from there (don't arch your back). This should make your lower back feel broad and relaxed, allowing for more rotation when needed.

Another way to find the best position for your hip, is to grab your sitz bone and the front of your hip where it folds, next to your pubic bone. Let your hands tip you forward and backward, feeling for a release of the ligament in the front of the hip. You want to be in the zone between these points, not too far forward and not too far back.

When you get your pelvis out of that tight mode of hanging out on your front ligaments, it recruits your deep abdominals, your psoas, your pelvic floor--all the parts that allow you to suspend your upper body over your lower body, but in a way that allows movement IN ANY DIRECTION.

Share the work

Remember: Let your muscles hug your bones. Let all of your joints share the weight/stress of moving so that no one part is doing all the work. If you have a problem area (knee, ankle, etc.), spread that work out away from the weak spot.

Along with spreading the work out, try to use as little work as possible to maintain correct posture and motion. That way, you always have something left to save you if you fall, protect you from a difficult partner; or to play with when you get a partner where you can really cut loose!

Get your hips in the right position, keep them within the margin of error that allows for adjustment. Let your pelvic floor and deep abs lift. Let those butt muscles work for you. Focus on efficient, beautiful motion, and you will have a powerful tango.

Check out my YouTube channel

I put tango how-to videos up as I have time. I have not had time to put up a walking video, but there are videos on pivoting and turning, as well as milonga drills. There are also exercise, including hip openers. All of them focus on correct movement, and you can watch the hip motion and work on yours. Mine is not perfect, but we are all working on improving!

Esther Gokhale and walking

I also have a playlist about walking and posture from Esther Gokhale's work (she is my hero)! As she says, "If it were not behind you, we would call it something else!" I will add to this playlist as I find new information from her.

BE INSPIRED!

Train your brain and your tango at the same time

One of my students cares for his parent who has Alzheimer's. When he called the support hotline for caregivers, he asked what he should be doing to avoid Alzheimer's--and she told him he should dance Argentine Tango! He happily informed her that he already did that.

What makes Argentine Tango especially good for maintaining brain health, compared to, say, ballroom dancing? Instead of memorizing set patterns and dancing them in sequence, tango asks more of the dancer. Improvisation within the dance means constantly playing with the building blocks of tango and recombining them in different ways. This forces your brain to make new connections, reinforcing memory and providing more pathways to find information stored there.

Like LEGO, tango components can be built into all sorts of interesting patterns that weren't on the picture on the box. If you allow yourself to do the same beginning, middle and end of a move, without variation, your dance will be OK; it's OK to build the picture on the box. However, it is NOT building your brain, and it is NOT developing your dance!

When I teach, I encourage students to stretch their mind along with their body. It creates pockets of questions about moves, questions of how you put things together. When your brain has to work a bit to build connections between different bits of information,  that information "sticks" better. You remember it, and have several pathways to accessing the moves while you dance.

Turns (giros)

Let's use turns as an example, since we have been studying them this month in FUNdamentals class. Many of you came into class with your favorite one or two turn combinations. I have spent the month trying to deconstruct your turns into components, so that you can then take the parts and make NEW versions to enhance your dance (and your brain). Yes, this is hard! Yes, this is good for your brain (and your tango).

Entrances

If you look at the dance from what the follower is doing, there are only three ways to begin a turn: front, side and back steps. For a standard giro, the leader needs to be in the center of the turn for the follower to turn around that spot. For right now, let's ignore traveling turns and sacadas turns, where the leader does not stay in one place. How do you start a turn so that followers get different entrances into the turn? Here's what we explored:

1. A traspie (rebound, rock step, whatever you call it)--usually propels the follower into a front or side step, depending on the direction of the move.
2. A salida (any side step, really), followed by the leader keeping both feet under and creating torque around the spot. People will argue whether this means the side step is the first step of the turn, or if the next step (usually a back cross) is the beginning.
3. Back ochos into a turn ensure that the follower's first step is a back step.
4. Front ochos into a turn ensure that the first step of the turn is a front step if the leader does unaccompanied front ochos; if the leader accompanies the step, we are back to the question of whether that, or the following side step, starts the turn.

