Milonguear for women

This - recently shared on Facebook - is pretty good advice for leaders who want to "milonguear", but it barely gives the follower any hints. Point 2 is this:

"Dance with a partner who can milonguear.... I usually don’t invite a woman to dance if I’m not confident I can navigate the floor safely with her."

I think the followup post is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go beyond the obvious: refrain from silly kicks and don't stick your elbow out.  It makes it sound trivial and ignores everything behind it, which is how people normally talk about women's work. I dance as both follower and leader on a lot of full floors, at various levels of orderliness, so I'm here today to start filling in the gaps.

First the big picture, then the details. Big picture:

1. Be very communicative, so that your partner can always feel exactly where you are and what you are doing. Communication is two-way, continuous, truthful, and uninterrupted.
2. Be very accurate. Your movements, response and expression are at high resolution, so very little space is needed for a detailed and interesting picture.
3. Be very steady. Your partner can rely on you to keep within your own space and your own balance, all the time. They can confidently and accurately predict where you will go in response to their own movements, within a very small margin of error.
4. Be very musical. Your feeling is fully expressed within your movements, whatever those movements are, and regardless of their size. This means complex steps and large movements are options, not necessities. You have your own ideas about how the music makes you feel, and you are expressing them within your embrace.

The actions you would take to get these things working are mostly in common, so you don't need to prioritise them one above another.

I'm not going to talk about things like not habitually flapping your heels around like a halfwit, and not insisting on a rigid, stuck-out arm or a bent-back international ballroom hold. They are obvious, they come under the heading "have a bit of common sense," and one sentence is enough.

Communication

This depends on having a very clear, simple, and reliable relationship between the position of each of your shoulders and the position of the corresponding foot. It's usually called "having a good axis". You don't bend sideways or forward at the waist, drop the chest, push one hip out, pull it in, wriggle, lock one hip or knee, or stand with one leg tense and the foot held stiffly clear of the floor. All these things will break the line of communication. When you are doing it right, your partner can clearly sense the position of each foot in a close embrace. In effect, your  legs and feet are included in your partner's proprioception. Making this possible is 90% a follower skill and only 10% a leader skill.

You can practice and enhance your axis by standing, walking, doing solo pivots, or dancing, with a book or a heavyish bean bag balanced on your head (some dried lentils in a freezer bag are totally fine). This really helps to find the vertical line that you want to move around, feel how it moves in your body as you move, and make it thinner. Change weight, step slowly in all directions, turn gently.

Generally, you want to think about simplifying, firming and straightening your movement so it can be exactly as you mean it to be. Everything else below will also help.

Accuracy and Resolution

This means you can interpret signals for direction, size, and speed over a wide range of each, but particularly at the smaller end. And these dimensions are independent; your smaller steps can have as much colour and detail as your larger steps, and all of this colour and detail is communicated to your partner, rather than being directed outwards.

You can change weight one toe at a time, if the leader is capable of leading that. You can follow a pivot separately from a step and you don't automatically add a step just because you've pivoted. You don't mechanically stick one leg out when there's no reason to do so. You have the freedom to reverse from any point. Your feet move in close parallel lanes, not crossing each other or changing lanes unintentionally. Your free leg does not exaggerate or fly out anxiously in turns.

Get a practice partner to lead small movements, slow movements, and movements that start one way and then retract, and pivots that don't end in a step (they might just stop, or go back the other way).

You'll need to create stillness and quietness, to make a smooth space for the high level of detail. Simplify your movements. Drop any movement that you don't have a clear positive reason for doing. Don't "extend" when there's no reason to do so except stagecraft. And your partner needs to be listening to you.

Steadiness

You can stop, pause, go back at any point in any movement. If your partner loses their balance somehow, you can probably rescue the situation, and if not, you will still be standing there. Your partner can fall over all alone, if they truly insist.

Physically, this comes from a consistent relationship between shoulders and hips and having the position of your centre of gravity well under control. Everything already mentioned will help. You are stepping with your own intent, and not flapping about, wriggling, or putting yourself in any position you can't freeze in. It's not exactly about balance - you can balance in a position where it's easy to push you over. Groundedness is about very rarely passing through a position where it's easy to push you over.

Smooth the transitions between steps, push continuously through the step, get your legs used to the transitions in all directions, and have your feet fall wherever they need to be, under your centre of gravity.

A good (and fun) exercise with a partner is to dance normally and have someone stop the music at random moments. When it stops, you have to freeze in whatever position you are in. If you try to freeze and you have to take another step, then whatever you were doing is probably something you don't do well enough to do in the milonga yet. Both leader and follower are independently responsible for their own ability to freeze. (I am indebted to Andreas Wichter for this exercise).

A good exercise to find out how it should feel is to have someone hang on to a scarf wrapped around your hips, and give you resistance as you walk. Or you can walk in water and focus on keeping upright.

There is a fun test for this. Leaders who are poorly grounded will often lead bigger steps than they mean to, then fail to follow up with the rest of their bodies, unbalancing themselves and their partners. The effect is that the couple skitters around like a foal, and they bump into people even when they think they are leading perfectly sensible movements. Learn to notice when this is happening, and edit it by stepping within yourself and insisting on keeping yourself straight; don't rush around trying to keep up with phantom leads and nonsense. When you get it right, the leader will suddenly feel safe, because two of the animal's four feet are consistently underneath it and going where they intend to go, instead of constantly having to catch and correct. This takes some experience and decent physical condition to do successfully, but mainly you just have to know that it's possible and a good idea.

Of course, some people can lead huge, fast steps without unbalancing themselves. In that case, go ahead and put your big wheels on.

If you struggle with any of this physically, the fastest way to make a noticeable difference to  everything I mention here is about 3 sessions a week for six weeks of practically any training that will strengthen your core. You can use one of those 7-minute workout apps, a samba class has worked well for me, ballet or yoga would work, press-ups, crunches, or any form of upper-body training will work, even running, if you do it right. Or you can do it how they did it in the 40s and just wash and dry all your clothes and bedding without a machine.  If your regular work is not sedentary (for example, if you are a nurse, site engineer, market trader or care worker) you probably won't need to do anything special. You don't need to be super fit or powerful, just strong enough to to be stable without effort. The result is that your partner can feel where your feet are, and the subtle changes in your body as your hips turn.

Musicality

This means that you are using the full duration and shape of every movement to express your feeling about the sound. Your partner can feel this.

The aim is to make it feel as though the music is coming from inside your body, from somewhere roughly in the middle. It's not that you're hearing something and pointing it out visually for an audience; it's internal and coming out because it has to. This is the answer to the beginner question "when am I supposed to do ornaments?". Do them when you can't help it, and otherwise don't worry about them. They are supposed to come from you. Find all your favourite tango tunes on YouTube and just bop along to them however you like. Wave your arms, wiggle, dance around, make faces, whatever, until your body knows what it wants to do and has different ways of expressing that. Learning specific ornaments by heart is tedious and can have embarrassing results, so I suggest not doing it.

You can practice and enhance how this works physically in the dance with some exercises, like refusing a step. They will also improve your communication. Get your practice partner to lead something, and then just don't do it - actively refuse it in the embrace. Stop the step. Hold it up. Slow it down. Do it at different times during the step.  Backlead a little to find out how it feels. Have your partner go with your suggestion, or not. Now try it musically; have your partner choose the movements (keep it simple), but you decide how smooshy or spiky, soft or sharp or decisive, it will be. You will find out what you can do without breaking the connection, what is interesting and fun, and what causes problems or confuses you. Turn your 'musical satnav' up and down. Make as many mistakes as you need, to feel confident that you know what you are doing.

Delivering this physically takes some time, so if you are a beginner, don't let it worry you; just solve the problems in front of you, allow yourself to bop and get excited to tunes and rhythms you like, notice what you like, let your body respond, starting from the heart or centre, and it will get more coordinated with practice.

You want your body to be a window for your emotions.

