[Tango-L] Directional notation

[Jeff Gaynor]

Being a total amateur with a knack for footwork, I thought I'd give you 
what I use and see if it helps any of you.

There are only a basic few ways to locomote.

** no feet on the ground **
  -- this is jumping and does not happen in tango (or most other places)

** one foot on the ground **
  -- walking (so one foot passes the other), alias stepping
  -- shuffling draw one foot to the other, step with the other foot, 
[e.g. drag your left foot to your right, shift weight to your left foot, 
step with your right]
  -- pivot, here the axis of your hips change, one foot stays fixed 
while the other moves

** both feet on the ground **
  -- twist your hips so the angle of your hips changes. Colloquially, 
tell people to point their navels in a different direction.

Twists are similar to pivots, except the former has you two-footed, the 
latter has you one footed. The difference is that you cannot really ever 
draw much power from the ground when you are one-footed. Technical 
aside: most leads who are getting steps wrong, I have observed in many a 
CE workshop, do so because they pivot when they should twist and 
consequently have body movements substantially different from what their 
instructors show.

Now, pretend you are standing dead center on a clockface. To give a 
direction, list the time
E.g.

 * Step left foot to 12
 * Shuffle to 11 right to left (with preceeding step, your legs are 
crossed, right behind left).

This gives you a very simple way to write down footwork for future 
reference and works for most other activities that require locomotion. I 
use a tablature, i.e., a listing of where to put the feet when that 
looks like

duration : direction : action: comment

duration is given relative to the music's basic pulse, with 1 = beat. 
E.g. The pattern of quick-quick-slow would be written 1/2 - 1/2 - 1.

E.g. Walking to the cross in close embrace.

1 : 12 : Step left : start walking to the cross
1 : 12 : step right : twist upper body to 2 o'clock
1 : 12 : step left : keep twist
1 : 12 shuffle R to L : square shoulder before stepping.

The point is I can pull out my old notes from past workshops and recover 
many nifty ideas. Works for me...

Jeff