Middle of the turn

Here, if you don't add things like sacadas, your only choices have to do with syncopation. The follower is supposed to syncopate by default on the giro: two fast and two slow steps. If the leader wants to slow down, the follower has to feel the deceleration before launching into the back cross step. If the leader wants the follower to speed up, the follower has to feel acceleration that encourages a continuation of the two fast steps. Most people limit themselves to one speed. Let the music and your partner inspire you to try to vary this!

Exits

The option I teach first in turns, is to finish turning, pause, and walk out. This is great, but it doesn't mean you should only do that for your tango career! Start playing with "catching" the follower's front, side and back step, and accompanying them OUT of the turn. If you think of the turn as a lollipop, find the stick!

The options we have explored in class:

1. Exit with back ochos (lead front, follow back, but with pivots)
2. Exit with paso americano (both lead and follow do front steps)
3. Exit with a front ochos (lead side, follow forward)
4. Exit with a salida (both people take side steps)
5. The possibilities are endless, but we only had a month!

For some people, two turns are enough, and that is fine. That's good enough for government work. But consider pushing your brain, building those new connections. The more you challenge yourself, the more you improve your brain health! I hope that's worth the extra work for you!

Walking in tango: a look at the possibilities

I spend a LOT of time in my classes trying to explain how to walk naturally. I teach what my tango teachers in Buenos Aires call "normal" tango embrace/walk (follower slightly offset, each person on their own axis, with each person walking their own straight line) that is foreign to students of other teachers in my town (who teach open embrace, leaning-styles of close embrace, and various other things).

When I go to Buenos Aires, I almost never have to argue about "how" I am going to dance with another person. We agree by cabeceo, we adjust to each other's styles, and it works most of the time. What part of this system is not working in the United States?

The right way?

I think that most people here think there is only one right way to dance tango. They listen to their first teacher, and then argue with anyone who suggests alterations to their dance. In Buenos Aires, everyone knows that there are tons of different styles, and there is more of an attempt to find your own dance, rather than "the right dance."

I have chosen the style that I teach because I believe it is the easiest style of tango in terms of body wear and tear. I want to dance tango until I die, not until I need back surgery. I want to dance all night, not until my feet hurt. As a student of anatomy, I constantly try to find the best ways to help people find their own body, feel how it works, and then use that knowledge to make their own dance. It's about ease of movement and body health; if you want to then go do a style that is hard on the body, that is an educated decision that you are free to make.

What village are you from?

As a folk dancer, we have a joke when we learn a new variation of a dance: "What village are you from?!?" We all know that there are tons of variation in the folk tradition, and we accept that for the most part.

In tango, it's a question of what neighborhood your teacher came from; or what teacher formed their dance. I have danced all over Buenos Aires and studied with people from a lot of different neighborhoods. According to reactions from elderly men in Buenos Aires, I appear to have learned styling that places me anywhere from Villa Devoto to Belgrano to Villa Urquiza.

For most of us who did not grow up in Buenos Aires, we have taken what we know of Argentine Tango from whatever sources we could. I am lucky that I spent a lot of time dancing with the old guys twenty years ago, and got the feeling of their dance into my body. What village am I from? From the one where you get a master's in dance and study anatomy and kinesiology AND hang out with old guys in milongas.

My maestros

Here are some of the people I have studied with to give YOU inspiration and help you see how I have built my own dance.

Omar Vega--milonga

Omar was one of my main milonga teachers in Buenos Aires. He was never one to follow the rules, so you will see some crazy things on his videos, but getting to be his assistant in milonga class formed my milonga. I would follow him as he showed moves, and then switch to leading in the class. The guys in class were very open to me leading, and provided a lot of encouragement. The women were willing to dance with another woman and the chance to study weekly gave me homework for going dancing.

