Comme Il Faut vous mettre au courant

So, an update on my very expensive new shoes. I took my CiFs out for the first time this week, on a day when I was terribly tired before I started dancing, but had really good dances and felt less tired afterwards. One of those evenings - a good one.

The soles feel extremely thin. They really need the gel ball-of-foot pads, I'm sure I would get a burning pain without them, but that's OK because I routinely put them in all my shoes anyway. With the pads they feel fine. I wouldn't want to walk on concrete, but no problems on a wooden floor. I also noticed that the label on the sole has prominent edges and digs into the skin; that was easily solved with heel cushions, which I also use, but less routinely. So equipped, they're very comfortable. The floor on their first evening out happened to be slightly sticky, so the slipperiness of new soles wasn't a problem.

Street shoes with a strap across always have it fixed with elastic. This is never the case with dancing shoes, and it isn't here. That would have alarmed me as a beginner, but I know now that the thing to do is do up the buckle loosely; dancing shoes don't rub and don't need elastic, or to be tightly fastened.

They do feel incredibly light. I'm not quite sure yet how much I like this, but it's definitely good to have the option. At first it felt like flimsiness, but then a few things bounced off them and I started to suspect they were (as I am) physically tougher than their delicate build suggests.

I'm still puzzled by the fact that they're exactly the same height as my favourite pair of shoes, but they look higher. At first they felt higher, too, but I think it's something to do with the balance. Once I got used to this, and to the lightness, it was sort of floaty, and I may well grow to like this a lot.

I feel they are balanced quite strongly towards the middle, increasing the tendency to dance on the inner side of the ball of the foot. This is probably good rather than bad, but I must take care to stop if it hurts.

The heels are pretty lethal. Luckily I was more careful with them than some of my leaders; I pulled back a few times before a touch turned into a stab.

Overall, the functional performance was very good and there's no reason not to wear them whenever they go with my clothes - and maybe sometimes when they don't.

The way they look has really grown on me. I like the colour and the peep-toe, which is my favourite toe style. But the thing that struck me most about the experience of wearing them was how much more than ever before the women sitting beside the dance floor stared openly at my feet. I suppose this is expected, and is rather the point, but the degree of it downright startled me. I was having a good night, with some good leads, but there was no real difference in my dancing. Just the shoes!

Dynamic lead-and-follow

M.B., this one is for you. With thanks to Psyche who pointed them out to me. It's Martin Maldonado and Maurizio Ghella at a festival. Watching some of the other videos available on YouTube, I deduce that Martin is the shorter one.


I like performances where the couple, while not necessarily smiling, look as though they want to be dancing in general, and to be dancing with each other in particular. Which is the case here. I suppose that's how I perceive a good connection. Here the connection is extremely interesting because of the way they exchange the lead. It's as fluid and dynamic as the way some people switch from a close embrace to an open one and back again. Notice at 02:16 how the embrace passes through symmetry and lingers there for a while. More variations in this (lower quality) video.

Because they dance together exchanging lead and follow, and are near-equal in size, mass, and shape, you can see how the dance changes depending on who leads and who follows, and how leading or following changes the way someone's personality comes out through the dance.

Suddenly Packed @ 33 Portland Place

I went to 33PP for the second time this Sunday, (see review from my first visit here) and it was packed. Word must have got round. The floor was pretty crowded, but I don't think I had any bumps. Last Sunday, I think I did see Stefano Fava there, not dancing but having a good old look, so maybe he liked it and told all his students. I certainly saw some. Anyway, they used the bigger room upstairs, which is very beautiful, and also opened the other room that leads off it. Be aware that the floor upstairs has a very slippery bit at the right hand edge, and some uneven spots; I'd be cautious about wearing true stilettos, or shoes with very thin soles. My Taras were fine. They weren't expecting nearly so many people, and they'd run out of drinks by the time I'd had my first dance. I'd arrived late, and it was cheaper to get in.

It was really lovely to see this long room, with its giant mirrors and balconies, full of dancing people. Properly dancing, not just getting drunk and bopping around.

Anyway, if the same thing happens next week, the owner has asked them to use the two rooms on the two seperate floors. I think that will be awkward, separating the dancers, and I wonder how they'll manage with the music. It was a bank holiday weekend, though, so it might calm down next week.

Comme Il Faut

Well, I've finally caved and given Comme il Faut tango shoes a chance.

