[Tango-L] What Does It Take to Dance Tango?

[Chris, UK]

Keith of The Hong Kong Tango Academy, (www.tangohk.com) asked:

> What gave you such a negative view of tango instructors?

There are teachers that I admire and respect, mostly for their 
one-to-one teaching. And there are teachers of whom I have a negative 
view, including class instructors who say they're teaching social tango 
but in fact are teaching stuff such as your:

 http://web.archive.org/web/20050205050606/tangohk.com/tango_figures.htm

Taking a syllabus of figures and changing the labels Bronze, Silver, and 
Gold to Beginner, Intermediate etc. does not magically make it 
appropriate for learning social tango.

in particular, teaching beginners ochoes as #2, progressing to "Medio 
Giro [Half Turn] to Right with Sacadas [Displacement] (i) Man LF entry 
(ii) Man RF entry with Pencil" even before they've reached intermediate 
does a great disservice to them and to the community, in my opinion.

Yes, I've heard the excuses. And I have sympathy for teachers honest 
enough to admit, like Yale Tango Club here recently, that failing to 
serve beginners wanting Stuff risks losing them to a teacher that does.

But the bottom line is that the end result is not social tango. It is 
anti-social tango.

Chris











-------- Original Message --------

*Subject:* [Tango-L] What Does It Take to Dance Tango?
*From:* "Keith" <keith at tangohk.com>
*To:* tango-l at mit.edu
*Date:* Mon, 21 Aug 2006 06:46:53 -0400

Hi Everybody,

Chris must have had a traumatic experience with Tango instuctors to be 
so cynical and to despise them so much.

With my partner I teach a beginner and improver tango class every Friday 
from 7.30 to 10.00pm. The class morphs from beginner to improver 
somewhere in the middle, depending on the students. It's very relaxed 
and beginners can stay on for the improver class for free and improvers 
can join the beginner class for free.

The class is followed by a milonga from 10.00pm to 1.00am and costs 
HK$50 or about US$6.50. However, anyone from the class can stay on for 
the milonga for just HK$10, that's about US$1.30 and includes as much 
red and white wine as you can drink. I think you'll agree it's a pretty 
good deal and the idea, obviously, is to get my students into a milonga 
as quickly as possible. Maybe they'll just watch or, with the help of 
the more advanced dancers, they'll have a go. We have a big school with 
lots of space so the beginners don't get in the way too much. We try to 
keep the whole thing as relaxed, informal and friendly as possible.

Every tango teacher I've ever met wants his students on the dance floor 
- Chris, why else do you think we teach tango? What gave you such a 
negative view of tango instructors?

Best Regards to All,
Keith McNab

Lois asked:

So how does a teacher get her students to a milonga if they don't 
think they're ready?

Chris replied:

You could find out by signing-up for Keith's beginners' lessons...

But he could probably tell you the answer for free: she doesn't. The 
issue is not how a teacher can get pupils to go, but what has the 
teacher done/not done in the first place such that they don't want to.

I credit teachers with very little influence over individual pupils.

But a lot over the group. It seems to me the average class-based course 
soon expels those that have an affinity for tango, when either they find 
they can dance and would rather do that than classes, or that they can't 
stand the frustration of the class teaching model's incompatibility with 
their natural respect for music, partner and self.

Those who are left - the ones continuing with classes - are often to 
teachers the successes, but to tango are actually the rejects. No 
surprise that teacher finds it hard to inject a class of rejects into 
the milongas. They'll be far happier remaining in the twilight world of 
the tango classroom, all the way up to "advanced". Or even to "teacher".

Chris




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