 

Jose Garofalo--milonga

I learned a lot about milonga from Jose Garofalo. His classes were relaxed and enjoyable. Private lessons with him were the best: because he is such a fabulous follower, he would take what I did wrong and expand upon it in a hilarious manner--until I fixed it. Because he is an inventive leader, I have to be super-focused when dancing with him: he doesn't just follow a fixed pattern, and I never know what will come out of that incredible 30-year-tango memory! I couldn't find a video of him doing milonga except with me, so here it is:

Tete Rusconi--vals and tango

Tete was my main vals teacher. He gave me a lot of flack for leading in his classes, but I learned a lot from him. Skip the first 1:30 or so of this video where they introduce him if you don't speak Spanish. I like this dance because it is very sweet and balanced, with a lot of poetry in the musicality--and because it shows his tango, not his vals. I enjoyed dancing with him.

Oscar Mandagaran--milonga, tango and vals

Oscar was the teacher of my Argentine boyfriend, who dragged me to a class in an apartment where I was the only foreigner. I studied with him on and off for many years. Watch this video of us dancing on a crowded plywood stage out on the street in Buenos Aires. You can see a lot of what I try to teach people to do! Just skip ahead past all the stuff about the photographer!

 

Julio Balmaceda and Corina de la Rosa--tango and vals

Julio and Corina taught classes in La Galeria where I went to take classes. They are no longer together, but Corina is a powerhouse of a follower who I hope to emulate someday. Check out their vals here, which is one of my favorites to watch and rewatch. Notice they almost never walk in front of each other: when he does step in front of her, he does not invade her space, but is using it to prepare for another movement.

OK, there are a BUNCH more people who have inspired and taught me, but that's enough for this week!

Foot-saving tips for ballroom dancers starting Argentine Tango

Once you have your shoulders relaxed with a good embrace, and your hips in the right position to support your back, Argentine Tango should be a lot easier to manage for people coming to it from ballroom dancing. There's really only one thing more that people complain about: "My feet hurt!"

A lot of ballroom teachers teach dancers to get up on the balls of the feet to dance.  Although I personally would never counsel that having been a student of anatomy and kinesiology, I can see that the "look" of the dance is being stressed over the "feel" of the dance; I understand even if I disagree.

What's different in tango?

Tango requires a constant preparedness to change direction. As it is much more improvisational, neither the leader nor the follower may have a plan further ahead than the current step in many cases. Balance and ability to pivot and change direction take precedence over everything else in terms of the foot.

More surface area improves balance

Get those heels down! Spread out your toes! Yoga talks about the four corners of the foot: use that concept in tango.

Think about elephant feet: elephants have good balance and REALLY big feet. Imagine you have huge feet that hold you up. If you are in heels, pretend that teeny stiletto heel is enormous!

Engage your arch for pivoting

This is especially true for turns. Instead of popping up to remove as much of your foot as possible from the ground, stay more grounded. You need to keep your metatarsal arches as the center of your work, so spread your toes out, rather than scrunching them in. Yes, it takes effort to keep the arches as the focus, not the heads of the metatarsal bones. However, using that arch for support means more hours of dancing before your feet give out.

Build your ankle strength

I inherited very weak ankles from my mother. I was always the kid with an Ace bandage from spraining and straining my ankles. Luckily, seven years of West African dance training coincided with my Argentine Tango beginnings. That helped a lot, but I still didn't have the strength to work correctly in high heels

I have worked hard to correct that, and have used ankle exercises based on the ones that I have learned from physical therapists and trainers to help my students also build their ankles. A lot of power in tango comes from the foot and ankle working together. Once the ankle is strong, the temptation to take all of the work into the toes, ballet-style, can fade :-)

Embrace tips for ballroom dancers starting Argentine Tango

One challenge that ballroom dancers find when starting Argentine Tango, is the need to change how the partners in the dance are connected to one another. What needs to change?

