[Tango-L] 6 months or 6 weeks

[Trini y Sean (PATangoS)]

--- Keith <keith at tangohk.com> wrote:

After all the discussion about learning Tango in 6-months,
we now have Stephen Brown who has it down to 6-weeks, with
words like 'mastery' thrown in for good measure. What next
- 6 days, with perhaps a little less  'mastery'?

And, why is everyone suddenly sooooooo polite? We have
Manuel apologising for his poor English, when it's obvious
to anyone that he was using the words 'mastery' and
'passable' correctly and it was Stephen, presumably a
native English' speaker, who was using them incorrectly.

------------

I don't know if you are a native English speaker Keith,
although you certainly write with the idiom of a native. My
friends in HK tell me that English is becoming extinct in
the under 30 crowd. Either way, Steve's use of the term
mastery may be correctly interpreted as he intended it to
be interpreted. On the other hand Steve, Manuel's original
interpretation is also valid. I don't think it is fair to
accuse him of parsing words. In common usage, English is
often horribly ambiguous. Hence we engage in dialogue to
clarify meaning.

I've tried to make this point already about the phrase
"world class". A phrase that is both so ambiguous and so
loaded that it requires a great deal of clarification. When
Nina used the term, everybody interpreted it under the
burden of their own baggage. Many were offended.
Fortunately, Nina clarified what she meant by "world
class". If you reread her original post once you understand
her definition, there is nothing offensive about it.
(Unless you are ofended by circular reasoning.) In fact, it
might even help tango tourists understand and survive with
the natives. (Or maybe I am just too thick skinned to get
offended after 17 years of being the 6 foot Irish-looking
guy on construction sites?)

I suspect that the resistance to the idea that some
teachers can create productive members of the community in
6 months is also a matter of misinterpretation of meaning.
I stated that my students enjoy themselves on the floor,
and give an enjoyable dance to their partners without
interfering with the enjoyment of others. Steve said much
the same thing. Maybe I wasn't clear that I meant they
enjoy dancing with partners with a similar level of
experience. 

These guys can't compete with the Manuel, Ron, or Keith for
the best dancers in the room. But they usually finish each
step with all their weight on the correct foot, although
some aren't yet strong enough to maintain an axis. They
dance with more vocabulary than Ron suggests, but I'm not
likely to have taught sacadas at this level. They move
differently do DiSarli than they move to D'Arienzo,
although D'Agostino may leave them flat. They have
scratched the surface of the immense depth that Robin
implies, but it's not a very deep scratch. Most
importantly, they will not ruin Manuel's evening by
plodding along at half the pace of the ronda, nor will they
interfere with Ron's quiet enjoyment of tango by bouncing
around like charged gas molecules.

I suspect that the 6 week students in Texas have slightly
less acumen, or else they are putting in a whole lot more
than 6 hours a week. We expect our students to commit to 6
hours a week, and we lead by example as well as foster
positive peer presure to motivate them to practice and
dance outside of class.

Sean


       
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