Why I keep coming back to Tango

There are no mistakes in tango.  This has meaning on so many levels.  The simplest is that without set figures and steps, nothing is off the table - you can

attempt anything, and hopefully you can make it beautiful (some movements make this easier than others of course).

Tango is sexy and passionate and intimate and filled with longing and strife and anger and tenderness and beauty.

It's uniquely challenging and difficult.  I like difficult things, it turns out.

It demands a level of balance and awareness and body control that I didn't experience in other dances.  Not that other dances lack that, I just think that it comes later in the learning sequence.  With Tango it begins on day 1.  I danced ballroom styles for over a year and didn't realize that I was essentially falling onto every step the whole time.  Once I started tango, I figured it out in about a week, and started correcting it in the first month.  And this vastly improved all my other dancing.

The music is beautiful.  And various.  You can dance tango to nearly anything, because it's so improvisational and flexible.  You can tango to classic tangos (Bahia Blanca is a favorite of mine, along with "Por una Cabeza" (Scent of a Woman" and "True Lies"), or modern tangos ("Whatever Lola Wants", "Roxanne") or waltzes ("valz" in spanish), to pop music.  I've tangoed to Adele "Make you Feel my Love", to Elvis Costello "Watching the Detectives", to Lorde "Royals" and Amy Winehouse " I'm no good" - a wonderful fit for tango.

The Gallantry and old school chivalry of dancing in general holds very much in tango, and that appeals to me as well.  The man leads, and the woman follows, but the goal is to provide a pleasant and fulfilling experience for the woman.  She should be intrigued, happy, and feel like she is dancing beautifully and that all are looking on her with amazement and envy.

I'm most familiar with the leader's role and responsibilities, but the woman's is no less daunting.  I've tried to follow, and being on your axis and prepared to move in any direction requires an alertness and a kind of a zen mind that I found supremely challenging.  Another factor (shared with other dances) is the fact that when something is led, the woman must aggressively pursue and execute the step or move.  A combination of stillness and motion, of waiting peacefully, and moving confidently, and a willingness to essentially trade the lead with the man as the music inspires is required.

The man must quickly learn and dance to his partner's level of experience and vocuabulary, and his lead must be authoritative and unmistakeable while still being gentle and considerate of however long her response may take.  If any signals get crossed (either through a vague lead or difficulty following), the man must seamlessly accommodate whatever has actually happened, ideally without ever letting on to his partner or observers that anything unexpected has occurred.  The woman should always feel that she knows what is being asked of her, and should never feel like she performed anything less than perfectly.  The man must be able and willing to give her time to dance as the music inspires her, and there will be times when she is inspired to change her pace or include embellishments or even perform something that was not explicitly led.  A leader must always have a plan, but when the lady requests time or even takes the lead, he must smoothly and elegantly accommodate that.  At all times the man must dance with confidence.  There are no mistakes in tango, and the man must ensure that.

Definitive Leading

I've been thinking about leading on a couple of moves and how that's reflected in life.

As a leader it's difficult for me to be as definitive as I'd like.  Some of it is bad habits - I tend to drop my right elbow, my frame isn't as stable and reliable as I'd like, and when I get to thinking I've had several partners tell me they can feel me "go away" in my body.  Well, yes, that's because I'm up in my head.  This is particularly problematic when I'm having challenges with traffic and floorcraft, or when I'm not planning ahead on figures I want to lead.  A lot of the time, I'm late with my lead, or I just can't remember how a particular figure starts.

All this is just stuff that will more or less get fixed by lots of practice and by getting dancing out of my head and into my body.

But there are things about my lead that I have to fix in my head, and that's interesting.

I was working with Mighty Mini-Teach on Foxtrot the other day and we happened to be working on both Grapevine and Senior walks.  They both start the same way, with my second step going outside partner, and I've had a few partners pick up on that and assume we were doing grapevine, when I meant to lead Senior walk.  Or at least I thought I did.  Tenatively.

Anyway, I asked MMT "How do I lead this so you know it's senior walk, not grapevine?".  She said "You have to cut me off".  I tried, tentatively, and she stressed "No, you have to REALLY cut me off".

A lot of the vagueness in my lead is due to my deference to my partner and my lack of confidence in my own moves.  I certainly don't want to be a pushy dancer, but I bet I could stand to make that mistake for a change as a learning exercise and be just fine.  I need to get over myself and be willing to cut off my partner when I need to, and to pay her the respect of just expecting her to follow that.