Note that there are quite a lot of 'good' leaders who have no interest in the follower's musicality at all, except in terms visible to an audience; they want an obedient partner, of the highest available social status, through whom to show off, mainly to each other and themselves. The partner might as well be a car or an overpriced handbag. They are not listening to anything an audience can't see. I think it's dull and silly, but it's up to you to make your own sincere choice about what you want to do.

Mon's Legs

Finally, I give you Monique's Stupendous Legs again. They are full of music, and also apparently full of water. Watch and learn.

A post shared by Eleanor Durrant (@spikylellie) on May 20, 2017 at 3:07pm PDT

You don't have to be especially mobile or athletic; those things give you some extra options in the range and variety of movement, which are very good for dancing with certain people, but you're entitled to expect your partner to dial it back to what you can keep up with.

What happens

If you get it right, some curious things happen:

• It becomes rather pointless to lead lots of steps, which makes the dance less exhausting.
• All the possibilities of leading are still there, up to the couple's skill level, but they are now a free choice, over which you have a great deal of influence. They no longer need to be trotted out one after the other to avoid boredom, or planned in any way. 
• Leading becomes both practically effortless and much more interesting to do.
• The distinction between leading and following becomes somewhat beside the point.
• You may find that you care more about who you dance with and what to.

Leading Conversion Course - Playlist

This post talks you through my YouTube playlist of people I think it is helpful to watch if you are a woman who is a good follower and is learning to lead. Most of this will also be of use to anyone working on their leading; with the usual obvious caveats about who you want to dance with, how you want to dance, and what your priorities are. My own dance prioritises pleasure above prestige. YMMV. There are more videos in the playlist than the ones I'm going to talk about, and I might add more from time to time.

Léna Lamorelle

I suggest watching Léna to give yourself a mental picture of what a woman's body can look like, leading well. I hope it will help you visualise better what you want to do, without the visual confusion of a drastic difference in body shape.

Sin Palabras

Notice the beautiful walk from 02:00 and the turn at 02:17.



More videos - vals and milonga - in the playlist. You may also notice the waterfall* at 02:52, very characteristic of the French dancers for many years and popularised by Carlitos in this no-brakes vals. It took me way longer than I expected to figure out how this is done. It's fun but not necessary.

Oscar Casas

Some of Oscar Casas' teaching summaries are in English, some in Spanish. A lot of them give you simple, reliable ways to do really useful things without overanalysis. The ones with Ana Miguel are generally of higher quality, except for two essential ones with Mary Ann Casas.

Linear Salida

As an exercise, this is a staple of the Nuevo Tango teaching approach. Learn to lead back, side, and forward steps at will, then curve it and wind it up into a turn, then change direction. ("Nuevo" and what is often called "Milonguero" are essentially the same thing with a different sensibility or goal).



Note that this method of leading a cross - the 'lazy' or sideways one - is pretty bulletproof and will usually work well with beginner followers.

Shark Walk

Possibly the most practically useful two and a half minutes of tango video ever made. What Oscar does in this is everything you actually need for tango, vals, and milonga. If you are musical and sensitive to your partner, which you should be if you already follow well and you can learn to keep your place on the floor, you have everything you need for social dancing. Everything else is optional. Some people manage perfectly well with much less.

Analysis of systems

This begins with a simple, reliable way to lead a linear or salon-style cross. You can break it down further and get a lot of different options, but you'll also be completely fine if you just use this one.



Lots more in the playlist. One side note - I suggest ignoring Oscar's technical advice to followers, which he only offers when Ana isn't there.

Alexis Quezada

Alexis is a Chilean living in Barcelona and teaching in France and elsewhere with Celine Giordano. He is a 'lazy' leader, using solid technique and interesting musicality to create a very appealing, pleasurable, low-apparent-effort dance. He does practically nothing useless, superfluous or showy: watch any of it, pick something you like, and try to work out how to do it. You probably won't get it, at least at first, but it's almost impossible to avoid learning something useful while you try.

El Jagüel

The chained swoosh* at 01:05, and in general a wonderfully sensual approach to this beautiful Di Sarli instrumental. One I personally prefer to the 'mundial' style (often branded 'salon') with its intensely tedious, glossy, chilly turns.

Sinsabor

Rocked ochos from 01:39 - and generally, this one is full of things that are brilliant in their simplicity.

Mañana zarpa un barco

Crossed walk from 00:35 to 00:41. This is technically not easy, and risky in social dancing, but it's a brilliant exercise to have on your list of things to try. The tango is followed by a calm milonga in the same video.

Milonga Criolla

I draw your attention to 01:09-01:15 and 02:08 to 02:18. Sure, I can lead those movements (the second is just a well-timed weight change), but would I ever have thought of leading them then? Admittedly both of these require an excellent partner to be worthwhile; they would be utterly wasted on someone who just follows and doesn't dance with you to the music.



Alexis feels absolutely solid to dance with; he is extraordinary at creating stillness and a sense of perfect security and calm, to which the face like a decaf koala contributes less than you might think. On a good day, I remember to aim for that stillness in my own dance.

Melina and Detlef

This is a summary of a fundamentals class. The verbal explanation is in slow French with a German accent, but this is still useful to watch even if you don't understand French well, or at all. I provided a translation some years ago. They discuss posture and embrace, and then give one very simple and reliable way to lead each of a weight change, a side step, and a walk.



Their book provides very useful information about various technical options, with tips for productive practice, and the accompanying DVD includes a good way to practice pivots at home without injuring yourself. You can use it as a comprehensive course, but even if that's not your approach I recommend looking at it if you are in a position of having to teach or mentor anyone, especially yourself. It will save you quite a bit of time if you can figure out how to make best use of it - my full review and user guide is here. Check the troubleshooting checklist hidden on page 156.

Oscar Moyano

A video I find not so much useful, as motivational.  I watch this sometimes to reconnect myself with how I want to dance, and avoid getting sucked into how other people want to dance. My favourite bit is the sensual perfection of 01:35, which is how those are supposed to work.

On using video

I've made this playlist because it contains a lot of things that have been very useful to me. However, bear in mind that it's very difficult to comprehend, visually, a movement that you can't already do yourself. In case you do what I suggested above (pick something you like from a video and try to work out how to do it) I want to prevent you getting discouraged by telling you that at least all the following things will happen, and they are normal and completely OK:

• You will spend hours watching and rewatching, just not being able to understand what on earth is going on. Tip: if you save a copy of the video using something like savefrom.net or whatever you normally use, and then watch it on a tablet, phone, or computer with a free media player like VLC media player, you can play it in slow motion. It will still take ages. Try to work out just part of it and go from there.
• You will spend hours trying to do a mirror-image of whatever it was you saw, which is much more difficult than the original version.
• You will totally misunderstand what was happening and learn something else entirely. Eventually, you will work out what it was you actually led.
• It will just not work because crucial information is missing or something you had overlooked is much more important than the thing you noticed. You will come back to it a year later and find out what the thing was.
• Etc. Don't worry about it. An account of my own approach is here.

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* In this post I use my own English names, like "waterfall", "swoosh", and "rocked ochos" for some things that don't have established names in English. These are just my names for things that need names.  They're probably not the same names you would come up with if you didn't know how they felt to follow. Go ahead and use them if you like them, but don't expect anyone to know them. I think 'swoosh' is obvious, and 'waterfall' refers to the tumbling, chaotic sensation of following it.

Following and information

Having the opportunity to learn to follow before attempting to lead - which women do by social right, and men once did for practical reasons - is not only a matter of having better information than someone who comes to it 'cold'.

It also allows you to solve about 90% of the big physical problems of posture, axis, embrace, balance, coordination, control of momentum, cognition and proprioception, before you start worrying about any of the much smaller number of problems that are specific to leading. 

For me, leading is mostly just one quite challenging problem, which is training my brain to perceive and command a lot of quite complex and unexpected movements that my body can already easily do. And solving that one problem gets slowly but steadily easier with practice. 

