[Tango-L] Women and Classes

[Marisa Holmes]

<dnovitz at lavidacondeby.com> wrote:

> I personally agree with Igor who says. "...
> It is most important - to be happy. More classes
> will not make you happier"

And sometimes, more classes will make you less happy. 
It seems to me that the reasons some women stop taking
classes are pretty straightforward.  In the vast
majority of group classes, much more attention is paid
to the men (and I am using men and women to mean
leaders and followers here).  You can reasonably say
that you have to get the men moving before the women
can do anything at all – if the leader stands with a
blank expression and his feet planted, there is no
dance to work with.  But the common pattern is to work
with the leaders on the figure or technique under
discussion until they can blunder through it, and then
move on to the next figure, leaving practicing for
time outside of class.  So the follower's experience
is one of being dragged, shoved, and put off balance
until the leaders just start to be able to do a figure
(at which point the follower might be able to work on
technique, expression, etc.) and then the class moves
on to the next thing.  And for this, they pay the same
price as the guys on whom the instructor's attention
is being lavished.

I have taken classes where the instructor said we were
going to work on techniques for the women.  In a
surprisingly large proportion of those classes, old
habits re-surfaced, and the instructor was soon
spending more than half their time on the men.  And
many of the men chose to either wander around in a
lackluster way – or simply to ignore the point of
the exercises.  The very last regular class I took as
a follower was supposed to be about followers adorning
or otherwise expressing the music.  We did exercises
that were well within the limits of the technical
abilities of the dancers present (people who had
danced for 3-6 years); the leaders were asked to do a
number of simple figures and to pause at specific
points and then wait until they understood the
follower was ready to move on.  The followers were
invited to see what they felt like doing when they
were guaranteed that the leaders were listening to
them and were not about to cut off the little flourish
or the little breath that pressed the follower tighter
against the leader or the slow sweep.  We are not
talking weird, uncontrolled, embellishment here, just
the sort of movement where the follower contributes to
the conversation.  The last guy I danced with chose to
ignore the programmed activity.  He did the requested
figures about a quarter of the time, and filled in the
rest of the time with whatever tough figures he was
trying to work on from his last class.  If he paused,
I missed it.  I attempted to express the music, but I
suspect what I mostly expressed was increasing
irritation.  As we finished the song we were paired
for, I did my best to salvage something from the dance
and instead of simply bringing my feet together as he
expected, I whipped my foot forward to sandwich one of
his.  He laughed out loud, apparently in delighted
astonishment.  He turned to the teacher, still
laughing, and said, "She grabbed my foot!"  We all
smiled at one another.  And then he said, "How do I
_make_ her do that?"

I'm taking classes as a leader now.  And occasional
workshops, either as a leader or a follower, or both. 
And the occasional private, as either.  Is the leading
helping my following?  I think so, but that's not why
I'm doing it.  I know it's helping my dancing – I
understand the music better and interpret it more
freely; I dance with followers from whom I learn
something about following, and leaders from whom I
learn something about leading;  I'm often happy when
I'm dancing and the followers I dance with seem to be
happy also most of the time.  Why on earth would I pay
every week to be dragged around and ignored?

Marisa  


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