[Tango-L] No arms?

[Michael]

Nina:
I'm not explaining well. Some men are afraid to hold a woman FIRMLY in an embrace. I remember my teacher said "holding a woman in an embrace is not being fresh. It's called leading." I remember when I started, even with an embrace, there was a fear I couldn't move the woman so my arms moved forward of my frame to move the woman and then I stepped. 

My teacher concentrated in "letting yourself move." Trenner said in Montreal "To learn how to dance tango you first have to learn how to dance and to learn how to dance you have to learn how to move. But some people go to learning tango WITHOUT going through dance."

Michael
I'd rather be dancing Argentine Tango
Washington, DC

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nina Pesochinsky" <nina at earthnet.net>
To: <tango-l at mit.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2007 5:12 PM
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] No arms?


Hi, Michael,

How can men push with their arms if they are holding a woman in an embrace?  The arms are kind of busy.  I am talking about the real embrce and not holding a woman 5 feet away with only the hands on her body, which does not even count as anything related to tango.

An embrace of tango is impossible to dissociate into hands, arms, chest, etc. if it is a real embrace.

Nina

At 03:03 PM 9/26/2007, Michael wrote:
>Nina wrote:
>It is an incredible mistake to teach people to dance without>arms. Great male dancers never lead "from the chest".
>Instead, they lead from the embrace, which includes everything.
>*******************************************************************************
>Nina:
>I think this might not have been explained well. Too many>men lead with their arms. They push the woman backward and >then step forward. The idea of teaching without arms takes>away the man's pushing. If he steps on the woman's feet, it>means he stepped first instead of leading her to step first.
>
>As for leading from the chest, that's where most of the body>contact is. I think this is an issue of semantics
>
>Michael Ditkoff
>Washington, DC
>
>I'd rather be dancing Argentine Tango