Cherie has some interesting pictures of what people do with the open-side hand.
Of course there are problems we all have to solve about how much pressure to give with this hand, and when. It's not easy to judge, especially when that arm aches from the day's work already. I know I don't always get it right; sometimes I'm too stiff, sometimes wobbly. A lot can go wrong with this simple thing.
But let's assume for a moment that we can manage a gentle, equal and opposite springiness, so that I can follow well and you can lead well.
Given that, I don't mind what you want to do as long as:
You don't hold my hand above my head, so it hangs from yours like a drunk in a doss house. (My shoulder level's better, but I can cope with as high as my ear).
You don't forcibly twist the palm of my hand outwards or upwards. It hurts. I work behind a screen all day, I do this blogging stuff in my spare time, and now you're adding to the damage. Please let me keep my wrist straight.
You don't do anything ostentatiously affected that makes you look like the matador and me look like the cloak.
I'm sorry to say all three of the above apply to the Flying Teapot, where you pretend to pour tea from a height into your ear, and I feel like a piece of washing pegged out on a line. This particularly annoys me because the men who do it are often good dancers, who dance a gentle, musical style that the woman can really enjoy, and who have made sincere, prolonged, and partially successful efforts to imitate the Tango Gods who've taught this bizarre little quirk. I am extremely unwilling to risk offence.
So there's no way I'm risking a No. It's not painful enough to sacrifice a good dance, although I may well regret it the next morning. And I'm not so good a dancer that I can afford to protest at a practice that has the explicit personal endorsement of the people who've seen fit to endorse this one. (I doubt these deities do or did it quite so much when they weren't posing; but it's visually distinctive and inspires imitation. A pose is ok; four minutes is too much).
But this is my blog, so I can start a rumour that it might just have its downside in a non-professional context.
Ooooh, controversial. Jump in the comments with your views. If you sometimes do the Flying Teapot, please explain why you chose it, or who taught it to you, and what they said; the comments are much more interesting if your views differ from mine. I'm willing to concede on the looks point. Pain is a fact, and so are my own physical limitations, but one woman's affectation is another woman's elegance, one woman's pegged-out washing another's artfully-draped haute couture.
It was announced on Tango-UK that Fernando Sanchez and Nayla Vacca will be teaching a class at the Dome on 9th July "teaching in London for the first time".
Actually they taught a class at the Crypt (it was Paul and Michiko's night) when they first came to England about this time last year. But it was only one class, so the mistake is quite trivial. I missed the class that evening, but came in before its end. Fernando was teaching in a pair of frayed jeans much too long for him, and I remember thinking "child, your Mum needs to accept that you're not going to grow into those, and get you a pair of shorter trousers". They both seemed very sweet and they danced beautifully, but they looked about sixteen.
Then they changed into beautiful black dress and suit for the performance. He looked like a toddler dressed up for a wedding, especially in the milonga.
Anyway, I wanted an excuse to post this video. The dancing is nice, but isn't this a beautiful room? It looks like the kind of conservatory-extension that sometimes gets built on to the standard English semi-detached house (I think Americans call it a duplex). But a large one, perhaps replacing the garage; and some hand of genius has installed a pure white dance floor, and mirrors along the inside wall. It looks out onto a typical garden, full of that lush, deep, various green, so much greener than it is down here. The day is overcast, and the light is pure silver. This light, this room, and this garden could very well be in Leeds, where Fernando and Nayla have been in the meantime, but I don't know for sure.
I see Fernando has grown a beard, probably a sensible plan.
My Dad has celebrated his retirement by walking methodically all the way across northern Spain from St. Jean Pied-de-Port (in France) to Santiago de Compostela.
He got there before lunchtime today. Here he is in front of the cathedral.
It took him just over a month, from 20th May to 26th June. After spending a week with a friend of his in Galicia, he'll be back here wondering what to do next.
And below is a map of all the waypoints I blogged here and here, courtesy of Google.
My Mum, meanwhile, is in the Antipodes, visiting her relations and meeting their sheep. I miss her too. Both of them will be back soon, and thoroughly pleased to see each other.
Can I just say that that pie was a work of genius.
