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Showing posts from May, 2011

Why is this so difficult?

The floor at Friday night's milonga was enormous. All of the dancers I asked agreed we could have fit a couple of hundred dancers on that floor. Instead we had a few dozen. A nice crowd - but we still had what seemed like acres of room. With all that room you would think there would be no need for any leader to overtake another couple on the pista. (That's what I thought, anyway.) And yet a couple of tangueros not only tailgated and overtook another couple on the right side (the other leader's blind side, which is why you don't do it) - but they overtook many, many couples - practically "lapping"(1) the other dancers on the floor. I couldn't keep the "Are you *&%$# serious?" look off my face when a leader repeatedly got within a few inches of my partner and me (leaving a full 6+ feet between him and the couple behind him), and then passed us. Twice. It's not like we were holding up the line of dance either. We were maintaining the same fe...

Workshops with Javier Rochwarger

Here's a little example of his dancing: Just a (long overdue) quickie summary - What I loved: I loved his focus on the embrace - on locking into your partner (Important caveat: He did not mean *squeezing* your partner!) by keeping your intention forward. One of his classes was labeled "Complex Sequences in Close, and very close, embrace." How could I resist a class with a title like that? And of course the additional two milonga classes made my weekend! One of my dance partners convinced me to sign up for a shared private with him (to work on milonga some more - that was a pretty easy sell) and I'm so glad I did. Javier's focuses (in the classes I took, and in the private): - Embrace, embrace, embrace. - Ways to reduce "play" and bounce between partners (unintentional movement/being out of synch) with a firm (again, not squeezing) embrace and forward-intention connection. - Staying up and forward - not rocking back and away fr...

Teacher Condescension

rant . . . When I'm in a class, or in particular a private lesson, I make a conscious effort to be open to criticism. It's a little bit my Buddhist learning, but it's really a whole lot more about economics. I am paying to learn. Getting defensive wastes time and money. That said, I am also aware that every teacher says something different - often contradicting what the last teacher said. The best advice I received regarding that all-to-common phenomenon, is that the teacher of the class is correct at least for the duration of lesson. After that, you have to decide what works for your body, your situation, and your comfort. So for the duration of the class or lesson, I try very hard to give the benefit of the doubt. So let me repeat (mostly for my own benefit) that I try very, very hard to stay open to criticism. I may not always welcome it with the grace that I would like, but I do try to be a receptive student. I can take a teacher being abrupt, or abrasive - even short t...

Why I Embellish.

Of Silk Purses and Sows' Ears. When I started dancing tango, I had constant problems with my balance. Actually, all tango did was make the problem with my balance more obvious to myself and others. I've always had terrible balance. Much of the problem came from the way that I walked. Both of my ankles and both of my knees have been seriously injured at different times in my life, and as a result I have excessive supination of my ankles and feet. Basically, I walk on the outside edges of my feet. (Read: a little bow-legged.) Not only does it look bad (especially when I'm dancing), but it makes me feel unstable to my partner. Almost more frustrating than that was that I could never seem to express the music the way I was feeling it. I couldn't answer my partner with my body. I felt clunky. Uneven. Ungraceful. And before I looked into correcting my lack of solid technique, it was also making it quite painful to dance. My knees and back were paying the price for poor align...