[Tango-L] Skilled women [was: buenos aires milongas]

[Victor Bennetts]

Ron wrote: > Imagine telling a beginner man...

My wife and I were lucky enough to do a class recently with Fabian Peralta and Virginia Pandolfi and they said leading is like driving a car. At first you think it is impossible to concentrate on follower, music, navigation, posture, connection etc all at once, but after a while it will just become second nature. They certainly make it look easy :-).

Victor Bennetts

________________________________________
From: Tango Society of Central Illinois [mailto:tango.society at gmail.com]
Sent: Saturday, 13 October 2007 1:08 PM
To: Jay Rabe
Cc: Victor Bennetts; tango-l at mit.edu
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Skilled women [was: buenos aires milongas]

On 10/11/07, Jay Rabe <jayrabe at hotmail.com> wrote:
>Victor wrote:> Its not unusual for a follower to do something you don't expect.


Amen. In fact, if you get right down to it, it's pretty UNusual for a follower, no matter how experienced, to do EXACTLY what you expect, in terms of her step speed, direction, or timing. IMO one of the goals of a leader is to accommodate the variability of his follower's responses. Like Gavito said, "I lead, but I follow." The leader cannot afford to "expect," to count on, a specific response. He must wait for her to start moving, pay enough attention to her that he can see/feel what she's doing, and adjust his step and body mechanics accordingly.


Sssh. Don't tell anyone this. This is a secret.

Imagine telling a beginner man he has to learn to find the rhythm of the music, watch out for navigational hazards on the dance floor, develop a strategy on the spot for dealing with them choosing from a repertoire of movements he has learned, then lead the woman to move in the intended direction with the intended speed while maintaining the connection, and THEN ...

HE HAS TO FOLLOW THE WOMAN'S REPSONSE TO HIS LEAD TO DETERMINE HIS NEXT MOVE ?? (within a millisecond, after all, this is not chess), and take responsibility for whatever goes wrong.

And we wonder why there aren't enough men in tango.

Yet the surviving men keep trying.  It must be that the rewards of tango are greater than its obstacles.

Ron



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