Most of the other problems are relatively straightforward, when taken in isolation from the problems that are common to both leading and following. You can focus properly on the specific problems and solve them without confusion.

Another benefit is that you have already developed an accurate idea of what you might want to do, and why, which makes you unlikely to waste much time on classes that are not useful. I don't bother learning to lead anything I don't personally like to follow.

A third is that you have access to good followers and are in a state where you can avoid annoying them, if you have any trace of sense, and repay their investment in you quickly. 

And a fourth is that, with luck, you may also have found, or even become part of, one or more communities where the leaders behave nicely on the dancefloor rather than some combination of charging about like ants on coke, wrestling and pouting. This will reduce the stressful side, and also give you access to crucial information.

All these are blessings. But if you learn to follow well and then start leading and take it seriously, you damn well ought to be better than average in a couple of years, or you're doing it wrong.

Leading FAQ

As these actually are, unlike most "FAQs", somewhat FA, I thought I might as well write down my current answers.

Why do you lead?
I like good dancing, I enjoy working on my dance, and I want to dance with the women as well. They're great. I was also really curious to find out what it felt like.

Do you find you keep trying to go the wrong way and do everything the wrong way round?
Yes, at first, but it wears off quickly. Having other people around seems to sort it out. Doing the mirror-image of whatever I was trying to do, also seems to be less common with time. The more I practice, the better I can visualise whatever it is I want to do.

Do you have a hard time remembering to keep your eyes open?
Yes, at first! But this also wears off very quickly.

How does it affect your following?
It's made it better. The very first thing it did, the first time I tried it, was tune me into the music a bit differently. The next thing was to give me confidence as a follower, because you discover what you've been doing right, especially just how magic it feels if you follow well and move well. When I started doing it more seriously, it improved my technique, making me stronger and better grounded. After a bit more practice, I started to learn how good the women are, and what that actually means, and what it feels like when they really start to get into it, which is enchanting. And I also find it improves my concentration and frees me from the pressure to do too much and try too hard as a follower; I usually feel in myself that I am dancing better just after I've been leading.

That's so brave!?
If you're already a good follower, and then you start leading and taking it seriously, you just have to accept that you're going to go back to not being very good for a while. You had the privilege of learning to follow first, which saves a lot of work. But it's still a lot of work; so if you want to do it, and you have the opportunity, you do it, and if you don't specially want to do it, you don't bother. The men seem to manage it.

How do the men react?
I have yet to encounter any negative reaction from anyone, male or female. The men I regularly dance with as a follower have without exception been enthusiastically encouraging, and they are often interested to hear my perspective and experiences as well as share their own. I have also found it's a real and particular pleasure to share the floor amicably with someone as a fellow leader and then later dance with him for the first time. Sometimes - often - they make some pleasant remark about having seen me leading.

How do you find the floorcraft?
Some places are obviously much harder than others. It does take practice, especially to avoid getting too close to the couple in front. I started out at emptier times and places.  It takes miles on the clock to be able to deal with the cognitive load of leading, responding to the follower, and keeping track of where other couples are and how they are moving. That's one reason why there is always so much you can do in practice that you can't do in the milonga. If the floor is chaotic and stressful and generally hard to deal with, my technique will be weaker and I'll make a lot more errors, my improvisation will be much more repetitive, and I'll deal with it much less gracefully if I accidentally do something I didn't know how to do.

In some places, it's very difficult, and in others it's easy, but I find I can deal with it; better or worse depending on the difficulty level.

Do you always lead?
No, it depends on the situation. To some milongas I go to to lead, to some milongas I go to follow, to some milongas I go to do both. In that case, I usually start the milonga leading, then switch, and sometimes at that point I will change my 'look' in more than just the shoes. Sometimes I decide when I get there.

Which do you prefer?
Supposing other things to be equal, I usually say that I prefer following because I'm much better at it. I don't think I have enough experience at leading to say whether one is more fun that the other under ideal conditions. I'm finding leading very addictive, perhaps because I've had less experience, and therefore improvement with work is so much more noticeable. The process of discovery is also fun in itself. And the social side is fascinating. At the moment, I'd say that they are very different states of mind and it is a bit like saying whether I prefer steak or icecream. It depends on so many things. Equality is not equivalence.

On Following

Ok, this started in a facebook thread about a video. But it's too long. To summarise, a lot of people are very anxious to spell out that "following does not mean the woman is submissive in tango". I can see why. I can see lots of causes for people feeling bothered about the possibility that people might think that. People saying silly things on Strictly Come Dancing is only the most obvious. But I also think we often make this too complicated. And people worry sometimes about whether the terms "lead" and "follow" are the best terms.

I think that particular debate is backwards. If I were teaching this to someone else, I would use "leading" and "following" rather than any other terms; but I would point out what they actually mean, along with a couple of other things.

"Following" someone, or something, is an active process by definition. It is impossible to "follow", other than on purpose. I can "follow" you home, or along a crowded street, whether you like it or not, but under no circumstances can you "lead" me, in any context, unless I make a continuous and active choice. Leading, by definition, is acting in such a way that one or more people decide to follow you and thereby attempt something which they have now decided should happen. It is quite possible to lead accidentally, at least for a while, if someone takes it into their head to follow you. And success in leading - in any context - can only be defined in terms of other people's actions.

For me the terms are fine, and following is obviously and by definition the beginning, heart, and end of the whole process. The dance starts with one person's decision to follow another, continues with their decision to continue, and ends with their decision to stop. Leading, and everything else, is the play and fun of finding out what the couple can do with that.

The delightful 'floating' sensation of non-volition which you sometimes get when following, especially as a beginner, is not because the leader is magically making you do stuff; it's because a lot of the cognitive and physical skills you are using are ones that you're not normally conscious of at all. So you have no idea they are happening, or how unbelievably complex and powerful they are; you just use them without thinking about it or realising you've done so. You think it's happening without will, when in fact it's just happening without consciousness. It starts out as animal process, and you get better at it by refining and building on what the animal can do.

The better I get at leading, the more ability I will have to 'follow back' those followers who do it well enough that they communicate to me what their animal wants to do. This is a lot of fun.

The fact that this dance is, at the same time, a specifically gendered role-playing game, may add to the fun in many ways (at least, it certainly does for me) but it also misleads our thinking. The only reason anyone ever interprets the concept of 'following' as anything less active and self-determining than, say, a batsman hitting a good bowler for six¹, is that in the evolution of this dance it is the female gendered role. If this were not the case, then "following" would be interpreted in the sense that a hunter "follows" prey.

It's not the other way around. It's not that women are assigned a passive or subordinate role. It's that the role assigned to women is therefore misinterpreted as being passive or subordinate, despite that interpretation ignoring the normal meaning of the word and completely erasing the real process of improvisation and the core of the dance itself.

You do not have to feel low-status because you are not currently deciding what specifically happens next. You can delegate responsibility for that question without feeling guilty or ashamed about it. What specifically happens next is not really where the creation happens or what the dance is all about. Any creation that happens is already in terms of you. You can also, in my view, enjoy a gender role-playing game without feeling guilty about it. Do what gives you pleasure; that is precisely what partner dances are for.

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1 Not actually a bad analogy for following some difficult or overexcited professionals. You might object that bowler and batsman are adversaries, not cooperating. Of course they are cooperating. They are cooperating in a game of cricket. The only matter of dispute is who wins, which is nothing more than a factitious notion technically required to get the best out of the partnership. We know this because people climb up Kilimanjaro and sail to to Antartica specifically in order to play cricket with each other in calderas or surrounded by penguins.

Approach to Leading

Since about January 2014 I've been taking my leading more seriously. I was curious, and wanted to dance with the women as well. They're great. So that meant I needed to choose an approach to how I was going to do that.

