[Tango-L] retaining men

Tue Oct 9 14:20:50 EDT 2007

On 10/9/07, Trini y Sean (PATangoS) <patangos at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> But, Ron, do you end up with more women in the higher level
> classes than men?  That tends to be our problem.  And, of
> course, the problem of women in higher level classes who
> should really be in beginning classes.

Trini,

We still tend to get more men than women in higher level courses. Actually,
what has been happening lately is that the course registration numbers tend
to be nearly equal, but men have better attendance than women, so in an
individual session there tends to be an extra man or two. I think this is
because men feel that if they miss a class, they will not be able to keep
up, whereas women can. If we do get extra men, Susana goes into the line of
dance.

As far as women being in higher level classes above their ability, to some
degree this is true. Women tend to develop confidence faster than men. In
our case, some of our more advanced men have been dancing 2-3 years, most of
the women less than that.  I would say that most of these experienced men
have fewer technique deficiencies than most of the less experienced women,
but what happens is that women dancing with experienced men develop more
quickly than dancing with inexperienced men, so in general a woman develops
faster by moving to higher level classes sooner than if she stays in lower
level classes.

The way we see it, teaching tango in close embrace, is that for the first
month or two, men progress faster than women for the simple reason we are
asking the women to walk backwards while maintaining an upper body (apilado)
connection with men. The greatest problem women have at this stage is
shifting their weight back onto their heels. They also tend not to extend
their legs backward to create space for the man's forward progression. What
men do at this stage, mostly walking forward while maintaining upper body
contact and exploring rhythmic variation, is a lot easier. The main problem
men have at this stage is not providing sufficient energy through their
chest in their leading. This is more easily overcome. However, once women
learn to keep their weight balanced over their metatarsals instead of their
heels, and generally to keep a better connection in the embrace, they
progress more rapidly. At this stage. moving them to dance with more
experienced men speeds up their progression even more. At 2-3 months men are
starting to struggle with an expanded repertoire and progress more slowly.

One problem we have experienced in our intermediate level classes is when
women who have only learned to dance tango in an open frame enter these
classes without going through our beginner classes. The main problem is that
they maintain their balance back on their heels and have difficulty in
general maintaining a close embrace connection. They also tend to take steps
that are longer than are led and pull men off their axis. What they don't
understand at first (and some don't understand later) is that technique
changes when you go from an open frame into an embrace. So what we have done
is advertised our classes saying that if you have not danced tango in a
close embrace, you will learn better if you start with our Tango 1.
Fortunately this recommendation has been followed and the results have been
much better.

What seems to work for us is to keep our classes small (3-6
> couples) and work toward a 100% participation in community
> events.   And there's less of a problem in inviting
> gender-balancers.  In larger classes (over 20 people), it's
> much more difficult for us to bond with the students, so .

I understand what you're saying here. Both our beginner and intermediate
classes tend to have enrollment in the 20-30 range. However, sometimes we
get a beginner class that's smaller. What we have found is that for smaller
beginner classes, the progression in skill acquisition is faster and the
retention rate is higher and, yes, we do develop a more personal
relationship with the students. However, for intermediate classes, there is
a real energy in having 10-15 couples on the floor at once and we can really
work with navigational issues. By this time they already know us and each
other, so bonding is not an issue. One drawback is that the range of
variation in expertise is wide in intermediate classes. We teach 1.5 hr
classes 2 or 3 times per week (sometimes 2 simultaneous beginner classes)
and we really don't have time to separate the most advanced students into a
separate class, however much we would like to. To them we recommend
workshops with traveling instructors either at home or in neighboring
communities (we are within 3 hrs of Indianapolis, Chicago, and St Louis, so
that often works) as well as private lessons with those instructors or with
us.

What have been others' experiences with big versus small
> class sizes and getting people to become active in their
> communities as opposed to just taking classes?

For intermediate level students small versus big classes does not appear to
have an impact on attending milongas. If anything, larger classes facilitate
this just because they feel more comfortable going to milongas when there
are more people to dance with whom they know. I'm not sure about beginners.
I think age is a major factor. Younger dancers are more likely to go to
milongas, especially younger women. They get asked to dance. Older men are
more likely to attend than older women. Unfortunately this represents a
reality in that most men choose dance partners based on appearance rather
than dance skills. A good comraderie among students moves the balance more
towards selection based on skill.

Ron

Trini de Pittsburgh
>
>
>
> > Ron wrote:
> >
> > > Now we mix more experienced men and women in our
> > beginner classes. Our
> > > rentention rate for women has improved substantially
> > ... The women
> > > love dancing with the experienced men. The experienced
> > men
> > > are attracting more women to higher level classes and
> > milongas.
> >
>
>
> PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society
>   Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburgh's most popular social
> dance!
>   http://patangos.home.comcast.net/
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>
>
>
>
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