Change your frame to an embrace

The tango embrace is much less rigid than the ballroom frame. The hands and arms help the leader and follower communicate as helpers to information from the body, rather than as a rudder system to steer the follower around. It's very subtle, and requires attentive listening from both sides; but is also allows many more variations of movement to happen.

The hands and arms are receptor sites

Think about your hands and arms as receptor sites: you are feeling what the other person is doing, and through your embrace, you can get additional information about the other person's balance, axis and direction.

Instead of steering with the frame, FEEL where your partner is now! Is the follower on axis? Are you both headed the same way in the room? Small, subtle adjustments work much better than "driving" the follower around the room. As a follower, I can feel where the leader is by tuning in with my hands and arms.

Hold your partner like a baby

When you hold a baby, you need to constantly adjust your hold to accommodate the baby's movements. You also need to hold with a firm grip that give the baby reassurance that they are safe. However, if you hold too firmly, the baby feels uncomfortable. All of that applies to holding your partner in tango. If you have never held a baby, think about holding an expensive vase.

A good amount of tone in the arms and hands allows the other person to know that you are present and listening. Just like with a baby, it also calms your partner. I often spend my time dancing with beginners (when leading or following) simply getting them to relax enough to dance, usually by adjusting the energy of my embrace until I feel them relax more.

Relax your elbows!

Let your elbows drop towards the ground ("Energy underside" as one of my students says who does aikido and chi work). Anchor your arms and shoulder blades down into the lower center of your back (latissimus dorsi muscles). The lower they are anchored, the better the other person can read where your body is heading.

Anchor your shoulder blades down, not back

Many ballroom dancers squeeze their shoulder blades together to open up their chest. This is not really a position that will work for hours of dancing! Instead, think about anchoring your shoulder blades DOWN your back. If you have ever seen the wine bottle openers that pull the cork up while the sides of the opener fold down, that's an image I often use to remind folks to slide their shoulder blades down and towards the lower spine.

Let your shoulders and shoulder girdle drape over your torso so that they are balanced, but not tense. Think of a coat, draped over a hanger: the coat is not tense! This will help you dance with a lot less muscle tension and neck/shoulder pain.

Do it all the time!

Again, the more you practice, the faster you learn a new skill. What is you practiced keeping your shoulders relaxed, your elbows released, and your shoulder blades actively anchored down the back ALL THE TIME? Then you would not need to think about that while dancing, and could focus on other parts of the dance!

If you try this out while doing ballroom dance, you will find that most of the tips I have given you will also work in ballroom, and will help relieve tightness in your body while dancing. They will also help you lead and follow better: bonus!

Back-saving tips for ballroom dancers starting Argentine Tango

I met a new Argentine Tango dancer this week. She is a ballroom dancer, and I found myself giving her the advice I always give people who start tango with a ballroom background. It occurred to me that it might be helpful for others who are coming over to the tango side of things.

I started teaching ballroom dance in 1986. When I started Argentine Tango in 1995, I had all of the same issues to fix that I work on with other dancers. I have been there myself!

Adjust the pelvis to save the back

Most ballroom dancers come to tango complaining of tight backs and inability to pivot constantly into turns and ochos. The fix: a different hip position to relax and free up the back!

Natural movement at the sacrum

A lot of dancers have been told to hold their hips completely straight. This is not how the body moves! As you shift weight from one foot to the other, the sacrum naturally rocks slightly from side to side, like a seesaw. This allows your head to balance over your feet efficiently.

If you hold your sacrum tight, that extra motion needs to come from somewhere, and other body parts (your back, your feet, your knees) take more pressure and get tired and sore. Let your pelvis move naturally, and you have more graceful movement and less work per step.