I have had a lot of education and I know a lot about how I learn. If I take a class as a leader, with not much experience of leading, then I will spend 99% of my time and effort trying to work out what the teacher wants me to do. Physical actions that you cannot already do yourself are very difficult to comprehend visually. It takes a lot of time and repetition. Actions you can already do, intentionally not just physically, are easy to comprehend.

This is true even in high quality classes. If the class covers something I can't already do, I'll be very lucky indeed if I ever get to work on that thing in any meaningful way.

For basic classes, there's also the problem that I'll be dancing with beginners, which is fine for an enjoyable dance if you already have the skill-set for it as a leader, but is extremely inefficient for learning.

I've also already taken a lot of classes, in which I paid attention and stored the information which I'd never have been able to remember if I'd been trying to lead at the same time. Most classes are, in my experience, much more potentially useful to the followers than the leaders, even - and often, especially - the kind where they don't really talk to the followers at all. I say potentially, because you have to think about what's happening to get the best out of them. But as a follower switching partners, you get the opportunity to really listen, plus lots of great practice and reliable experimental data.

As an experienced follower learning to lead, I already know what I should be doing, what I can do, what I can't do, and what I want to learn. I also have a lot of friends who are really good followers, and who are willing to help me out, and in some cases are doing the same thing themselves, so we can swap.

When I have access to a suitable floor and a suitable person to practice with, I want to spend 100% of my time putting in the miles and the physical effort and experimentation that's necessary to go from knowing it to doing it and understanding it. If you have a full time job and you dance socially as well, practice time with a floor and the motivation and a good follower is a scarce resource.

But I still need to decide what to do in each session.

Everybody knows that collecting moves doesn't work; the right approach is to work on skills. If you have the skills then the moves are not a problem, you just do them. If you don't have the skills then you can learn moves, but you'll be faking them and it will show. But - you work on skills by doing some particular movement. And there is absolutely no substitute for dancing in the milonga.

So, from about this time last year, I've been making sure I lead sometimes in social dancing, practicing, and studying.

Studying? Yes. Since I started dancing, there has been an explosion of high quality videos of high quality dancing. I can download the ones I find useful from YouTube using something like savefrom.net, put them in my secondhand tablet, and study them on the Underground on the way to and from work. I can watch people do things and try to deduce how they're done.

So, my approach is to work on a skill if I know exactly what it is that I need next, and can work on it in isolation. I always have in mind some overall idea of what skills I am currently working on; what it is that my body needs to get the hang of.

But when deciding where to start in a practice session, I can pick something from a video that I want to do and can't do, watch it over and over on the Tube and try to imagine how it functions, and when I actually have a partner in front of me I can try to do it. Normally, it won't work at the first attempt. We can then both try to find out why not, or find some part of it or some related thing that does work. Then I can go away and watch again, armed with this new information, and I will probably discover what I misunderstood or what skill was missing and has to be learned first, before whatever this is will work. Often, I find that I totally misunderstood what was happening; I've sometimes been doing a mirror-image. Then I can try it again next time I have access to a partner to practice with. Something, even if it's not what I aimed for, will click that time or next time. If not, I can work on something else and come back to it later. By repeating this process, I will almost always learn something, and whatever it was has a decent chance of staying learned.

Another thing videos are useful for is seeing different approaches to music. I might have danced a certain orchestra with someone who hears it one way, and liked it, but then find that that approach just doesn't work for me as a leader. I may find a video with an equally good one, that does. Or I may find a video with a particular orchestra that suggests a more practical, achievable or floor-friendly way of dancing it than my first instinctive response.

One thing I've really noticed is that as I learn more movements as a leader, it becomes easier to comprehend visually what other people are doing. I recognise more and more elements of what I see. I spot movements that it would not have occurred to me to make, and how they are being used. Suddenly I realise which different things are really the same, or have something in common.

Once I can already fairly easily do most things in the class, only then does it become possible to take the class without feeling that it's a complete waste of time. Most of the time, though, they aren't my best opportunity for progress.

The process is also a ton of fun. I enjoy doing it myself far too much to pay someone else to help me, beyond advice and feedback if I get stuck with technique. Although that doesn't mean I don't want to hear people's thinking and different descriptions of how they do things. I do. You can learn a lot from the differences and the common ground.

Thirteen Tango Terms for Beginners

I have a very dear friend who wants to learn to dance tango. She will, or should, encounter some concepts to do with basic technique. But sometimes in the social complexity of classes, these ideas get lost, or disconnected from any explanation of what they mean. And these are the kinds of things you need to get working well so that you can dance easily and happily with other people, and express yourself and find your own dance without hurting yourself or anyone else. You need this information to solve whatever problems you are having, and not waste time.

So, I've collected them here for her. I've ended up putting them in alphabetical order, because they all go together, so it makes at least as much sense as anything else. I'm not going to tell you how to achieve them; you should get someone who can already do this stuff and can see you, dance with you, and give you feedback, to help you with that.

Axis

Axis means that your partner can easily find a vertical line through your body about which it is possible for you to turn without going off balance. Like the axis of the Earth. To show yourself what it means, stand with both feet on the ground but your weight on just one of them, the other leg relaxed, and get someone to twirl you around on the spot. A good 'axis' means it is easy to do this and you don't fall over. If you stick one hip out to the side and make your axis curved, you'll find it's much harder. But the line is flexible and springy, like bamboo, not rigid.

Axis is equally important for leading and following. The line is what gives the follower neutral, accurate, racing-car steering, without understeer or oversteer or pulling to one side. It makes the leader easy to follow accurately.

Connection

Connection means, for example, that if you are led to step directly into the leader, you will do so. If half a step is led and then stopped, you will follow it half way, and stop. If you are standing with your feet apart and some weight on each one, you will stay there until led to bring them together and put the weight on one of them - and you will pass through all the percentages in-between. Connection means you can be led to change weight from foot to foot, one toe at a time. It means you follow what's actually led. Sometimes that won't be what was intended, and that's fine. Connection is a really good thing. Some people say it's the essence of tango. It means that your attention is continuously with your partner and not with (for example) spectators. One of the biggest challenges for the more experienced follower is managing to avoid learning rules, habits, technical work-arounds, and catalogues of stereotypical movements that cut off other options and destroy the ability to follow what's actually led, especially anything new or unexpected.

Connection mainly comes up in relation to following, but it goes both ways - the leader needs to be listening to the follower's body too. It means paying attention to what your partner is actually doing in the moment, and being open to it, not stuck in your own mental catalogue. And all the other techniques mentioned here go towards making that possible and successful.

Dissociation

Dissociation means the ability to point your bottom (back or front) towards the direction of travel while still keeping your torso towards, and connected to, your partner. That means the ability and willingness to twist in the middle whenever you need to do so, just as much as necessary.

Dissociation is equally important for leader and follower. It gives you accurate steering and freedom of movement.

Embrace

Embrace means you have an embrace that feels nice and works well. The basic, characteristic, close embrace for social tango has the torsos in contact and each partner within the arm of the other, rather like an affectionate hug; it can be tighter or looser, and more or less mobile, and there are lots of variations but no real rules. There are also open variations (with less contact) that some people use and others don't, either to make various things easier to do, or for practice, or just because they enjoy the feeling of bringing it in and out. The same person will often use several variations, minor or major, depending on who they are dancing with. It's not like competition ballroom dancing where there's a refined, prescribed look with specific hand positions.

Embrace is equally important for leader and follower. Whether you need a wide range of different skills, or you're only really going to use the close version, depends on your situation and your preferences.

Floorcraft

Floorcraft means having a good relationship with the other couples around you on the dance floor, sharing the space positively and not bumping into them. Although it's principally the leaders' job, the follower can screw it up royally by doing stupid things or being uncontrolled or difficult to steer. For the beginner leader, you already know how to walk along a crowded pavement or platform, or across a pub, mostly without bumping anyone, even in quite tricky situations. So you have two main challenges - integrating your partner into that, and avoiding learning any bad habits that cut off your perception of those around you, limit your choices of where to go next, or put you off balance or out of control. You'll also learn what situations to avoid, and how to cooperate with others.

