You might know this ... I was dancing and I got a volcada accidentally and I don't know how. D'you know how they work?
Ermmmm .... I know what they feel like. What were you doing when it happened?
Someone came out in front of us and I went "Oh, shit!" and I stepped back and I got a volcada.
Well ... hang on ... if you just put me on one foot ... and then you sort of go ... no, hang on a minute, let me show you ... If you go up like this ... Then I'm not going to to change feet. Right ... okay ... now hold that and step back ... now step forward and put me back ... there.
Oh yeah! That's funny. How did that happen?
Well ... you were scared, and you're tall, so you went "erk!". And she wouldn't know, she'd just follow and you'd get one of those.
Cool!
I expect that's how they invented it. It was probably some plonker coming out in front.
Note hoisted from comments: little ones in close embrace with a man taller than me are nice and very easy to follow, but please don't do big ones or attempt them in an open embrace unless you know what you're doing and you really, really mean it. The lady can suffer serious long-lasting damage if it goes wrong. Especially if she's not that strong or you're shorter than her - please practice very carefully.
Lol. Yup I reckon that tango actually was just walking at the start and everything else is just the result of accidental floorcraft and curious minds.
ReplyDeleteIf he, or any other leaders who've recently gone "Ekk!" are reading this, I'd highly recommend asking a teacher about volcadas. The Ekk! method works fine, but it's been refined a lot over the years and there are a lot of nice subtleties to make it easier and more graceful ;o)
Yeah - also, little ones are nice, but don't do big ones or attempt them in an open embrace unless you know what you're doing and you really, really mean it. The lady can do herself serious damage if it goes wrong and she isn't that strong, and you don't know how strong she is. Especially if you're shorter than her - practice very carefully. Actually maybe I'd better put that in an edit for people who don't read comments.
ReplyDeletewhat's a volcada?
ReplyDeleteMust be the leaders I dance with but volcadas have become one of my pet hates. They are taught quite frequently and as the easiest of the -adas (ie: volcadas, colgadas, soltadas) they end up strewn across the dance floor. For every 1 good one I receive in a night, I have also suffered through about 6 bad ones.
ReplyDeleteI think its size mainly. Little ones feel lovely but big ones are always led with momentum which I find inevitably leads to mis-marking the vital step before (ie: no pivot!!) and suddenly it’s like I’m falling sideways. I’ve started eliminating leaders that way.
Rant over ;-)
@Anonymous - a lean (a lean in, not out, that's something else). You lean on the man and go off-axis a little bit, then back on again. There's nothing to it if it's a small one (and relative heights are not making it harder), you don't even have to be taught how to follow it. But, as Golondrina says, big spectacular ones are really hard to get right.
ReplyDeleteYes volcadas are nice, and probably like most things in tango just evolved. The thing to remember is that small ones are nice, big ones are for the stage. Nothing big should happen at a milonga, it is after all a social event, we men are supposed to please the woman not some annonimous geek in the crowd. When we start dancing "moves" we think we should do and not what evolves with the music and with our partner, we stop dancing tango and start being just show offs.
ReplyDeleteI have never done a volcada in the milongas. Yet a lot of women love to dance with me. :-)
ReplyDeletei think the big thing with volcadas and related show tango moves is there's a higher standard of "is this the right thing to do, to this music, on this floor, with this person, right now?"
ReplyDeleteIf you bear that in mind, then there will be empty nuevo floors where you're both feeling playful and want to long arcing volcadas or "drag" her the length of the floor in a volcada pose. There will be times when you're stuck in traffic to slow fluid music and a very tiny gentle volcada works.
The problem is there's so many other examples where it's just a mess :(