Definitive, explicit, confident leads.  It's something we both want.

New Studios - group Salsa classes

I danced Salsa at a couple of new studios fairly recently.  No particular reason - I just had a free spot in my schedule, wanted to learn some Salsa, and my "home" studio didn't have anything scheduled, so I went looking for group classes elsewhere I could just walk into.

The Downtown Studio I tried was a lot of fun.  Did a 1 hour beginner's class followed immediately by a 1 hour intermediate class.  Started with basic, underarm turn, cross body lead, so the same progression I was used to.  The class was about 8 men and 7 women (or thereabouts).

The intermediate class got into cross body lead variations, including leading from a handshake hold, and a cross body lead variation where the lady does a full spin rather than the normal half spin, ending up stopped (briefly) in a shadow position (I don't remember the terminology for this, I want to say it was a stopped cross body lead, but I'm not confident of that).  I've since tried that move, and don't have it even remotely down.  I think I'm not clear on how to differentiate the lead.  The last few minutes of the class were the teachers demonstrating all the variations possible with just the underarm turn and the cross body lead.  Fun time at the downtown studio, and they were cheap and friendly, and the male teacher was pretty funny.  He made a comment about his frustrated stand-up comedy career that I came to suspect was more serious than it sounded at first.  But it was fine, he was funny enough that you didn't mind it at all.  Maybe not Seinfeld funny, but, then he's probably a better dancer than Jerry, anyway.

The Northside studio was also cheap and fun, but does half hour lessons.  The teacher managed to put a lot into the lesson, and it didn't feel rushed.  One advantage here was it was me and one woman (just by chance), so it was basically a mini-private lesson - I love it when that happens, though the teachers/studio probably doesn't.  I suppose it's better for them than nobody.

The woman at Northside was a club dancer of some considerable experience, but little or no "official" instruction, and wanted to learn a move where "He combs my hair".  I had no idea what that meant, but the instructor knew immediately.  He asked me what I knew, and I said basic, mambo basic, underarm turn, cross body lead, open break, ... whereupon he stopped me and said "that's enough".

The sequence he taught us was 1 basic, alternating turns, then the "hair comb" lead into a cross body lead.  I'm probably getting the terminology wrong.  Anyway it went well, though I hate turning - avoiding turning is the best part of being a boy, in my opinion.  I mentioned that and the teacher very diplomatically reminded me that in Latin cultures, men are more expressive and showy.  I knew that, and it's not an insecurity or "real man" type of deal, I just get dizzy and fall over.  Yes, even on a little salsa step turn.  I'm sure I'll get over it, but...

Anyway, we worked on the sequence and got it down.  The fact that the lady was a club dancer was pretty obvious to me as we were dancing - her frame was way looser than I'm used to - that's not really criticism, by the way (well, a little...), it was just a very insecure and unpredictable feeling compared to what I'm used to.  I don't know of any way to deal with that except to try to get used to it and adapt to it, (which is my responsibility as the leader), or to try to figure out a polite and helpful way to ask for a firmer frame.  I suspect this is an consequence of the fact that I'm a noob and the really solid mutual frame is my training wheels.  Not that mine is all that wonderful, Mini-Teach is constantly reminding me not to drop my right arm, and rightly so.

I also felt like she was maybe rushing the walkthrough on the cross body lead a bit.  The teacher had pointed out that she could step fully forward, not stopping her back foot parallel to her front, and she had a hard time getting that into her body (I feel for you, sister, when I need to alter my semi-automatic body habits, it's a hell of a challenge for me, too).  Anyway, I didn't feel like my lead was as in control of the timing as I'd have liked as a consequence.  I've been trained that the sidestep back and away by the man (on 3) is the lead (and only the lead), and that the lady walks through on 5-6-7.  She was powering through on 3 or 4, and I didn't feel like I was out of her way enough, as I hadn't back rocked yet.  I'm not sure if she was following my lead or just doing the sequence on her own.  I'd like to lead that better.  And of course, I need 500 or 1000 repetitions.  On the other hand, I think I could work this sequence out with a new partner in a couple three dances at most.  The instructor was very helpful and explicit and clear when I asked how to differentiate the "hair comb" lead from underarm turns and other figures.