The ladies at the Adelaide had about thirty or forty styles, ten or so in my size. I was pleasantly surprised by the sizing. All the size 37s I tried were recognisably size 37, which was not the case when I did the same thing with Bianca's Darcos stock last year. The width around the toes is reasonably good; I would have expected long and narrow fitting, Italian-style. That means that, having tried some on, I might order online if I really liked the style.

I'm very far from crazy about most of the Comme il Faut styles. The heels look anorexic, the toes are often mean, the surface elaboration fussy, lurid and pretentious. The general effect is of plastic tits (another commodity popular, and cheaper, in Buenos Aires) falling out of a too-small bikini. It has Footballers' Wives written all over it, minus the satire.

Their irritating marketing, success in the States, and distinctive 'look' also means that a pair of these are, inescapably, how you pretend you've arrived. I dislike this. I'd generally prefer to under-promise and over-deliver rather than the contrary, and I'm unwilling to risk being another average dancer wearing pretentious, attention-seeking shoes. Another downside is, of course, that they're very expensive. Shipping costs have recently ballooned, so every style on offer was £120.00. That's at least £150% of what I'm generally willing to spend, but it's about the same as my Taras, which are well made and I do like.

However. They have so many styles and colours that they can't help getting it right now and then by brute force of trying. At the Adelaide there were three styles I quite liked, a plain red suede which wasn't in my size, a dark blue which wasn't either, (and I have blue shoes already) and a slightly bluish green-and gold in my size. Most of the styles go with nothing on earth, but I wear a lot of green and blue and I thought these could be made to go with several of my outfits. This style is pretty, the 'look' might grow on me, I can afford them, and it's a poor heart that never rejoices.

And the main reason - I hear far too much about them, and I can't know if they're really so great or not until I have a pair of my own and give them a chance to perform. I know people who have them and love them and love dancing in them; I also know people who have them and never wear them because they look silly and don't go with anything, or just don't work. These people naturally tend to be quieter about having wasted their money than are those who made a good purchase, so it's hard to know how many of them there are. I suspect that even people who rave about them often have a few unused pairs in the back of the cupboard, which is a bit poor at £120 a pop.

So here they are. Getting them out of the bag and taking a picture, I like them more than I did before. Trying them on with the intended outfits, a sharp excresence of plastic on the left heel immediately damages my skirt, and I realise that the green is indeed lurid and doesn't actually quite blend with anything at all. But in the dim light at a milonga, it won't matter. Walking around the flat, I'd say the comfort level and stability are both inferior to my other shoes of the same height, and the soles feel very flimsy, but they're probably OK. A pair of Party Feet makes them wearable, but I think I'll want to add heel cushions, too, before dancing in them for long. I'm a little dubious about the arch - I'm not convinced it's in contact with my foot, but I'll have to see how that goes with wear. I now like them slightly less than when I took the picture, but I feel they might wear in well. Practicing a few forward-back-side-forward turns round a chair doesn't disabuse me of the idea that when I first test them, I should take another pair with me as a change.

So, will I regret my purchase? I don't know yet. I'll put them into action this week. [Update: results here.]

Dad Tracker

My Dad, who is not religious but has just retired and likes walking, is currently on the Cammino de Santiago. He is walking from St. Jean Pied-de-Port, in France, across the Pyrenees and the whole north of Spain to Santiago de Compostela near the Atlantic coast.

This is an ancient pilgrims' route, and is the subject of the twelfth-century Liber Peregrinationis, considered to be the first known tourist guide. There's a Flash map here of the entire route. Once you're past the intro you can use the little arrows or click on the map to see some information about each stage of the route. Among other things it shows you a graph of the altitude, and lists the local delicacies of each town.

He arrived in St. Jean on the 20th and is sending me a text message from every stop. He split the first leg, crossing the mountains, in two, and reported "scenery amazing buzzards and kites" on the 21st. On the 22nd he was in Roncesvalles, Spain, and the scenery was still amazing. On the 23rd he covered 23 kilometres and requested my postcode for postcard-writing purposes. On the 24th he was in Pamplona. Yesterday the continued rain made steep paths into waterfalls or mudslides, difficult terrain.

Today he is in Puente La Reina, which is asleep, and reports that there are storks nesting on the church.

