How I started with Argentine Tango

Don't know these folks, but a hell of a pic!

For the last several months, I've been spending the majority of my time dancing Argentine Tango.  This was kind of unexpected, but has been an amazing experience.

When I started dancing, my motivations were Tango (American tango, that is - hey, "Scent of a Woman" was an amazing movie...), and Waltz (actually, Viennese waltz).  Tango seemed so passionate and dramatic and sexy, and Waltz so flowing and graceful.  Plus I'm a sucker for a waltz, musically.  Those of you who have danced a bit will realize that both of these these are difficult dances.  You don't generally even start learning Viennese waltz until your slow waltz is pretty decent, and Tango is called "The dancers' dance".  So my first problem is two difficult dances tied for "most favorite".

My next problem was that my second favorite dance was "everything".  Rumba is so intimate and sexy.  Swing is so much peppy fun.  Cha cha is a blast and there's so much great  cha cha  music.  Salsa is so spicy and sexy and social.  So I spent a lot of time jumping around, which is not the most efficient way for me to learn, personally....

The dance I learned quickest, and that seemed most natural to me was swing - starting at jitterbug, and then moving on to East Coast.  Now I know what you're thinking - what does this all have to do with Tango?  Well, as it turns out my introduction to Argentine tango wasn't through American tango as you'd expect, it was via East Coast Swing.  Strange but true.

After I'd been dancing about a year, I decided to do a showcase performance at my studio, mostly to overcome my shyness.  My East Coast Swing seemed like it was coming along pretty well and there was a song I liked that would work, so I asked a fellow student to prepare and perform with me.  We had about four months to get ready, and it turned out well, but the whole time we were working on the routine, my partner was going on and on about Tango.  Argentine Tango, which apparently was different than "Tango" I was learning.  My partner was a trouper and put in a lot of extra time and work, so I definitely owed her.

Once the performance was in the bag, I finally had no excuse to keep her focused on East Coast Swing, and it was finally time to see what this Argentine Tango thing was all about.  Man was I in for a shock.

First we went to a Milonga, which I still think of as the Spanish word for "sock hop", mostly because it amuses me.  But initially it was more confusing than amusing.  The prevalent style of Argentine Tango at this event involved dancing in a very close embrace.  I was way, way too shy for that.  Secondly, I could tell that the relationship between the beat and the steps was way, way looser in Argentine than in any other partner dance I'd seen.    I could see that the dancers' movement was informed by the music, but not in a "one, two, cha cha cha" sort of way.  Both of these were way outside my comfort zone.

Next we went to a class.  We had to go to a different, funky little studio because the one we were studying at was focused on mainstream ballroom and didn't do much Argentine Tango.  So we head over to the new studio and were watching the previous class that was just finishing up.  I was relieved to learn that I didn't HAVE to dance in close embrace, there's an open embrace alternative.

But when we started learning the basic figure "La Salida", it started with the leader's right foot - which is to say, the wrong foot from a ballroom perspective.  Every ballroom dance in the world starts with the leader's left foot, the ladies right ("Ladies are always right, Men are left.").  Worse, it didn't always start with that foot.  In fact, Argentine tango is so improvisational that every step is a whole new world, anything can happen at any time.  There are figures, both for the purpose of categorization and teaching, and just because certain sequences make beautiful dance phrases, but nothing is set in stone - you can improvise anything at any time.  Which means, if you're a leader, that you HAVE TO improvise things all the time.

Another consequence of the fact that Argentine tango is so improvisational and unpredictable, and can start on any foot at any time, is that the leader has to either know what foot the lady is on, or be able to lead her onto the other foot (often without taking a step), or both.  This really blew my mind,  I could barely ensure that I was on the right foot, now I'm supposed to keep track of what foot she's on?  Inconceivable! There was also a lot of attention paid to whether you collected your feet, or collected your feet and changed weight to the other foot.  No other dance does this as early and as much as Argentine Tango (well, the last step in the American tango's "Tango close" does it, because, of course, it was stolen from Argentine.  But other than that...)  There was also a lot of stepping outside partner, which I had basically never done in other dances at the time.  And, just in case there was a corner of my mind unblown, my partner helpfully added another detail as we were practicing:

Her:  "Actually, you're supposed to touch my foot with yours right there..."
Me:    "Wait, what???"
Her:   "Touch the side of my foot with the side of yours"
Me:     "Are you kidding?  I'm supposed to look down, find your foot and touch it with mine?  We'll run into the other dancers!"
Her:  "No, without looking down"
Me:   "Well, then you're going to lose some toes....."