Try to find a new natural without exaggeration: with any new movement, you need to be careful not to overdo it.

Build slowly on your body's current abilities

The pelvic motion needed to maintain back health is not extreme. If your body says, "Ow!" pay attention. It may be that you are doing something you THINK is part of tango, but you misunderstood the teacher. Or, it may be that the motion needed is currently not something you can achieve in one leap.

I always encourage dancers coming from ballroom to take at least a few private lessons. A good teacher can evaluate whether or not you might benefit from some myofascial release, or chiropractic adjustment--or maybe just a bit of strength building in muscles that you haven't been using.

Recruit your abdominals for better pivots and less pain

Many people stand with their hips forward and their legs locked. While this may be useful for waiting in line somewhere, it is bad for movement. The back bears the brunt of the weight and the back muscles work a bit too hard.

In tango, it's really important to balance the front and back bodies out, so that pivoting and other movement around the spine is as easy as possible. To get your abdominals in gear, lift your belly button towards your back, adding abdominal tone. Look at some pictures of how your abdominal muscles help you rotate; visualize where they are and how they hug the body.

Make sure that you have a bit of a tip at the hip joint. You need to take pressure off of the ligament at the front of the hip. Yes, that takes more abdominal work than slouching into your hips. However, that little tip onto the point where your hips balance better on the leg, allows your spine and back muscles to get help from the front of the body.

Use these muscles for ballroom too!

By the way (if you haven't guessed already), I am a big fan of using these same muscles for ballroom dancing. I have never had a ballroom dancer come to study with me who did not find that their ballroom dancing also improved from their tango postural work. Once you get used to switching dance styles between ballroom and Argentine Tango, you will find that all the work you are doing in tango will pay off in other dancing.

Tips for good pivoting in Argentine Tango

Improving your pivots in tango makes a lot of moves easier. Ochos, turns, boleos, . . . the list goes on and on. Pivots are just as important for leading tango, but I have been focusing on making videos for followers to improve their own dance. It seems to me that many classes only focus on how to lead tango, leaving the followers to do the best they can with little information.

Build your body map

If you spend some time working just on the pivots, your moves will improve. Finding what muscles work in your body to make a good pivot, helps you build your own "body map" of how the body works. Then, if something is not working, YOU can detect and fix the problems. Having a good teacher is very important, but that person cannot follow your around the dance floor, pointing out when you have successfully done a move, or when you have made a mistake.

Take the time to work SLOWLY on your pivots. Feel how they work in your body. Focus on your feet, or your hips, or your abs, or whatever part you are working on. Once you have a good feel for that part, add it into your body map until you can see/feel how all the parts work together. For me, when it is working, I feel as if there is a fiber optic cable running through the focus points, lit up like a Christmas tree. When something is not working, one of those connect-the-dot spots fails to light up.

After many years of working on my body map, I can tune into it pretty easily, but it took a lot of work to get to this spot. Don't give up!

Video time!

Turn technique for followers: practice drills

Here is a short video on turn drills to help improve your tango turns. My FUNdamentals class asked me to video some of the exercises that I do, so that they can remember them outside of class :-) Sorry about the sound: I was fighting a cold and sounded horrible the day I shot the footage for the drills, so I gave up talking and just typed the information on the video.

It is much harder to practice by yourself than with a partner. First, it's easier to practice when someone else says, "OK, put on your shoes now and let's go!" Also, when you have a partner, you can hold onto them, and that makes getting around the corners easier than on your own. Lastly, I tend to practice longer when I have someone to talk to; it's hard to make yourself do more than a few songs.

Making the video made me do a lot more practice that day! I kept shooting video, looking at it, and then going back to do it again. I think I did turn drills for almost an hour before I got interrupted by my family! So maybe we should all just turn on the camera and go for it! It never looks good, by the way. I can see every one of the mistakes I made here. I hope that, by leaving them in, you can see that it's not about perfect, it's about practice.

