Keeping your feet together, or not

Digging in the drafts file - I never got around to posting a small but interesting thing that happened in the walking class with Ezequiel and Geraldine Paludi.

Leaders were instructed to do a couple of walking steps, and then send the woman to their left in a somewhat open, diagonal backward step which was then followed by a turn. It wasn't complicated, but it immediately shook out an interesting technical issue.

In a lot of cases this setup didn't work. Geraldine called a halt and said that the reason it wasn't working was that most of the followers were trying much too hard to step in a straight line. She showed us again, emphasising that this was a backward-but-open step, and told us we were nearly all trying far too hard to keep our feet together.

Ezequiel then told the leaders not to contort themselves trying to walk to one side and the other of the woman. Instead they should walk in a straight line and move the woman from side to side.

This won't work, of course, unless you can trust the woman to move sideways when you lead her to do so. Now we understood what we were seeing and we tried it again.

My partner for the class observed that he hadn't actually been leading that. As soon as he did - quite easily, once it was pointed out - I did in fact automatically do the right thing, and based on other experience I thought I probably would have followed it correctly anyway even if I hadn't been forewarned. But it was difficult to know.

However, it did strike me as very important and something I should make a special effort to remember. Because trying too hard to snap your feet together and walk on rails, in defiance of what's actually being led, is a bad habit it would be very easy to get into, especially if you took a lot of classes. It's one of those rules-of-thumb that people tend to repeat a lot because it's very useful in its place (I've found it a big help in learning to keep my balance in turns). But the women students can easily give such things an importance they don't deserve, because in most beginner and intermediate classes we are pretty much having to scrabble about in the dirt for any tiny crumb of useful information addressed to us at all. So anything we do find can easily be elevated and overanalysed into an absolute rule. Of course that means you quickly collect a lot of conflicting rules. So those who don't give up in confused frustration very quickly work out that most of what they're hearing only applies provisionally and in context.

I also happen to think that when there is any information for us, it's harmful almost as often as it's helpful, and if you could measure it, it's quite possible you would find that the classes where the women are hardly spoken to at all are the ones which tend to produce better dancers. Certainly compared to the kind of class that adorns a pointless move with even more pointless ornaments. We just feel ripped off and neglected. Of course it could be self-selection, rather than cause and effect; those women who take complete responsibility for the quality of their own dancing are probably using the class as a practice session anyway, and might choose one that isn't going to patronise them with twiddles.

My partner tested the same movement in social dancing later and found that the other followers he danced with did not seem to know what to do with the same lead; it seemed to be a fairly common problem he had not been aware of.

Ent Tango with Subtitles

The sidebar on YouTube explains that this is a take-home summary of important points for the students of a basic technique class.

It happens to be in French, a language I used to speak quite well, but haven't practiced recently enough for it to feel natural. The language makes a sufficient space between me and the (valuable, clearly-presented) content of this class that I can see how completely hilarious it would look to someone who didn't speak French and didn't dance tango. My favourites are the little bits of interpretive-dance that Detlef can't resist doing to reinforce Melina's points, and the bit where they make rainbows side by side. So, my knitting friends and various relations: enjoy.

For those who do dance tango, I have written out full subtitles below. A few time checks are included. The metaphor of the roots makes me imagine Ents dancing tango, hence the title. Detlef has been kind enough to review my translation, and I've incorporated his corrections. [Edit: couple of further corrections in purple - they affect the meaning.]



MELINA: Ok, let's start with the most important thing, our posture. As always - we close our feet and put ourselves forward a little bit on the front of the foot. Not too much, just a little bit. The heels are free of weight.

DETLEF: and the toes, inside the shoes, stay flexible. So there isn't weight on the toes. That would be too much.

M: and a bit further up, the knees stay relaxed, we want to be able to move them, but we won't dance with bent knees, the legs should be straight, but relaxed. A bit further up again, the pelvis rests in a natural position, it's also relaxed. The pelvis is the heaviest part of the body and that should be relaxed and sinking towards the ground.

D: That is, you leave the pelvis in a natural position, you don't do things like this, you leave the pelvis parallel with the ground, and keep the whole of the lower body very relaxed.

M: all of the lower body is very heavy and anchored in the ground, we imagine as though we had little roots between the earth and the soles of our feet. 01:19 The upper body is going to do something different, with the upper body we're going to elongate ourselves upwards, we make ourselves a little bit bigger than usual, we open the chest, and we try to create a space around ourselves.