Mmm, they said, somewhere in Sussex, I do like Madras with lime pickle. It's very nice. I know what we'll do, we'll put it on beef and onions, and stick it in a pie. People will like that.
The makers of this deeply British dish are called Farm 2 Kitchen and can sometimes be found at Walthamstow Market (outside the Library) on Sundays. Among many other pies, they also do the "Aztec," which involves beef, chillies, and chocolate.
If they had a website, I'd link to it, but they don't. According to the label on the pie I've just consumed, somewhere in Sussex was Unit 6, Bates Green Farm, BN26 6SH, tel 01424 843 413, email at AOL, f2kpies.
My Dad is still walking across Northern Spain, and texting me daily. I'm making a new post, rather than 'bumping' the old one, because bumping the post is just awkward. And also, he's found out how to send me pictures from his phone, and I've found out how to forward them to my email. For his journey from St. Jean Pied-de-Port, France, on 20th May, to León on 14th June, now with added pictures, see Dad Tracker 2.0.
16th June: 31k today. 3k to Astorga, then over the mountains at west edge of meseta. Blister on little toe, but surviving. 17th June: Good day, lovely scenery and weather, looking forward to climb to highest point tomorrow, 1500m, less to descend. 18th June: Molinaseca, 8k from Ponferrada. Wonderful weather and mountain scenery, difficult descents. Picture: Montes de Leon (left). 19th June: Long, hot day. 30k to Villafranca, should reach Galicia tomorrow, feet permitting. Long, hard climb. 20th June: Missing everyone. In Galicia. Wonderful day's walking in mountains. Picture, with love from Galicia (right). And a second picture of flowers (left), "Looks like the Lake District here". 21st June: 30k to Samos, Galicia. Huge monastery. 22nd June: Ferreira (can't find on map). 100k to go. 23rd June: Palacio do rei. Rather dull day, walk, and place, but can take easy now, only three days from Santiago. 24th June: Arzua tonight, 45k to go. 25th June: In Arca (can't find on map), 21k to go. Should be in Santiago for lunch tomorrow.
So, a much briefer account of three more classes with Jorge Dispari and Marita 'La Turca' organised by Tango in Action. (I'm spelling it Marita, the same as TiA do on their website, because I clearly heard Jorge so pronounce it - but mostly you see it written 'Maria'. Will someone tell me, is Marita just a diminutive? If so, I'll go back to writing it the usual way.) Previously: Class 1 (Essentials of Villa Urquiza style, embrace, posture, elegance), and Class 2 (essence of milonga walk).
3) Technique for the Tango Walk: details, tips and suggestions for the perfect Tango de Salon Walk
I didn't go to this one, although I considered it, so this is second-hand. But, I did dance at the weekend with a regular partner who had taken it, and his dance had been subtly but completely transformed. He was nicer than average to dance with before, and sometimes very nice, but suddenly he was a lot nicer. Apparently, he had had the class telling off, to the effect of "stop doing spins - nobody does spins - and it's very rude to do them less than two-thirds of the way through a dance" - and had had a revelation that it's fun to just walk. He was the sort of leader who never does moves he can't do, but constantly worries about boring the woman, not realising that if she has a trace of her own musicality she probably gets pretty bored with constantly expressing someone else's. Somehow, the Disparis had got this idea through to him. His dance had coalesced into a delightful musical walk with the occasional smooth turn or half-turn, and I was a happy hedgehog. There was also something about not repeating crosses too close together. My informant was finding by experiment that this advice was good, but he wasn't quite sure what Jorge's point had been, or why it worked; it may have had to do with drifting sideways or interrupting the flow.
Now, 6) Turns: unveiling the secrets for the execution of smooth, elegant turns - balance, hold, the lead and the woman's role, and 7) Turns part II: more advanced turns with complex footwork for leaders and decorations for followers.