Following

Following pretty much means just that. It's basically the same mental process as following someone on a rapid, zigzag path through a crowded shopping centre without needing to hold their hand. It's something you decide to do; it has nothing to do with guessing what they want, and they don't even have to know you are there. You go wherever you need to go to stay with your partner, only from in front. The power do to this at a basic level whenever you want, comes for free with being a human, or indeed a duckling fresh out of the egg. In a partner dance we practice, extend, and refine it to build connection on top of it, and then do far more with it than you could reasonably have imagined was possible.

If you have taken at least one lesson, you should be able to successfully follow weight changes, walks, and sidesteps with a more experienced dancer who you've never met. If not, something has gone wrong. And nothing you do later should take away this ability.

If you mainly lead, doing some following gives you a chance to solve some problems one at a time that you'd otherwise have to tackle all at once, and also to find out which problems are most worth your attention.

Free leg

Your free leg is the leg you aren't putting weight on right now. Being 'free' means it's free to move, and perhaps swing. So that means it's relaxed where it joins to the hip, rather than being held in a particular position, give or take some friction with the floor. The consequence is that your partner can feel where that leg is through the connection with you (try it).

It's important for both partners, but it's more obvious for following, because the leader can cause it to move without the follower doing any more than allowing it - this can produce some amazing movements which you will never see on Strictly Come Dancing. The leader having a free leg is less obvious, but makes everything more stable and clear.

Grounded

Grounded means you feel as though it would be very difficult to push you over. At first, you might think of this as like having "good balance" (I certainly did) but it isn't. You can balance in a position where it's easy to push you over. Being grounded is having habits in the way you move so that you don't get in such positions unless you want to.

Grounding is equally important for leader and follower, but leaders may need more of it more urgently. If you're leading and you're not grounded, you're likely to bump into other people, even if the follower has no problems. If you're following, and you're not grounded, then you may be out of control and difficult to steer. If you're well grounded, you can compensate quite a bit if your partner isn't, but it's hard work.

Heavy

Heavy means it's really hard work to move you at all. It has nothing to do with your physical size, but you feel like a fridge. Your partner will get a sore back, hips, knees, ankles, arms or shoulders. It's a very bad thing, as it means dancing with you can cause significant injury. People may also say someone is 'heavy' or 'a little heavy' when they only mean the connection is not working that well for some reason. In that case it's not so dangerous.

It mostly comes up in relation to following, but it's also possible for the leader to stand or move in such a way as to hurt their partner physically. When you make changes, check.

Leading

Leading is making use of the fact that another human being has decided to follow you, in order to create a partner dance. As soon as they make that decision and start acting on it, you can already lead at a minimal level. You learn how to do it better, practice it, refine it, and find out what you can do with it. It's crazy how much you can do with it together.

If you mainly follow, doing some leading is very illuminating and helps you prioritise; it may also give you more confidence in the things you are doing right as a follower.

Light

"Light" means you are easy to move. Being easy to move is not just being grounded and not heavy - it also has to do with connection. "Too light" means you tend to get away from your partner in an uncontrolled way. But exactly how "light" different people are varies naturally and there isn't just one perfect spot that's the same for everyone.

Lightness mostly applies to following.  But if you are leading and someone says you are too light, it might mean the follower can't detect where you are going at all.

Musicality

Musicality means you are really listening and moving with the music. You have dynamics. It's not just that you follow what's led or that you move on the beat; the way you move, sharply, softly, swooshily, smoothly or not, and so on, always expresses what you are hearing and how you are feeling it. Each partner can feel the other doing this, and respond. So your attention to each other is mediated through the music, and the music is mediated into the dance through your attention to each other (and often, in the leader's case, to people around you) - they are working like one thing.

Musicality is equally important for leader and follower, but it tends to be discussed a lot more in relation to leading. This is because the leader has to decide what to do - whether the next step will be slow or quick - and learning how to do that and be on the beat takes a lot of time and attention. As a result, the women can often end up thinking that their own musicality is some sort of ornamental extra that has to be stuck on top of the leader's dance, like icing on a cake - and that it's necessary to stop moving and break the connection so they can take their turn. You can probably tell I think that's a terrible way of looking at it. You want to be on the beat, yes, but it's important to think of musicality in terms of how you move all the time, how you both do everything you are doing, and how that feels in the connection, not just when you step. That's what makes someone actually feel musical to their partner.

Posture

Posture has its normal meaning. But it's what creates lightness, heaviness, axis, grounding, and a successful embrace. So it's a good place to look if you are having trouble with anything on this list.

If you are working on any of the above, directly or indirectly, then you probably aren't wasting your time in class. If you find that one of them is the reason why whatever you are trying to do doesn't work, then you have learned something useful. 

There are lots of recreational arguments in tango, but none of the above is particularly controversial. Some people talk and think about this stuff a lot; some do it occasionally; others just hate the idea of thinking about what they're doing at all.

I have not dealt with manners in social dancing. That's for another day.

What I'm aiming for is to be useful and practical for people with no previous knowledge, in a range of communities. If you can get most of this stuff working to an ok-ish level, then you can reasonably expect (at least if you also like the music) to be getting lots of practice and to be well on the way to "dancing very nicely". Then you can take it as far as you like.

What's so hot about Ruby?

As I said in 'Praise of other women', it can often be a bit of a mystery to the women in tango what we might aim to achieve, beyond just being able to follow the kind of thing it's possible to do in the open-level class before a milonga. Why do people want to dance with one woman rather than another? We often just don't know; and we make stuff up, often false and unhelpful.

I think that once you have some information about what people appreciate in good dancers, you can pretty much work out for yourself how to achieve it. When trial and error doesn't work, it's easy enough to find someone to ask. But if you don't have any idea what you're looking for, you're stuck, and lessons are often wasted.

Here, then, are some sticky notes of miscellaneous praise for various tango women, all of which came from people whose leading I respect. Some of them are almost the same as each other - but describing different women. I feel that's worth knowing. I've paraphrased some slightly - they were all in conversation over several years and not written down.

When stuck, you could pick one that you liked the sound of, and find out how to be it. Maybe we could have some more, different ones in the comments? Because I could only get these from people I know.

So:
 
A hugging-and-then-flapping-hands gesture to signify: "her embrace feels like angel wings and my heart is happy".

 "It's like dancing with a little amplifier."

"She feels incredibly steady, like it would be impossible to push her over, but she's really easy to move."

"She was so on the beat, I realised I could think of it like the music was coming from her."

"She embraces you, and you don't even want to move."

"It's crazy how she manages everything!"

"I know I can trust her on a difficult floor, if I lead her to step straight into me, she'll always do it".

"She has an extremely comfortable embrace."

"Like a rollerball. Or a hovercraft."

"So smooooth."

"At the end, tic, tac, perfect!"

"Tres bonne connection."

"So easy".

"She gives off this snuggly vibe like she really wants to be exactly here."

"She has hungry feet".

"It's nice to dance slow music with someone who can do it justice."

"She's nice, I enjoyed it, she has quick feet."

"When we walk, she seems to have endless legs."

"Totally musical, and absolutely no ornaments whatsoever."

"She has one of the most wonderful embraces, I'm just, like, I'm happy now, we don't need to go anywhere".

"I realised I could weight-change her one toe at a time."

"You should have danced with her today, she's like a V8, brrrroommm!"

"Incredibly soft".

"Centred and playful, impeccable balance and axis."

"Tecnica, and feeling".

[post-publication additions below]

"Al compás!"

"Every time I dance with you, always new, nice embrace, nice musicality, always surprises ... [to friend] She's explosive!"

Proverbs-Chapter-31: Who can find a virtuous woman? for her price is far above rubies.

Praise of Other Women

Sometimes, men open their mouths and innocently say things like who they really, really like dancing with, and occasionally - very rarely - why.