D: And like that, starting from the posture of the bus stop, we try to construct the tango posture. And this point, {taps breastbone} now, is in front of the pelvis and not behind.

01:55 M: Imagine, as always, that you are a king, or a queen, and this is the internal posture that helps us communicate with our partner. Now, when you approach the partner, you try to keep this volume, this posture, we want to approach our partners and not abandon our own posture.

02:20 D: so, you take care of yourself first, that's always the fundamental thing. We embrace - it's an embrace like at the airport - and the only thing we change is these two arms. And that's basically all. In this position, we'll later dance.

M: But, for the moment, we're going to show you things in a practice hold so that you can see better.

03:00 M: Ok, now let's start with the first element of tango, the change of weight in place. It's a very small movement from one leg to the other, basically it's a horizontal movement, not up-and-down.

D: Yes, because it's a movement of our axis from here to there, that's to say the weight of our body is moved in a horizontal direction. But to make it clearer that we want to stay in the closed position, we add some information.

M: We'll add a third dimension.

D: The third dimension. You can see it better when we dance like this. The basic movement is horizontal, the shoulders stay parallel with the ground and the the heads stay at the same level. And what we'll do now is enlarge the presence, and we arrive on the other foot as though breathing out. We increase the volume in the chest and we reduce it. We do it like crossing over a little bridge, to go from one foot to the other. And we add that to the horizontal movement to make it clearer that the position stays closed.

M: Now let's distinguish between the change of weight in place and an open step.

D: A sideways step.

M: We're going to use the third dimension again for this movement. 04:45

D: the change of weight, it was, going up over the bridge, arriving here. And when we move from one place to another, we do it by descending to the basement. And we arrive on the ground floor again. And the basement again, and the ground floor, and the first floor makes another change of weight. 05:20 Ground floor, first floor, ground floor, basement, ground floor.

05:29 M: and this technique helps us to communicate with our partner, because what we're going to do in tango is not just lead and follow but communicate. The person who's leading will make a proposal to the person who's following, will sense whether the person who is following accepts that proposition, and then he, the person who's leading, follows the person who's following.

D: In other words, in a step in place, you propose this enlargement of presence, and look how the partners arrive together here in complete synchronisation. And when we do a lateral step, we move together to the basement and arrive at the same time and in the same place. The proposition - you can see. I could make the proposition - she has accepted, but I haven't followed her. So what we want to happen is this: 06:35 I propose - I notice that she is going to accept, and I adapt myself to her movement, and that keeps us in front of each other.

06:50M: we're going to do steps forwards and backwards, and we're going to work on that with another circular movement, the natural counter-movement of the upper body. What does that mean? The countermovement, it's to show, by the movement of your upper body, the movement of your legs. 07:16 A countermovement is when, for example, my right leg comes forward, and the left side of my upper body comes forward with it. The countermovement of our body.

D: Always in opposition. That is, when I want to walk forward with my right leg I'm going to pull back the right shoulder and the left shoulder goes forward a little bit and you can see this torsion in the body. And when you walk, like that, it creates a countermovement.

M: and this countermovement of the body helps us to keep balanced ... D: in equilibrium ... M: and helps us to communicate, because it's with the countermovement that he makes the proposal, and that initiates my step.

D: You can see it here. We've done the change of weight, with this circular movement, and I'm going to propose a backward step to her , by turning. 08:15. And I didn't follow then, but I can - by following her at the same time. But the proposal, which was also the lead for my own leg, was created by the torsion.

M: That means that the movement always starts with the upper body, with the countermovement.

08:40 D: We set up our posture again. There's less distance up here than down there. Change of weight - and we try to walk in a straight line. I invite her - for example here with a change of weight - and I invite her also in a step forward for her.

09:04 M: and I take this space in front of me actively, I don't let myself be pulled.

09:15 D: and the roots in the ground make us always synchronised, that means that the roots of each foot, you have to pull them out and push them in to the earth with each step. She doesn't close her feet as quickly as possible, the roots down there and the roots of my foot have to be pulled through the ground by the countermovement. And that gives us the ability to move together, even very slowly, in a very synchronised way.

END

Melina and Detlef also teach in German and in English.

Corporate Life

Last week I was invited to familiarise myself with my employer's horizontal service portfolio offerings. Just in case anyone asks me.

Isn't this something we should get Chennai to do? I swear they wrote the manual, or something.

