[Tango-L] Leading and following

[Trini y Sean (PATangoS)]

Sean here.

Thank you for taking the time to write this Tom. It is
brilliant! You expressed the idea that I didn't have the
words for when I wrote that merely following was not
sufficient for the woman to be dancing. I particularly like
your "More Subtly" part.

For my part, I am not much interested in dancing with women
who backlead, interlead or refuse the lead. When that
happens, I try to salvage the dance by changing the embrace
and dancing the woman's role. Not that I follow very well,
but hey, someone has to do it.

IMHO, the women who dance as Tom describes are much better
at expressing their personality in the dance than those who
use the man's tools. Cooperation produces much better
results than competition.

Sean


--- Tom Stermitz <stermitz at tango.org> wrote:

OBVIOUSLY:

EVERY TIME a woman dances with a leader she enables or
disables his dance (i.e. THEIR dance), by her skill,
technique, axis-control, musicality, personality, energy,
or lack of any of these things. All followers constantly
makes decisions and choices that modify the dance of the
leader.

Good technique by the follower gives the leader a much
easier job; bad technique, and the leader has to think and
work harder. Musicality & energy makes the leader come
alive; density and spaciousness slow him down. If her
technique is good, and she follows well, then he can go
intuitive and channel the music into Dance with the
conscious brain barely involved.

If she doesn't have the ability to execute turns, then the
leader might not lead turns.

If she has good balance and energizes her turns, maybe he
leads a turn faster or sharper.


MORE SUBTLY:

A lot of the follower's contribution can fly below the
leader's radar or awareness. The leader is focused
externally and projecting ideas to the follower: he is
worrying about navigational problems, receiving the music,
and making decisions about what to do next. The  follower's
attention is supremely focused on the inner-space of the
dance, which puts her in a very powerful role.

I'm not sure the leaders realize how transparent they are
to the follower. Because she has x-ray vision into his
heart, she can read every hesitation, all his tells, his
gathering energy for a move, his bobbles, the quality of
his embrace, etc...

A good follower has the ability change his mind without him
even realizing it.


Tom Stermitz
http://www.tango.org


PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society 
Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburgh's most popular social dance. 
http://www.pitt.edu/~mcph/PATangoWeb.htm


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