Sometimes they even do this where you, madam, can hear it. And sometimes it's the case that you are not that person - someone else is.

Let me give my point of view about this somewhat unusual situation. I have always thought this was obvious, and indisputable, but it's not.

This information is gold dust. It is actionable intelligence.  

You should treasure it and you should be all, discreetly, politely, in moderation, ears. It would have been delightful, if it had been about you, but it is much more interesting and useful when it isn't.

But if you throw it away, like a soft-headed lady and not a woman of sense with a genuine respect for her own role in the dance, you deserve to stay where you are and go nowhere.

Anyone who's done more than a few weeks of tango classes at an intermediate level knows just how difficult it is to learn anything at all about what makes a good (as opposed to competent) follower. How impossible it seems to progress any further, to guess what's out there or what the next step might be, or to get any feedback that isn't misleading, useless, or irrelevant. Because there are so many little things and big things, subtle and hard to describe, and the people you dance with in classes have rarely experienced any of them.

Who wants - really, spontaneously, wants - to dance with you is the most reliable feedback you have about your own progress, and your only route to improvement. Going around chasing dances that don't specially want you, or getting offended at offhand praise of someone else, is logically equivalent to wiping your bottom with cash.

Rant over.

Okay, reality check. I realise that everyone's human. I don't really blame anyone for feeling a bit dashed or unconsidered by thoughtless or ill-timed praise of somebody else. It's destructive to be hard on yourself just for feeling anything. It's what you do with it that counts.

I'm also totally against *asking* for any kind of feedback in a social dancing situation. I just think that's super rude - it puts people in a very awkward position. Exceptions only for personal relationships that allow it. Asking for information about other people is a darkish-grey area, and generally speaking, I wouldn't do it unless I was sure the person I was talking to wanted to tell me whatever it was.

I also wouldn't blame anyone for making an rule for him or herself never to answer such a question or make any such remark - or never to do so in certain contexts, like at a milonga. You might decide that it's one of those practica-only things, or one of those things that you'll never volunteer. There's nothing wrong with that.

But sometimes we just have to notice how we think and feel, and not let it get in the way of our actual desires.

Embrace (dialogues) part 2

Interior, Practica

Hedgie
Ok, I just want to try this because if I understand what it is, I'll be able to do it or not do it on purpose instead of accidentally. I'm going to do it normally first.

- Dance -

Mr. Hu

Yep - ok - this is what you normally feel like.

Hedgie

Right, now I'm not going to move anything, but I'm going to try doing it another way.

- Dance -

Mr. Hu

Oh!

Hedgie

Is that the kind of thing we were asking about? It might be a bit exaggerated.

Mr. Hu

Yes, that's it. Change it back!

Hedgie
Ok, just a sec.

- Dance -

Mr. Hu

... yes, that's back to normal. Wow. That's totally different. Show me again?

- Dance -

That's quite disturbing. You feel like a totally different person.

Hedgie

I was still following you, though. I wasn't not following, I mean, I wasn't having any problems following, that I was aware of.

Mr. Hu

Yes - you were - you were doing everything, but, in comparison, it felt totally disconnected. What are you actually doing? I can't see any difference at all.

Hedgie

Ok, we're standing like this. And the way I think of it in my head is ... my arms and head are the same, whatever is comfortable and seems to work for the partner, it doesn't really matter.

Mr. Hu

Ok

Hedgie

The way I do it is - I go fuzzy - I want to blur the boundary between your nervous system and mine. And then - I want to to be really, really curious about what's going to happen next. So I go curious and I go fuzzy-fuzzy ... I want my point of concentration, where my mind is, to be in there, about where your centre is. Now, I'm guessing that what happens is, people dance like it makes sense to dance in classes, which mostly isn't like that.

Mr. Hu

Hang on a second. Let me try doing that too.

Hedgie
 ... okay.

- Dance -

Mr. Hu

Oooh, that's really interesting. I like that, a lot. I'll try that next time I'm following. But I really like it when we both do it.

Hedgie

I'm not sure if I can tell the difference yet, let's stick with it and see how it goes.

Mr. Hu

If you do that and somebody is trying to wrestle you ... it'd be a disaster. So, you turned it off ...

Hedgie

I hardened the embrace a bit, hardened the surface, brought back the boundary, and concentrated sort of more behind myself. Doesn't prove anything general, but at least I feel like I understand what's working for me now. I hate it when stuff just changes randomly for no reason.

Mr Hu

Don't do it again.

Mr V [a visiting acquaintance interested in the discussion]
My girlfriend used to be like that, everybody would tell her how beautiful her feet were, and I was, "your feet? What about ME? Oi! I'm over here!". And she, like, she'd totally missed the point. And then I got her to try [some exercise or other, can't remember what] and she got it, and she went, "Oh!! ...  I'm not sure I'm OK with you feeling like that with all these other women." But then she got over it and she danced a lot better, she feels really nice now.

Hedgie
Fair-minded woman, obviously.

Embrace (dialogues) part 1

This is a subject that's been intriguing and puzzling me for a while. I'm finding a lot of friends and acquaintances who have various problems, experiences and solutions. This is one conversation, slightly edited but not substantially. Don't be freaked out by my friend's apparently bizarre martial arts analogy. It's normal for him.

Virtual Interior (Facebook Chat) slightly edited, but not substantially.

Hedgie
... I am trying to work out what his problem is. He was complaining about the women, that he can't dance with them because they have "zero embrace" and I can't see why it doesn't work.

Mr. Hu
After Friday i think I know what he means

Hedgie
Like, he tried dancing with X because he said she looked like she could dance, and then it was a disaster, he said there was very little following going on - and I don't understand that becuase it just can't be the case that she doesn't follow. So I have no idea what he means.
So what's your theory? (What do you mean, Friday?)

Mr. Hu
:collects thoughts:
Loosely speaking, being "plugged in" is a massive simplification of what it can be

Hedgie
okay
I mean, he seems to do okay with me, he even quite likes dancing with me
and I don't understand how what she is doing can be THAT different from what I do, it looks the same to me.

Mr. Hu
To use martial arts as an analogy, imagine two olympic fencers going at it full speed

Hedgie
okay

Mr. Hu
So there's imppecable technique, posture, rhythm etc

Hedgie
okay

Mr. Hu
Now imagine two samurai, facign each other standing completely motionless, swords undrawn

Hedgie
okay ...

Mr. Hu
trying to feel for want of a better word, each other's spirit / inner calm / experience

Hedgie
observing each other

Mr. Hu
very deeply

Hedgie
okay

Mr. Hu
but here's the twist
After a while one of them will bow deeply, turn and walk away. No swords are drawn
But the one who walked away lost

Hedgie
Right, fair enough, I suppose they know what they're doing.

Mr. Hu
So imagine the differnece between thinking you can beat this guy (fencing) and knowing deep down you can beat this guy (samurai)

Hedgie
okay ...
Not sure how this applies, but conceptually willing to go with it

Mr. Hu
cool
No go back to tango embrace
Imagine the difference between focussing on your technique as you dance and focussing on him as you dance

Hedgie
That's okay, it makes sense, but I still seem to manage just about (although it's tough) even after a 3-hour workshop

Mr. Hu
hee hee

Hedgie
So there must be a fair amount of leeway there
For potential follower distraction
And I would have thought it would be enough to accommodate her easily
It feels like a reasonable explanation but it doesn't seem enough

Mr. Hu
There's a difference between knowing that it's possible, being interested in doing it but being distracted , and not knowing it's possible at all

Hedgie
Oh. Okay
Maybe it's that then
That's tough to solve

Mr. Hu
Or I guess more simply, I can drive and talk and still get you home. If all I could do was talk...