They could have put "distributed" in there, and nobody would have noticed.

Bit quiet

Sorry it's been a bit quiet here - my computer turned itself into a very expensive brick just after my "where the tango was" post, and I don't like using my work machine much, especially when I'm tired of work.

I've thought about posting some videos I like, with a bit more analysis or discussion than people usually do. But the whole notion seems a bit dull, I seem a bit unqualified, and I can't convince myself. I'm not sure what the angle is. Maybe I'll come back to that.

I've been to see the new Gallery of Nebamun, at the British Museum. It's in Room 61 - go up the stairs at the right-hand end of Egypt. But you can have a reasonable look with the lovely interactive animation on the website. Use the menu buttons on the left, which work better than the animation itself - and you get a "translate hieroglyphs" option which isn't available in the room. The paintings are fascinating artistically, even more than they are historically, I think.

I decided to replace the computer, which was never a very good buy, but the new one probably won't come for another week. I'll try and write anyway.

Sorry
Hedgehog

Enough winter

I wish I was in Antigua, the largest of the isles downwind, where it is 28°C and sunny, watching the cricket, with my knitting, the sweet little Chinese parasol I bought for a summer that never happened, and a radio.

I'm going to end up as Miss Marple. Actually, that wouldn't be bad. The Joan Hickson version, of course, not the other one.

The Guardian O-B-O, in the 11th over, has the Beard Liberation Front's official statement on Stanford's dodgy tache.

Joaquín, I don't get it

I'm returning to page 49-50 of JA's book about tango music. It's quite a short book, and I'm in chapter 9, which is about the form and structure of tango music - how to distinguish the musical phrases in each piece, and how they are arranged and repeated in relation to each other.

It says this:

“Listen to Audio 2.9, where you will hear Phrase 1 answered by Phrase 2, and Phrase 3 answered by Phrase 4. You will hear the whole part at the beginning and then each question-answer seperately.”

I listen. This is fine, perfectly clear. You cannot miss the relationships. Next:

“Sometimes, the answer to Phrase 1 is Phrase 4 and the answer to Phrase 2 is Phrase 3.”

OK, fine. I think this means that the musical phrases, having been established in one relationship to each other, may be repeated in a different order. No problem. Like bellringing, or something.

But then:

“Listen to Audio 3.9, where you will hear the model 1-4 and 2-3. First you will hear the whole part and then the isolated phrases.”

Now, I listen to Audio 3.9, and none of the phrases is the same as any of the the ones in 2.9. It's from a different piece. And they're only played once each; they're not 1-2-3-4 then 1-4-2-3. It just happens once.

So my immediate question is - how did they get the numbers? Why would we say that it's 1 followed by 4, then 2 followed by 3, if I've only heard them in the order they're played here?

Is it because they were played in a different order somewhere else? Digging a bit, I find that 3.9 is part of Shusheta, which is provided in full on the DVD in mp3format, presumably so the student can sort out just this kind of problem.

But surprisingly, it's the opening of Shusheta. This is how the phrases are arranged the first time they appear. If you have a copy of Shusheta you can play it.

So my question is still - what makes them 1 and 4, then 2 and 3? If it comes second the first time around, why doesn't that automatically mean it's 2? How do they get the numbers, if it's not from the order of first appearance? How, exactly, does "3" exhibit threeness?

Is it something to do with the way they sound? If so, that doesn't seem like the kind of thing JA would have left unexplained.

I must have some readers who are working through this book. Has anybody worked this out? I am completely baffled, unless either Audio 3.9 is not the one that was meant to be there, or the explanation has been lost in editing. [<joyce grenfell>Ghost, I have your first answer and it doesn't address the problem. Let someone else try before you post your second, I don't mind waiting ...</joyce grenfell>]

An American Expression

During the early nineties I encountered the American expression "to get your ducks in a row".

As far as I know, it means to reach a state where everything is properly organised and likely to run smoothly. I think it was uttered by an executive from Chicago during some kind of business dealing with my Dad - perhaps the same excecutive who said "Who's da guy from Central Casting?" when confronted with an English lawyer whose name I won't mention. But only when he went out of the room.

I wondered at the time what the metaphor was. I imagined that the ducks were put in a row by some US vernacular procedure, such as shooting them. But recently I discussed this with someone who had a more pleasing suggestion - that ducklings follow their parent in a neatish line.

I still wonder what the metaphor is.