[Tango-L] Women stop studying tango: EPIDEMIC

[Caroline Polack]

" I guess from the sounds of that they are trying to follow guys who  
haven't yet learnt to dance."

I feel as though each time I go to a Milonga, I have to get rid of all the 
bad habits I picked up from practicing with my partner and re-learn tango 
again. I haven't danced with him in two weeks and meanwhile been going to 
milongas on my own and learning at a much faster rate than I did with him. 
Bad habits I picked up were things such as as leaning harder than I should 
because he won't meet me halfway and I have to over-lean just to avoid 
stepping on his toes, taking too long steps just because my partner doesn't 
lead well or he forgot how certain steps were supposed to be carried out.  
He doesn't dance, it's more like he lurches/ marches from one imaginary 
footprint to the next on the floor as if it were a diagram. And I feel as 
though I've picked up his stiffness and now I have to go back and press 
delete any bad habits.

Now that I've been going on my own, and asking advanced dancers for 
feedback, I've been doing so much better and enjoying it more.  Really 
enjoying it more. No, scratch that, actually enjoying it at all. I am 
learning from advanced dancers ten times, 20 times faster than I ever did 
with my partner.

It's been six months of practice together and he's still as uptight as ever 
with zilch sense of musicality, my right arm gets really tired when I dance 
with him and now that I've been dancing regularly with good dancers, I enjoy 
dancing with him less and less because in comparison to the other dancers, 
he's really difficult to dance with.

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