Hedgie
We'd go nowhere

Mr. Hu
Yup

Hedgie
And if all you could do was drive we'd still get there

Mr. Hu
Yup

Hedgie
just less interestingly

Mr. Hu
Which is probably you in the above example

Hedgie
Yeah, okay
Above, when you said you thought you understood it since Friday
I don't know what happened on Friday, or which Friday
i.e.that you might know what he was on about

Mr. Hu
Last Friday had a ephiphany dancing with someone at Negracha

Hedgie
Oh right
What was the epiphany

Mr. Hu
that there's a lot more to plugging in than meets the eye

Hedgie
Was the dance working, or not working?

Mr. Hu
Working very well. never experienced anything like it in tango before

Hedgie
Ace

Mr. Hu
Yup. But conversely given that your friend is a lot more expereinced than I am, if he's after that and beyond, I can see why he's getting grumpy

Hedgie
Right

Mr. Hu
In a similar vein I can totally see why you would choose to dial it back with someone who had messed up posture / musicality etc

Hedgie
As in why the follower would?

Mr. Hu
Both

Hedgie
Right

Mr. Hu
Which I think was what he was trying to tell me with a story about him dancing with someone who looked really good, but felt ugh

Hedgie
I suppose. Actually, I think I have an idea now about what it is. Let me try turning it off and on at the practica next week and you can tell me whether that's it, or not.

Mr Hu
Okay

[Part 2 to follow]

Technique

Partly a response to Tangocommuter, but for me, it's just not complicated.

What does 'technique' mean to me?

You are easier and more fun to dance with if you have good balance, mobility, posture, control, clarity, confidence, freedom, flow, connection, and a nice reliable comfortable embrace that feels good. I am easier and more fun to dance with if I have good balance, mobility, posture, control, clarity, confidence, freedom, flow, connection, and a nice reliable comfortable embrace that feels good. The more we have those things, the more we can just get on with it and dance. That's what technique means to me. It means all the things that enable us to forget about how we do what we do and get on with the fun stuff.

My partners' technique

Other things being equal, partners with excellent technique are more fun to dance with than partners with good technique. Partners with good technique are more fun to dance with than partners with acceptable technique. Partners with acceptable technique are dramatically easier and more fun to dance with than partners who have poor technique - the step from poor to acceptable is the most important step. Poor means you hurt to dance with, and ruin my connection for everybody else, and I'd rather not do that, even if you're a lovely bloke and have been extremely kind to me. If the technique is poor, it does not matter whether those 'other things' are equal or not, they're not going to help us. If it's acceptable or upwards, they matter a lot.

My technique

I want to have good technique. I want to have have good balance, mobility, posture, control, clarity, confidence, freedom, flow, connection, and embrace. The more I have those things, the more freely we can dance. There is certainly some level of excellence I will not be able to reach, because of my personal limitations of talent, priorities, opportunity and time, but there's no reason not to do what I can.

If I can be exactly where we meant to be, exactly when we meant it, we have more possibilites than we have if I am just a bit off. We can do all those teeny tiny things that are the same as each other but completely different. We can be totally in the music. We can do more with it. We can have fun with it. We can inspire each other. We can both forget about everything else and really get into it. I can feel your heart. We can just get on with it and actually dance.

The better I dance, the more I can enjoy the extra possibilites of excellence in my partners.

I felt somebody's heart on Friday - I don't usually hear his heart. The DJ was playing some fantastic stuff (it was 'La Rubia') and we were really into it. To feel somebody's heart through a good suit jacket, you have to zone in and he has to be in the right place as well. And even then, it only means anything if other things are right. It's awesome. I feel like I shouldn't talk about it. But the better I dance, the more those moments happen and the more awesome they are. It's that simple.

How to get good technique

It would make sense to me if you did something that you thought would improve your balance, mobility, posture, control, clarity, confidence, freedom, flow, connection, or embrace. But who knows how you can best do that? Look, do whatever works for you. Private practice, lessons, yoga, group classes, exercise, feedback from someone you know and you think is well qualified to give it, whatever. You don't need advice from some random chick on the internet when you don't even know if she can dance or not.

A note about body conditioning

In the 1930s and 40s, working class women didn't own washing machines. My mother can describe her grandmother doing the washing in the fifties: it was many hours of hard physical labour. Just try filling a copper from a hand-pumped pipe that isn't anywhere near it, and heating a few gallons of water over a hand built fire, and washing a whole family's cotton and woollen clothes and bedding by hand, with a coal fire and the copper and a sink and a lot of soap and a scrubbing board and a mangle and a washing line. When I think about that, I ask myself about ordinary women's physical condition in the golden age of tango, and whether it might make some sense to do some work on that, since I sit in front of a keyboard all week long. Actually doing it is another matter, because I'm as lazy as anybody, but that's how I think about this stuff. Your mileage may vary.

The pursuit of Elegance - or not

I've always deliberately disregarded any instruction in a dance class that justifies itself based on making something look better, because I just find that such instructions are totally useless to me.

If you get good at something that has a form and function seperate from its looks, you're going to look pretty good doing it, automatically. Making efforts to make a thing look a certain way, before getting actually good at it, just doesn't make any sense at all to me as an approach. It distracts me from the function of what I'm doing, confuses me and leaves me not knowing what the hell I'm trying to do. And the results whenever I've attempted it have been awkward, artificial, and in bad taste.

It doesn't achieve the goal, and most of all, trying to implement arbitary rules of movement based on looks immediately messes up my following, which is far too big a sacrifice to make even for five minutes.

Form follows function: people who dance efficiently, with balance, stability, comfort, ease, precision, speed, without straining or wasted effort or artificiality or exaggeration or pretension, expressively, musically, softly, feelingly, considerately, enjoyably, look wonderful. And they look good directly because of those things, without any need for ornament or arbitrary rules that serve only looks. When I see "elegance" in someone else's dance, I'm seeing the same sort of elegance I see in an "elegant solution" when I'm looking at software, or the cut of a dress, or the design of a bridge. A sincere and perfect fulfilment of purpose.

I need to let my body find its elegant solution. It has to come from the inside.

And also, I find a focus on 'elegance' alienating and depressing. That's not what I'm dancing for. It's what I'm dressing for. I'm right behind the idea of looking great while dancing, and an outfit that perfectly fulfils its social and practical goals with the perfect economy of effort, is as automatically elegant as a dance that does the same. But I can put an outfit on anytime. I'm dancing because it feels great, for the same sort of reason that some people play golf or climb rocks. Looking good, if I do, is a bonus, but it's not the goal.

I guess I take the same approach with my knitted animals. They generally don't have any features or surface decoration that don't contribute to the form, and the more successful ones are more that way than the less successful ones.

I'm sure the elegance-approach makes some people graceful, if it inspires you and motivates you and helps you grasp what you're trying to do, then go to it, but it doesn't work for me.

Jaimito and the six-pack

Good luck to Jaimito, at Milonga Para Tres, in his experiment:

"There is a common belief among some people that it is impossible, or at least very difficult, to be in incredible shape and have a comfortable embrace. ... So right after I get stuffed tonight for Thanksgiving dinner, I'll start an experiment to get incredibly ripped, and still have a comfortable embrace, which will be verified through pictures and through the opinions of milongueras who dance with me."

Go for it! The common belief, incidentally, is bollocks. It's certainly possible to be in pretty good shape and have a great embrace. I haven't closely inspected the six-packs of any of the dancers I'm thinking of, so I can't tell you for certain how well defined they are, but I can think of several definitely fit men with definitely working tummy muscles and beautiful snuggly embraces. And fat men who you just bounce off of, boinngg.

I also happen to know that if you train in the right way, it is possible to use your tummy muscles to make the woman laugh. However, I don't advise you to try this unless you're pretty sure she's going to.

Getting dizzy, or not

Most of the time, when my partner leads more than a couple of complete turns in the same direction, I get dizzy. I appreciate a turn or two the other way, to counteract the motion in my inner ear. If it happens that we stop just after the turn - as can happen when someone is showing me or practicing something - then I feel the need to unwind myself before the conversation goes on.

