[Tango-L] leading w/fingers on back I

[Sergio Vandekier]

I am the author of the note on leading front ochos with your fingers as 
reprinted by Michael.

I am very happy this subject came to the front.  The original note was 
posted by me, because some dancers of "Close embrace all the time" including 
Tine (who  says to be conversant with open embrace as well) thought that the 
front ocho should not be taught at all as they did not liked to dance with 
women that had learned such a figure. they thought the front ocho was a 
nuisance.

The first time I got into a discussion on this subject was a couple of years 
ago when I was Assistant Instructor for Nito and Elba at CITA - COSMOTANGO 
in Buenos Aires.

We were teaching 'agujas' (needles) .  I started dancing with a Japanese 
girl who after a few steps stopped and said:  " you lead with your arms and 
hands - you should lead with your chest " . I smiled and....

I answered for the whole group:  There are several styles of tango, each one 
with its own technique.  In close embrace  we lead with the chest. In open 
embrace we teach to lead initially with the hand and fingers and secondarily 
with your chest or torso.
Here we are in a lesson of 'agujas', a beautiful figure that at this time is 
being done in open embrace.

We normally teach to dance in close embrace and to lead with the chest and 
we start open embrace teaching to lead with the hands .

This is logical because when the torsos are apart the arms are an extension 
of the body . The arms transmit the motion intention of the torso. This is 
one of the reasons to keep good muscular tone in your arms as you are 
dancing.   Then we progress to incorporate leading with the chest as well.
Using the body to block or to open space inducing the moves of the woman. 
Leading with your legs, the thigh or the calf, etc, etc.

We do exercises where we lead ochos and other movements without any contact 
of the bodies . The woman follows visually the chest of the man.   When we 
teach canyengue style we use both the hands and the torso the same as 
eventually we do in Salon open and close embrace.

Those that only learned close embrace milonguero (as taught by Susana 
Miller) are going to lead with their chest and out of ignorance think that 
any other form of leading is wrong, such was the case of the Japanese 
student.

Finally the use of arms, hands and fingers is so subtle that it is barely 
felt by the lady that has the open hand of the man on her back, nobody else 
is able to distinguish any lead whatsoever.

Best regards, Sergio

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