These two I did take, and the second followed on from the late-starting first with a fifteen-minute break. I struggled much more with the Spanish than in the previous classes, because there was a lot more digressing as well as a lot more technique. The part about the woman's role included very specific disagreement with people who teach that once the turn starts, the woman should continue going forward, side, back, and so on until it stops. Every step should be distinctly led, Jorge repeated, and the leader's right hand helps to give the forward, backward, or sidewaysness. The woman should never take a single step by rote, and should never, ever have to think about what she should do; she must be free to 'feel'. He told us that some professional couples prearrange a signal with the open-side hands which tells the woman to keep turning so the man can stand on one leg and do ornaments with the other one, and not lead; he condemned this as fake and tasteless, and said it made him think of a poor little horse pulling a giant lorry. The woman should not be doing all this work, in his opinion. [Edit: I forgot a bit. He said here that the man should 'make himself shy,' and be showing the woman off, not himself.] (If you're wondering what this does and doesn't mean technically, watch a few videos of Jorge, and other people, before deciding what you think he's on about. From 02:25 in the video below might be relevant, for example, together with the bit about footwork, below).
Quotes included:
"The lead is round - the turn is round - Marita and I are also round ..." "The turn is linear ... everything in tango is linear ... "
Those weren't, in fact, contradictory in context. The point of the second one was that the turn should start with a short backward step by the woman, the leader releasing her somewhat, and not a sidestep, as most of the class incorrectly assumed. It was not a turn out of the line of dance and back into it, but a turn on the spot, without leaving the line of dance at all.
The man's footwork was technically demanding, featuring a smooth complete turn on the spot, changing feet only once and using an opening and closing coiled-spring movement of the hips. In the second class, another turn was added in the opposite direction. You can see something rather like it, but much more so, in the video above, especially from about 02:35. These foot movements have names, and someone asked about the difference between two of them, but I don't remember that part clearly enough to repeat it. Anyway I don't think it would help much, compared to standing on a smooth floor and trying to work out how to make yourself rotate on the spot by wrapping one leg around the other and then unwrapping them again. The important technical points for men were to do with where the free leg is in relation to the standing leg, in front or behind, and that you open the hips for an outward movement but "squeeze your balls" (I'm not going to reproduce Stefano's pussyfooting translation - I'm telling you what Jorge said) when the free leg comes in front. So those points are probably what you should think about, if you want to try this at home. Other points were that you should always be on the balls of your feet, but without visibly lifting the heel - just releasing it from the ground - and that you always point your foot in the direction you are going, and outward, not in.
I think there's a fair chance that most of those who couldn't do it without losing their balance would find they could do it if they came back to it next week, but also a fair chance that they won't dare trying. Certainly a few were disheartened by the end; some just because they'd booked for too advanced a class.
By the end of the two classes I was exhausted, and my own dancing had gone backwards, if anything. We didn't change partners enough, which makes it far more difficult to find and fix problems.
I'm glad I heard what I heard, and the effect on many of the leaders was certainly good. I also think I learned something from watching Maria. The only point of technique she uttered in my hearing was to do with the free foot, the man's, in fact, tapping down en pointe rather than on tiptoe. But the same certainly applies to hers, if you watch. I felt I learned something from observing her and how she moved and responded to the music. I would have to be feeling a lot happier in myself and more sure of my leader to make use of what I learnt, but I have done my best to file it for a better day.
I can't tell you about the evening milonga. I was too tired, and couldn't have got there without crying, so I went to bed.
This is classified on YouTube as "Sport - extreme," but I think it's dance. I suppose it's possible that could be said of many body-building competitions. I also think it's amazing. (This is another one for you, MB).
And will somebody please remind me what this piece of music is? I don't think I've heard it recently, perhaps not since the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the tune is deeply familiar to me. It feels like the sort of thing Bestemianova and Bukin might have used in the eighties (remember them?). People in the YouTube comments say it's from a 1992 movie flop called "Conquest of Paradise", but my memory says that's nonsense, for ten-year-olds who've never heard music, like saying Vaughan Williams' Rhapsody on a Theme of Thomas Tallis is "from Master and Commander". It reminds me of part of Carmina Burana, but I don't think I've ever known its actual origin and I'm not even sure what language is being sung. It might be medieval vernacular Latin, like O Fortuna, or it might be almost anything.
And if anyone can read the Chinese characters, do translate.
"I gave [him] the message. He told me (in Spanish): 'You have no idea how nice it was to dance with her, a real pleasure' (here he was rubbing his heart). 'She enjoys dancing so much and you can feel it when you dance with her, it is a wonderful feeling.'"
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