The Adelaide

There is a Sunday afternoon milonga at The Adelaide, 143 Adelaide Road, Primrose Hill, NW3. It's organised by Richard Schramm and Tony Walker, you get tea and cakes and a staffed bar, and Comme Il Faut shoes for men and women are on sale.

Layout and atmosphere: The Adelaide is an airy pub, in a suburb so full of leaves I couldn't see the bus stop. The white-bearded pub DJ directed me upstairs. There are two large rooms, one with the bar, the seating, and the shoe shop, and a long narrow rectangular room with faded murals in a sort of naive-Chinoiserie, which is the dance floor. Beause one room is for dancing and the other for seating, with just a largish open doorway in between, it's not possible to sit and watch, and I think that contributes to the floor see-sawing between crowded and half-empty. Around the other room are hung paintings and cartoons on the subject of social tango - these are for sale, and they do add to the atmosphere, which is very pleasant on a soft Spring day. The crowd was older-on-average, but, as usual, not at all exclusively. Your tea is served in a miscelleaneous, quickly circulating collection of patterned cups and saucers, which add their small voices of colour and charm. You get a proper plate and a metal spoon for your cake. The dance floor is pretty good, narrow but even. The large Star of David incised in the middle of it is strange; perhaps some fashionable NW3 cult has the room on Tuesdays.

What I thought of the DJing: Tony played quite a few tracks that had long intros and outtros, were very difficult to hear at the far end of the room, or were messed-about and 'modernised' versions of things that I probably would have liked more the first time round. There were also bursts of straightforward traditional stuff which suddenly emptied the seating, and the dancefloor went from challenging to half-empty and back again several times. I gathered that they are trying to find a way to get the sound down to the far end better, and doing that would make more of the music work and even things out a bit.

Hospitality: Good. Your entry price includes tea and cakes, for which you are handed a ticket, which the bar staff won't ask for. The tea is nice, and the cakes are good standard commercial fare. Beer and other liquid refreshment is available at the bar. The seating is plentiful, with lots of little wickerwork stools, and quite a few battered sofas and squishy chairs. The loos are pub loos, broom-cupboard size and shape, just-about clean, just-about working. Nowhere to hang your coat; take a kitbag.

The website: There isn't one. Monitor Tango-UK for announcements.

Getting in: £8, includes tea and cake.

Getting there and getting home: from Chalk Farm underground, cross the road and take a 31 bus. Alight at the sign of the large beige A on a dark red square, which is the second stop after the bus crosses Primrose Hill road, and you are there. Or you could very well walk - it's not far. Go in, go through the small door in the right-hand near corner, and up the stairs. It is about the same distance from Swiss Cottage underground in the other direction. Ignore the TFL journey planner's walking directions to the postcode, which are misleading. It ends at 18:30, so you can reverse the procedure to get home. It is perfectly feasible to go here and then go to 33 Portland Place and get two milongas on the same Sunday; I went home for dinner in between, and had a shorter session at 33PP.

How it went: Although not all the music made me want to dance, the seating was so comfortable and the company so pleasant that I didn't mind at all. It was nice to have the opportunity to try on some Comme Il Faut shoes, which I'll post about seperately. I had a dance or two with people I knew and a dance or two with people I didn't, and a very pleasant time just trying on and discussing shoes, chatting, and drinking tea.

The Head On One Side

Ok, this is a little technical thing for my fellow tango dancers to discuss.

I can't work out if this problem is a problem with some men I dance with, or a problem with me. It only happens with certain people, so it's not something I do all the time, and it happens with some who are taller than me as well as with some who are shorter. I have a long neck. That might be important, but I'm not sure. Anyway:

What causes some men to incline their heads sharply to the right when they're dancing, pushing mine forcibly out of the way?

Whatever I do, it's going to hurt at the end of the dance because my neck has been bent over to my left the whole time. Occasionally I try to fight it, but they just push back harder, I lose, and my neck hurts even more. Sometimes I try to escape by opening the embrace into a V-shape, but that doesn't really work because, although my head is now straight instead of on one side, the push is now being directed right in my face.

And not being able to hold my head up straight is not just uncomfortable, but gives me other problems. It gives me problems with the embrace, because it's not possible to relax my shoulders if I can't relax my neck, and problems with balance, because having my brain-case above my left shoulder rather than above my spine is quite a serious distortion of weight and momentum.

I would have thought that it gave the men those last two problems as well, which I why I don't really get where it comes from.

Why does this happen, and is there anything non-verbal I can do to stop it?