[Tango-L] Effective Practice

[WHITE 95 R]

Thank you Jeff, I appreciate your added explanation. My response to Chris 
was a little too brief but I wanted to get my point across before too long. 
Firstly that Keith from HK was indeed right in his post and that Chris was 
taking cheap shots at him.

Before anyone pounces on my incomplete response, allow me to expand my 
answer a bit. While I agree with Keith and others on the value of practice, 
even solitary practice of tango movements. I don't imply that this is all 
one needs to perfect one's technique. Obviously, dancing with one's partner 
is the best way to practice one's dance and it's the place and time to see 
if all those changes of weight one tried by one's self are working as 
expected when the other person enters the equation.

The one thing that might be misleading (pardon the pun) is the advise to 
dance with many different women in order to perfect one's leading skills. 
Yes, the proof of it all is in the dance floor. All the practice and classes 
mean nothing if one can't or wont dance at the milongas. However, this is 
only the proving ground for one's skill in leading. In order to perfect 
one's dance, to achieve more elegance, timing and perform more impressive 
dances, one must practice with one's partner and not with every woman at 
every milonga. Every dance couple worth their salt spends countless hours 
practicing with each other to get as good as they are.

And by the way, are we talking here about refining and practicing our 
dancing skills to achieve or strive for high competence or perfection? Or 
are we just talking about striving to attain a passable level of mediocrity? 
If it's the first, one must apply one's self to learn, practice and improve. 
If it's the latter, why bother with any of this at all? From my observation 
I can tell that many dancers are already mediocre enough and they could 
indeed just practice their "good enough-ness" with as many women as will 
accept their dances.

Manuel

Oh yeah, speaking of high skill levels in tango and the approach to 
perfection, many people had the excellent opportunity to witness extremely 
high level of teaching and dancing skills exhibited by Gustavo Naveira & 
Giselle Anne here in Atlanta over the last 4 days. And by the way, even 
though some have ridiculed the expression, several people told me in so many 
words the G&Gs performance brought tears to their eyes....

visit our webpage
www.tango-rio.com




>From: Jeff Gaynor <jjg at jqhome.net>
>To: Tango-L <tango-l at mit.edu>
>Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Effective Practice
>Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2007 10:42:19 -0400
>
>WHITE 95 R wrote:
>
> >Chris,
> >
> >Keith is right and your comments are nothing less than a gratuitous put
> >down. Keith is not talking about sex or working on relationships. His
> >comments are valid. Tango movements are like gymnastic movements or like 
>a
> >sport or a even playing an instrument. To gain skill in those things,
> >practice is invaluable. Yes, people do practice those skills by 
>themselves.
> >Even boxers or martial artists practice and train by themselves even 
>though
> >the end results involves another person..... If you have nothing but
> >negative comments or personal attacks to contribute, your participation 
>in
> >these forums is not helpful and frankly, it's rather discouraging and 
>brings
> >nothing but discord and hard feelings. Is that what you want?
> >
> >
> >
>Jumping in here as a trainer, Manuel is quite right. The limiting factor
>in tango, much like music, is neurological. You must repeat patterns a
>great deal to cause growth in the neural pathways until you can
>internalize the movement. This will vary by individual and various
>factors such as background (gymnasts, e.g. will pick it up faster than
>many others), amount of practice and quality of practice. One of the
>most effective things you can do it think thoroughly about whatever
>movement you are doing because we know that this will prep the pathways
>and make the motion easier. For activities that have a large
>conditioning component - which tango thankfully does not - it can be a
>great deal more frustrating since you have to grow new muscle before you
>can train it. One study showed that for largely neurological activities,
>visualization was almost as effective as physical practice. This is why
>a lot of martial arts have passed down such meditation techniques. They
>cannot articulate (in a Western setting) why it works but they know it
>does. The fact that their explanation sounds to our ears like
>mumbo-jumbo does not reduce the effectiveness.
>
>$.02
>
>Jeff G
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>Tango-L at mit.edu
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