Anyway, good times.  At some point I'll post studio reviews, but I want to try several lessons at each before I do so, and time and money will make that a longer term project.  In the mean time, if you want a studio recommendation despite my limited experience, contact me.

Update:  the proper terminology for "Hair Comb" is "face loop".  Of course.  For a guy that's incredibly verbal and spends most of his time all up in his head, I sure have a hard time learning terminology.

Dancing with civilians

Well, I had a fun time last night. Learned some stuff.

Ballroom vs combat
OK, country dancing seen from a ballroom perspective is one thing, and what happens out in the world is entirely another. I'm used to only getting only momentary glimpses of the basic footwork under all the variations and enhancements when I watch the advanced students at the dance studio. But some of these folks were just doing basics and the footwork was different than anything I've seen. Now I'm not a dance historian, and it feels like the definitions are pretty loose (what I call the progressive two-step you may call a Texas two-step or a country two-step), but I sure couldn't figure out most couples' footwork even when there was a couple that was just basic-stepping around. It reminded me of High School, when I took Spanish so I'd be able to eavesdrop in the hallways, only to discover that the Spanish in the hallways and the Spanish in the classroom had almost nothing to do with each other. Maybe the lesson here is that it matters less than I think - I do tend to geek out on the details.


Traffic control
At one point a fast song came on that I thought I could jitterbug to. I ended up dancing with a friend who's pretty darn good, and we had a good time, but I foolishly started out kind of in a corner and of course we wandered into the line of dance. One couple in particular very nearly ran us over twice. It felt like a jerk move on his part, but maybe he was trying to make a point. I know better than to be doing a spot dance anywhere but right under the disco ball (in this case, a mirrored saddle, which every country bar should have).


Risk
I need to be much more willing to lead a spin and take some other chances. I spent more time than I like just motoring around the floor with basic footwork. Some of this is just me being timid in a new environment. Some of this is I'm not sure what my options are. Some of it is that stuff felt a lot less secure and more "wrong" out in the world, because of insufficient...



Frame
Dancing with civilians (versus folks at the dance studio) was a real eye-opener. Ladies, you need a frame too. The man you're dancing with needs your frame. It was like trying to steer a jello - it doesn't actually fight you at all, but you can't tell what's happening. It was much harder than it had to be to even tell if we were in sync, which means for the most part we weren't. I ended up having to be much more assertive than I'm used to at the dance studio. One sure way to move a jello is to just bulldoze it - but that barely counts as dancing. It appears that some gentlemen have decided to solve this problem with a giant dose of...



Chutzpah
Another pattern I saw a few times is that brazen self-confidence and unself-consciousness is frequently substituted for Rhythm and skill. There was this one dude, that wasn't doing any recognizable dance at ALL, whose beat had nothing whatsoever to do with the music, and who frequently got too busy yanking his partner through spins and flips and loop de loops and immelmanns to move his feet at all (she loved it). He was doing his same, very dynamic moves at the same brisk pace to everything - slow country, fast country, country rock, blues. And when his rhythm happened to mesh with the song, he didn't even keep that, particularly. He wasn't the only one, another fellow had a less advanced case. It was the bastard child of two-stepping and moshing. There were some very good and controlled and elegant dancers there, and at first I admired the professionals and disdained the guy who was mosh-stepping. But here's the deal. He was having as much fun as they were. And so was his partner. Possibly more. I ended up envying his lack of self-doubt. That's the kind of confidence and joy and exuberance that I hope Dancing will help me to express. Eventually. I doubt I'm temperamentally suited to the "get drunk and jump around" approach, but the dude had something wild and raw and cool going on.

Dance on.

Following and perception

I'm shopping around for different studios for dance instruction. Not that I'm unhappy with my original outfit, just because I'm a dilettante.

I had my second session with a new instructor recently. Our first session was only half an hour, and in the process of trying to understand something about my hips and center, I related it to Aikido (that NEVER happens....) and mentioned I'd had class just before my dance lesson.

So I show up for our second session a week later. Five minutes into our dance lesson, she interrupted herself and observed "Why didn't you have your martial arts tonight?"

Woah. How did you know?

"You're moving differently".

At this point I've only spent about 35 or 40 minutes with this woman TOTAL.

I guess that's what years of following on the dance floor will do for you.

I'm still gobsmacked.