Learning tango the efficient way

“The creative, the restless, and the driven are not content with the status quo, and they look for ways to move forward, to do things that others have not. And once a pathfinder shows how something can be done, others can learn the technique and follow.”

— p. 206, Peak

I keep up with learning theory to help me learn to teach better. I recently read Anders Ericsson's and Robert Pool's book, Peak: Secrets from the new science of expertise, Mariner Books, 2017. Their aim is to share research that shows efficient ways to get to a higher level of expertise, without wasting time.  To save you time, I have summarized the book. All the information below is from the book (quotes as noted).

“The reason that most people don’t possess . . .extraordinary physical capabilities isn’t because they don’t have the capacity for them, but rather because they’re satisfied to live in the comfortable rut of homeostasis and never do the work that is required to get out of it. They live in the world of “good enough.” The same thing is true for all the mental activities we engage in.”

— p. 47, Peak

Deliberate practice vs. traditional learning

Traditional learning assumes you have a limit and trains you to (maybe) reach that potential. If you are trying to get "good enough" you don't need to push for peak excellence. You can take a few classes, go to practicas, and eventually feel competent on the dance floor. At that point, your dance is automatic and you don't have to think hard to dance. The only problem with automatic practice, is that it deteriorates over time. Once you reach a level, if you don't maintain it, you will actually get worse at it!

Deliberate practice assumes there is no limit: you can shape your own potential if you have the drive to go beyond good enough. If you apply the ideas in this book to your practice, you will continue to get better and better. The only stopping you, is yourself!

The elements of deliberate practice

Defined goals

Deliberate practice includes having defined goals. What skills do you need to master to become good at tango? What are the steps to building those skills? How can you incorporate practice into your daily life to save time and increase the time you practice?

Pursuing defined goals is not fun. It's difficult to stay focused. Make your list of skills you need in order to become a good tango dancer. Highly focused sessions where you are tuned into your body and focusing on exactly what you need to do to improve, will be exhausting, but they are still the fastest way to get better. You can't space out and just go through the motions if you want to improve.

Feedback

You will not improve without feedback about what you are doing. The most efficient way to get that, is to work with a good teacher, one-on-one. That person already knows what skills you need in order to reach the top. They have already gone through the same process, and have reached a high skill level themselves. They can help you develop a plan for building your skills.

Why does it matter if your teacher is good or not? A good teacher will teach YOU how to provide your own feedback. As you understand your practice and your goals, you can monitor yourself and adjust your practice to achieve those goals. Once you understand the mental representations of what you are doing, you get coached not only when your teacher is around, but when you also can correct your practice.

How to find a good teacher

How do you get a good teacher? Find out who the teacher has taught: are those dancers good? Find out if the teacher is a good dancer; most teachers can only teach you up to their level of dance. Find out if s/he is a good TEACHER: a lot of people are good at performing in their field of expertise, but they haven't learned to teach. Can they get you to reach specific goals, provide good mental representations for you to use for practice, and help you over roadblocks? Then that's the right teacher.

“[A good teacher] is particularly important . . . where the training is cumulative, with the successful performance of one skill often depending on having previously mastered other skills. A knowledgeable instructor can lead the student to develop a good foundation and then gradually build on that foundation to create the skills . . . no student, no matter how motivated, can expect to figure out such things on his or her own.”

— p. 108, Peak

Where there is no teacher

If you can't afford one-on-one lessons, there are things you can do on your own to learn. However, you aren't going to learn as fast. You need to push yourself a little bit further, constantly. You need to stay focused on your goals. You need to give yourself feedback, keeping in mind that often only one or two things are wrong: look for the one thing you need to fix. You need to address that problem, adjust your mental representation, and keep going. You have to stay motivated.

