[Tango-L] Flaming women at classes

[Gary Barnes]

Chris apparently wrote:

> And, oh yes, to not anticipate leads, too.
>
> That too is iatrogenic. The only girls I've met who
> anticipate are victims of the DIC* classes - she's
> following not her guy but the programming of a now-absent
> instructor who taught her the 'correct' girl step to
> accompany each guy step.

Well, I've felt this in:

* women whose have just been sitting at a milonga and have never done  
a class
* women whose have just been sitting at a practica and have never  
done a class
* women who have just watched a tango show
* women who saw tango on dance with stars or somesuch
* women who have been dancing with someone who muscles them around  
the floor
* women who have been dancing with someone whose lead is vague but  
expects them to do something anyway
* and women who have been doing step classes. And self-led boleo  
classes...
* oh, and men who usually lead

Its normal. Followers want to make the dance work. They see  
something, they try to copy it.  For some things this works fine.   
For the core skills of tango, it doesn't work much.

I think you might be suffering from confirmation bias -- which is  
sadly what many teachers of sequence classes also seem to suffer  
from. Sequence classes as the main form of learning are ineffective.  
But you way overstate the case here.

Ability to dance tango is not innate, though it draws on skills which  
are innate for many people.  The problem is to find ways of learning  
which work with these skills rather than against them.

Gary