So let's see what's on the scorecard so far:

1.  Likely to involve an intimidatingly close embrace
2.  Starts on the wrong foot.  Often.
3.  Doesn't ALWAYS start on the wrong foot.
4.  Closing feet often DOESN'T include changing weight
5.  I've got to lead a totally improvisational dance
6.  I have to step outside partner.  A lot.  But not always...
7.  I've got to know what foot she's on
8.  I've got to know where her feet are at all times because
9.  I have to be able to touch her foot with mine without looking.  And without maiming her

All this while leading, navigating the line of dance (which, fortunately, was the same direction I was used to), and avoiding other dancers doing unpredictable, improvisational things, sometimes on purpose.  And not falling over, getting my own frame, steps, spacing right, etc, etc.  The usual.

Another factor that I haven't mentioned yet is that it's quite common in Argentine tango to cross your ankles as a step - way more common than it is in other dances, and this may or may not involve a weight change (of course).  Fortunately for me, this is much more prevalent for the ladies than the men, especially at the introductory levels.  There are other difficulties that fall more heavily or uniquely on the women, like being prepared to FOLLOW a totally improvisational dance, but at the time I had my hands full dealing with my own problems.

There were more challenges to come, but at the time, the list above was plenty.

Initially I planned to go just a few times to humor my partner (she really had been a trouper) and then fade on back into my comfort zone, but it didn't work out that way.  The funky little studio offered a discount for pre-purchasing 10 classes so I did that.  By the time I'd done 10 classes, I was adapting to most of the challenges, and it was starting to be fun.  I was starting to correctly guess which foot she was on at least 50% of the time (Yes, it seems like you'd do that well by purely random chance, but believe me, it's easy to do much, much worse than random, particularly at the beginning).  I was starting to get the hang of controlling my weight changes, starting to learn the basic figures, and the infinite variations on them, and kind of enjoying the freedom and creativity involved in that level of improvisation.  And it didn't hurt that one of my favorite and deepest practice partners was simply obsessed with Argentine tango.  So I ended up going more than I thought I would.


So that's how I got started.  Soon I'll talk about why I kept going back, and what it taught me that I didn't know I needed, and how that helped me in all my other dancing.

The UN-natural Athlete

I'm not a natural athlete, though I've known a few.  I met another just the other day.

I spent a few years kayaking and the basic skill there is the eskimo roll.  It took me months and months of pool practice to learn this, and when I tried it on the river it fell apart again and I had to rebuild it.  Now I've got one of the most reliable, versatile, powerful, dependable rolls of almost anybody I know;  I can do either side, with or without a paddle, even after bouncing over a rocky bottom on my helmet, in adverse currents, whatever.

In Colorado, I once had my paddle knocked out of my hands underwater, so I hands-rolled up, and went about an hour of class II-III water without my paddle, never worrying about getting back up on top of my boat (I even found my paddle in an eddy at the take out - it was a very good day...).  One of my paddling buddies used to joke that I was more comfortable under the water than on top of it, and my girlfriend at the time used to call me "speaker to trout".  They weren't entirely wrong.

So, awesome roll, but getting it there took a lot of learning, thinking-through, and practice.  Most of the people in my college kayaking class seemed similar, though several did learn much faster than me.  I thought that's just how it was.

One night I was teaching someone a roll at a pool session at the local whitewater club, and this dude with the weirdest collection of yard-sale boating gear you ever saw paddled up, said his name was Ed, and asked if I could show him how to roll.  I started in on my standard disclaimer how this takes a while, you gotta practice, you won't get it tonight, it takes time, blah blah blah - I didn't want him to be discouraged.  He interrupted me and said "just show me".  Well, I'm describing what to do while I'm demonstrating with my boat, paddle, body position, etc.  Halfway through that, he took a big breath and dived underneath his boat and started trying it.  He fumbled around a bit, tried once and failed, and then he just ripped off one of the nicest rolls I'd ever seen, on his second try.  Five minutes later he was rolling on the other side.  We ended up boating together for years.  Predictably, he rapidly became better than me. I watched him learning - he'd just see someone do something he wanted to learn and his eyes seemed to pour it right into his muscles without the long, distracting stop in his brain.

I know dancers like that, and they amaze me just like Ed did, but I don't seem to learn that way.  You have to point out to me that I'm not turning my foot out, and that if I do, it's more stable.  I need to have a conversation about that, I need the words to intellectualize around.  I spend some time noticing that I'm still not turning out my foot, and I have to periodically abandon all my other dancing while I focus on turning my foot out.  (ladies, if your leader goes blank, he may be having a similar challenge).  Then I need to practice that a lot while thinking about it - at first it takes nearly all my attention, then this fades to where it's only moderately consuming, and finally it's automatic and I can worry about something else.  Most of my time on the dance floor I'm like a time-sharing computer, switching my attention and the conversation in my head between body mechanics, footwork, lead, planning for future figures, navigation, seeing what's going on around me, and floorcraft.  Only after quite a bit of that does it become automatic.  Shortly thereafter, it gets boring (which means I need to start attending to my partner....)

