[Tango-L] musicality & technique

Thu Apr 19 01:35:49 EDT 2007

Hello Jay,

  Can't borrow a camera this late at night.  And I will be very busy hosting Homer tomorrow.  Sorry.  (On the plus side for those disliking technical discussions, I won't be checking Tango-L as often.)

  Want you want to watch for is the spiraling of the woman's spine.  

  Let's revisit the Torres video Igor sent.  If you watch Mariela at time 0:58, she does a series of back and front boleos.  I can't slow it down enough to confirm this, but her back isn't showing much torsion, which indicates that she is using her leg muscles and hips to power her boleos.  You can see her working to make the pivots.  Compare that with one back ocho she does at 0:25, which shows more torsion in her spine.  She simply unravels into the step that follows with no effort.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVjCub9v4yA

  Try this.  Pretend that you are a hitch-hiker on the side of the road facing against traffic (cars are coming toward you).  You are standing with all of your weight on the leg nearer to the road.  You have your thumb out and you see a car coming.  You focus your eyes on the car with your best "please give me a ride" look.  As the car nears and passes you, you keep your eyes turned toward it hoping that it will slow down after it passes.  What happens to your body as you keep looking at the car after it passes you?  Your body will naturally torque toward the direction your eyes were looking.  You should feel a strong contra-body spiraling in your spine.  If you keep your eyes looking at the pretend car, you should be able to release your spine and let the rest of your hips "pivot" to catch up with your eyes and head.  The work for the pivot is done with the spine.  Your UPPER body directs the LOWER body.

  Contrast this by the way most are first taught to do wall work for backward ochos.  You face the wall using your hands for balance.  Keeping shoulders facing the wall, you're told to pivot the hips so that the side of the hip faces the wall.  What do you do?  You send a note to your brain to send your hip back, which it does.  This is using the hips to twist the upper body.  Here, if you released yourself from the wall, the LOWER body would direct the UPPER body where to go.  This is the opposite of what a leader wants in a follower.  Hence, the problem of women overturning their ochos.  (In some cases, men will want use their lower bodies to direct their upper bodies.)

  What is useful to know is that natural contra-body starts in the lower third part of the spine (opposite the belly button), not in the pelvis.  Specifically, it's where the spine changes to a slight C curve (run a finger along your back).  Knowing which joints do what allows for more efficient movement.  And the hip is not a joint, but a bone.  So telling your brain to create a movement using a bone (instead of a joint) takes more muscle.  This is okay if you're trying to do sharp ochos, but they also tend to look forced because they are.

  Hope this clarifies things.

  Trini de Pittsburgh

Jay Rabe <jayrabe at hotmail.com> wrote:
  Jake's protests notwithstanding, this is IMO a perfect example of a step description that would be easier to understand/visualize with a short video clip... 

Can't you borrow a camera???
J
TangoMoments.com

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