Get out of your comfort zone

You won't improve if you just practice at the same level, but it's hard to make yourself leave your comfort zone. It's not fun! This is one place where having a teacher helps. One of the teacher's jobs is to ask questions/set tasks for the student that are not always easy to complete. They should be just outside the comfort zone of the student so that they are not a huge step forward that looks impossible; just baby steps up the ladder to improvement.

Motivation

The biggest factor that determines how good you will get at something, is your motivation. You can find ways and reasons to keep going; or make it harder to quit :-) It's hard to stay motivated as you pursue a goal. Most of the time, it's a long slog of practicing, and practicing is often not fun. You are pushing out of your comfort zone, trying things that are a bit too hard, and working on improving your technique. SO...figure out what kind of reward makes you keep going, and give yourself little rewards when you accomplish small goals towards your big goal.

Make it harder to quit by putting a time into your schedule where you practice. Don't just say, "oh, I will practice sometime today" and let it slide. Make the sessions short, do the work, and stop. Believe in your ability to reach your goals. Look at someone successful: that's a great example of someone who didn't give up! You can do the same thing.

Get your friends involved

One of the best ways to stay motivated, is to do your practice in a group. You can get feedback from the other people, borrow their training tips, watch them for new ideas, and stay focused on your goals.

Find ways to get through barriers

Everyone hits roadblocks in their training. When you get stuck, look at the problem a different way. Try a different exercise, dance with a different partner, go to a different event, take a private lesson--whatever you need to do to get back on track. There will always be barriers, and it's just a question of overcoming it.

Let your motivation get you through being stuck. Pick what motivates you, and use to so that you don't give up when you hit a roadblock on the way to your goal. For example, if I meet my running goal for the week, I get to buy a gluten-free pastry at the bakery. It keeps me running, and my overall health improves.

Mental representation

This is what I am implementing even more than I did before I read this book. According to the book, "A mental representation is a mental structure that corresponds to an object, a collection of information, or anything else, concrete or abstract, that the brain is thinking about" (p. 58). Mental representations hold a lot of information, but in chunks of data. This helps your brain process/apply information more quickly.

As your skills improve, you refine your mental representation. You try things, fail at them, redraw your mental representation, and try again. You get better at evaluating your performance, comparing it to your representation and giving yourself feedback and corrections.

One of the last things the authors note in their book: we don't know enough about mental representation in training, and that studying how top performers in a field work through their mental representations might allow coaches, researchers and learners, to tailor training to include how to improve these mental models. Verbally building these representations, explaining what you understand, should help your teachers guide the construction of your mental representation, and speed up your learning.

The big take-aways

Talent only helps the process get started

Ericsson's research shows that natural talent is not the THE key to becoming one of the best in the world at something. It helps in the beginning, as kids who seem talented at something may be steered into a path, but that doesn't mean they will be better in the long run: ". . . there is no evidence that any genetically determined abilities play a role in deciding who will be among the best." (p. 235)

Everyone has potential

Hard work, good coaching and focused, deliberate practice make the difference, not talent. The ones who get to the top work harder that other people and have more motivation. They didn't quit when they hit a plateau.

For me, I have always said that everyone is a dancer; some people just don't know it yet. Look for potential, not limits! The only person who won't be good at something, is the one who has given up. That means ALL OF US could be amazing tango dancers, top in the world. Even if we don't aspire to that, we can up our game through deliberate practice. Get inspired!!

Rebuilding my feet: magic metatarsals

When I looked at my blog, I realized that you can't look at the pictures in a way that makes the arch exercise clear that I described in my last blog entry. Here is a short video that I hope will make it clearer!

Anxiety and tango: getting out on the dance floor

During the past few weeks, I have watched my students and how they approach dancing tango (and other dances). One Thursday night, I am happy to say, several students were out on the dance floor, doing their thing. However, two more were sitting at the dance, not making much eye contact with potential dance partners; one was texting. Another beginning dancer was hiding in the bar and watching from where no one would ask him to dance.