As I build up a larger repertoire of learned tidbits in dance, I am learning faster, but I'm still going through this process, I'm just relating it back to something similar I've already learned.  I still don't seem to go straight from seeing something to doing it, I just have a shorter conversation in my head that goes something like "Remember the waltz box?  Well, same thing here in rumba, except....".

At least I figured out how I learn, and how to speed that process along:

1.  I'm verbal and language oriented.  Talk about dancing details with my dance nerd friends, read books and blogs and watch youtubes.

2.  Go ahead and have the conversation in your head.  Try not to get too wrapped up in it while you're actually dancing.

3.  Go to lots of classes and private lessons.  Once you get bored, find more challenging classes.

4.  Lots of practice.

5.  Try to focus on just a few dances for a while, so you can build rather than just skipping around.

6. Argentine Tango

7.  Ex-russian ballet dancer instructors

More about those last two soon.

The hardest move in dancing

is stepping onto the dance floor.  In public.

For me, anyway.

One of the reasons I resisted learning to dance for so long, and so stubbornly is my vanity.  I hate to fail.  I particularly hate to fail in public.

 

That's also the main reason I started by taking lessons at the dance studio rather than just showing up at the dance club and trying to copy the moves.  Or going to dancing meetups and learning there.  Or free lessons at the local honky-tonk.  The Dance studio is still my main outlet, though.

The more people are there, the less comfortable I am.  The more I feel they are watching me, the less comfortable I am.   The better the other dancers are, the less comfortable I am. 

If the other dancers are drunk, that helps me a bit, sad to say.  If I feel like I'm pretty decent at the dance in question, that helps too.  If I feel like I'm better than the average other dancer who's there, that helps.   Told you I was vain.

That "feeling confident about a dance" thing is recent. And fleeting.  Right now the chances of running into a better dancer (or several) at any random venue is essentially 100%.  And that's at the country place, where dancing is playing third fiddle to drinking and carousing.  In a Salsa club, very nearly every single person there is not only better than I am, but a LOT bett er than I am.  Some of them are stratospherically better.  Those people are SERIOUS about dancing and basically don't drink (which, I'm told, is why "Lets have a Salsa night" is often the last desperate act of a bar that's slowly dying...  I believe it too, the bar where I got hooked by the DanceEvangelista is now a Mexican Restaurant)

 I know there are people that are comfortable in the spotlight, I've met them.  Some I admire, others intimidate me, others just seem like some kind of alien.

But it's not me.  When I take the Meyers-Briggs personality test I score 75-85% Introverted.  And I've learned recently that I've got a triple threat - I'm Introverted, Quiet, and Shy.  Plus I'm definitely not a naturally graceful, instinctive athlete.  Quadruple threat.

Heck, I'm most nearly comfortable with private lessons (one person watching me fail, and she's a professional being paid to be understanding), less comfortable with group lessons (there's like 8 or 10 people in there!), even less comfortable with practice parties at the dance studio (a couple of dozen people, some of whom are VERY good dancers), and least comfortable with dancing in Real Life (panic!).  I've spent hours at dancing venues where people are dancing and all I can bring myself to do is watch.  I got into a conversation about this the other night at a swing dance when a woman noticed that I was mostly watching, and asked me about it.  She approached me, of course.  We had a nice chat, I'm pretty comfortable with words...

The best way to estimate how painful this is, is, notice how much the dance studios can charge for their services, their expertise, and most of all, their emotionally safe learning environment.   People say all sorts of things, but their true feelings are shown by how they spend their money.  And I'm happy to pay it, I prefer it to the many free options available.  Still, I think this price is actually is a low estimate.  I spent years avoiding social venues in general, and dancing specifically, rather than pay the cost in money and feeling uncomfortable.  That's cost me more than my dance hall dues, and there's no way to quantify that.

But I'm working on it.  Even just trying different studios, with different people is a challenge, but I'm doing it.  I've joined a couple of dancing clubs and I'm going to their classes and events.  I even did a couple of performance pieces at my home dance studio a few months back, and I've got another coming up (yes, I need to blog about this, but this is, in fact, one of several things that have kept me too busy to blog....)    I'm trying to get out to social dances regularly, and for the most part, I'm there (Often, I'm there standing with my back against the wall, but I'm there....)

There is no way around.  The only way is through.