I don't know any way of preventing this - I've been advised to open my eyes, but I can't really tell if this helps or not, and whether I have my eyes closed or open usually depends on other things. Once I notice being dizzy it's too late.

But on this occasion, we went round and round and round and round and round and round really fast in a really tight circle, faster than I had any idea I could go, and then it was the end, and I expected to feel dizzy, and I even said something about it as I was expecting it to hit me, but then I noticed that it sort of hadn't. I did feel a tiny bit dizzy, but what I mostly felt was out of breath.

What I want to know is, why?

Does being hot and out of breath overwhelm it?

I also happen to know that this particular person, besides being a very good dancer, specifically cultivates the ability to make women feel like they've hit it out of the park against good bowling. He's extremely stable, well built, physically fit, and has a particularly firm and reliable embrace. But there are other people who dance very well and have good embraces and I still get dizzy. So, is there something the leader can do, about the way he turns, to prevent the woman getting dizzy?

Was it something to do with the sheer speed? I think the centre of the turn must have been between us rather than centred on him, but I don't remember for sure.

Was it because we happened to be very much on the spot (the floor was nearly empty and it made sense with the music) rather than turning and progressing both at once? Does that make it easier not to be dizzy?

Maybe we just took a lot of small steps to get around the turn and we weren't really turning as much as I thought we were? I didn't dare open my eyes, so I didn't really have the faintest idea where we were in relation to anything except each other. Maybe the world wasn't whizzing past as fast as I imagined.

After we whizzed past the number of turns where I usually would have got dizzy I did notice something rising inside that said "I'm not giving in here". So maybe this sensation caused me to do something physically, I don't know what, that moderated the dizziness? I did think very strongly about dancing towards him, and letting my feet take care of themselves, so maybe there's something there that I can use in future.

Was it because it happened to be at the end of the tanda, and I got to stand still and hug him for a few seconds before having to walk to a chair? But that was exactly when I was expecting to feel dizzy, and I just don't think I really did. Or only a tiny bit.

Peculiar. Hard to know.

[Update: discussion in the comments suggests that high speed is the explanation - if you go fast enough it's easier to recover. But they won't work for the leaf-on-a-stream sort of turn that's much more common in tango]

What's happening here?

What's happening here at 01:29-01:35? Is it led (obviously where she is going is led, I mean the way she is going there) and if it is her own variation what is it a variation on, i.e. what is he leading? Is it just a forward walk with some pivot or is there some element of lean-and-drag?



I think it requires a slippery floor and when I imagine making that movement I feel that it might be naturally inspired by a slippery floor. But it looks delightfully bonkers, I think it's great just there, and I want to know what is really happening.

Hat tip Alex, who has a post with eight different performances to this gorgeous milonga.

Fun music thing to do at a practica

I discovered this accidentally with a friend and practice partner. I was in the off-floor bar area at a milonga, and I had in one hand about the remaining half of a large alcoholic drink.

A milonga came on that I know well and like a lot, but no partner happened to be in sight except a friend who clearly wanted a rest, and I didn't care to abandon my drink in the absence of someone reliable.

So I started dancing around all by myself, stepping and occasionally twirling with my own interpretation of the music.

After a moment, my friend started stepping with me; effectively, following me from a few feet away. As far as I remember we did this for most of a couple of milongas, just dancing around in the bar, with me drinking my drink.

It's often said that women can learn a lot about what's inside the music by following people who know it well, but men rarely have that opportunity. This way, he could follow me without me having to be able to lead or him having to use anything but the most basic concept of following.

Once we had finished fooling around I went back inside and forgot all about it, but he reckons he got a lot out of it. So much so that he went off and persuaded his regular teacher to do the same thing. I don't know if that's why, but I feel his dance has got dramatically more musical a few weeks later. I suppose it's just listening together with someone who hears more, and the fact that you're moving your whole body as well makes it more effective.

Anyway it's fun to do, especially with a large drink. Maybe lots of people do this, but I'd never seen it done.

A little bit of 'nuevo'

Now who would have thought all that practice with good dancers dancing 'milonguero' style (i.e. v intense unbroken close embrace) would transfer directly into throwing crazy nuevo in an (unbroken, rather 'apilado') v-embrace? I haven't done this for a really long time but I delivered it much better than I ever have before. And otherwise I thought I'd largely lost what I'd gained (not all of it, but a big chunk of it).

It's not the style that I feel most naturally but that doesn't mean I don't enjoy it. It's not as intense mentally, and it's a lot more physically demanding, but it's really musical when it works and I love it.

This particular partner dances very musically and we were dancing to a tanda that included "Recien", a piece I like very much, and I feel this style works well with that kind of music, so I could do it sincerely. However, few people who dance that style would choose to invite me if there were alternative partners who dance it regularly (in this case there I don't think there were).

It has practical problems in that it's big and requires a lot of space, which is one reason I really wish we had enough actually-good milongas that there could be a real 'nuevo' one where there was good music, plenty of room and not quite such a mix of styles and competencies (which makes it so much harder for the leaders). At least you need the space. It wasn't crowded, so we got away with it, but it's not ideal.

Diagnostics

A lot of experienced leaders have diagnostics they run to find out what the woman can deliver if they haven't danced with her before. They're all things that won't be noticed if they don't work too well, but give you a lot of information.

There must be lots I'm not aware of at all. But here are the ones I think I know about:

Different stride lengths.
Anything involving a forward step for the follower.
Especially a step right into the leader.
Tiny, slo-o-o-w step.
Pause between steps with feet apart. Hesitations.
Slo-o-o-w cross.
Small boleo in a safe place, just to see what happens.
Turn-and-block without the following step-over that most people expect the woman to do with no lead and despite the blocking. Reverse it and do something else ...

Also:
Ampster on dialling in.
Mari on un tal Gavito - diagnostics before doing a back sacada.

Ganchos and sincerity

Here's the deal on me and ganchos.

My free leg technique isn't pro level.

We are never likely to be going fast enough or to have enough momentum for my foot to swing up high as a natural movement. There's always - always - a tedious moment of standing still and thinking “oh, here comes a tedious trick to make us both look silly” before it happens. I think, and I get bored, very fast under certain conditions. It loses the flow completely.

I've been taught to fake them quite well (I was taught to turn the leg slightly so the heel goes towards him, and to swing rather than kick or hold) but it's a completely voluntary movement. This, I think, is what most people do, and it's certainly what I do after the wait for positioning is over, the reveille has stopped sounding, and I get some sort of a lead.

I'll usually fake it at least once, as long as the man hasn't done too many other things to annoy me. If it's once in a tanda, the man dances with real feeling for the music (that is, having some apparent sense of the melody and phrasing and at least the most obvious emotional content, as opposed to just being on the beat), and it's in the right place, then, okay. At least then there are other reasons to do it, beyond whatever version there is of a lead.

If I don't really intend to ever dance with him again, I can fake cheerfully because it's just the once. It depends. If there's anything else so seriously wrong that I don't care if it annoys him, I probably won't fake. I'll just stand there and smile and pretend not to understand if he starts talking.

If he were a friend, I might fake for the sake of peace or the conversation. But in strict moderation.

Basically the reason I don't like them is that my limitations, quite apart from the difficulty of the lead, make them insincere, and I prefer to dance sincerely. That movement isn't something I would ever spontaneously do to express tango music, and it isn't something I would naturally do in response to even the best of leads that actually happen in reality in social dancing. It requires a higher level of technique than is going to happen. I don't like my moment being killed, and I don't like faking.

I prefer what I am doing when I dance to be faithful to a reasonably consistent overall aesthetic concept, and that means not faking things. That's just the way it works for me.

[Update: when I click Publish on a blog post, Blogger shows me a 'success' page with some ads on it. It reads what I publish to try to guess what I am interested in. On publishing this one, Ads By Google offered me the following:

The Top 10 Golf Mistakes?
Biomechanics Software
Gait Analysis Software
Golf Swing Technique

Wrong, but still sort of spooky.]