One student told me that he may never go out dancing, but just wanted to learn tango. Several people have told me that their fear of asking someone else to dance has made it almost impossible to dance, although they have reached intermediate and advanced levels of dancing tango by taking lessons.

This is not only about my students. I had the opportunity to talk to other dancers at workshops and milongas during the past few weeks, and asked them about their experiences going dancing. Some told me of crying in their cars after the milonga, or not being able to walk in the door some nights. Only a few people seemed to find my question silly: "What problem? I love this!"

Most of the responses of current dancers were similar to those persons who were too scared to go dancing, but something must have occurred to get them over that initial hump, and out on the dance floor. What could make this experience work better for those of us who are shy, anxious, lacking confidence, or just starting out dancing? How can we get out on the dance floor more easily?

I would love to hear what you have to say about your experience getting out on the dance floor. What advice would YOU give to someone to help them get out there?

Access more of your tango knowledge on the dance floor!

Typical tango nightmare

The music begins. Joe Tango asks someone to dance. The floor is a bit crowded, which makes Joe a bit tense. The song is unfamiliar, which makes him more tense. The partner is someone he would like to impress with his tango skills: more pressure! Suddenly, Joe can only remember three moves. His brain freezes, and for a moment, he can't remember even a single move. Freak out time!

If you lead tango, I am sure this has happened to you before. For some dancers, this is how it feels at the beginning. For others, this is how it always feels when the room is crowded. People say to me, "I went to [x] milonga, and it was too crowded to dance, but YOU looked like you were having fun and doing cool moves!" (in an accusing tone of voice). "How did you do that?!"

How I deal with lack of space

The reason I don't freak out in crowded spaces, is that I had the equivalent of learning to drive in Boston as my training for learning to lead tango. Three years into tango, I spent four months over the space of two years, dancing in Buenos Aires. I led a lot at Torquato Tasso, La Viruta, even at El Beso.

My Spanish was eight weeks old when I first visited Bs As, so I had no idea how much negative attention I was attracting by leading. Some of the guys said rude things about "women drivers" and some women refused to dance with me. However, many guys simply tried to get me to run into them so that they could point out how badly I lead. Others just tried to run me off the dance floor.

I learned to protect my partner from other couples and from the tables at the edge of the floor. I saw that everyone else seemed to be leading just fine in small spaces, and copied their moves. I learned that a well-planted axis (an ample butt helps) keeps other leaders from taking your space. I experienced following good leaders with no space to maneuver, and alternated that with leading in the same spaces.

If you can't make it to Buenos Aires, go to crowded practicas. Or, set up chairs in your practice space, and dance around them. Attend classes focused on dancing well in small spaces. Practice is the only way to learn to do this.

How I remember moves easily

I have discussed how I arrange my vocabulary of tango moves in a way that makes it easier to remember more moves than my short-term memory has slots for recall. Here is an example of some moves from a student's lesson:

Apart from that, I practice moves in different combinations. I practice them to the right and left. I practice them as a leader and as a follower. This gives me more ease in recall, as I don't have to follow the same brain path to find a move; there are lots of connections between each move and at least several other moves.

How I deal with unfamiliar songs

At this point, I only hear a new song a few times each year. Very few of the tangos, valses and milongas that DJs play are strange to me, so I rarely have this problem anymore. So, the easy answer is: listen to tango all the time :-)

A more useful answer when you are already on the dance floor: tune into the "flavor" of the music. Explore the music with your partner. The next time you hear that tango, you will dance it better. Approach it as a new adventure, not a roadblock to good dancing!

One outstanding problem: shyness

I don't know the answer to how to deal with the nervousness that accompanies dancing with someone who you are nervous about leading. I get nervous when I dance with someone new who is above my level, even though I have danced tango for twenty years! Being a shy person, I think I will always struggle with this part of couple dancing. I just try to remember that they would like to enjoy themselves, and I try to give them a sensitive, connected, energized dance.