Re: [Tango-L] on open-embrace teaching (was something on inventing steps)‏

[Sergio Vandekier]

Hi Mario,

               The thing about learning tango is that it offers an infinite number of possibilities with respect to steps, creativity,
styles, and type of music you dance to .

The limit as to what you wish to learn is set by you.  

At this point in your learning process the main problem you are going to encounter is to learn *How to lead *.

You cannot learn how to lead by watching other people dance. Somebody has to teach you.
This somebody could be another dancer, a friend of you, or an instructor.

When you ask "do I have to invent her steps too"? the answer is "YES". You are the one that tells her what you
wish her to do.  She will not do anything you do not lead. We also lead her embellishments.

You ask her to dance, then you offer an embrace to her, next you feel the music, then you decide what you 
want to do with that music. Now you start leading, you tell her what she has to do. She follows your lead and executes
the steps suggested by you according to her own feelings of the moment and the music.

Next you have to navigate the floor, properly, protecting her, avoiding to disturb the other dancers, becoming
part of the flow of the line of dance.

The video you provided shows two tangos well danced, milonguero style. They have very few choreographic elements.

Ocho cortado, (many ochos cortados). Few corriditas (runs) in front of her of about three steps, double time.
Left rocking turns (gardelitos). A couple of sacadas with left leg. Few right turns.

Voila: a beautiful tango with very few elements and good musicality.

You may decide that this is the way you wish to dance and this is fine. 

Best regards, Sergio
My last day in Mar del Plata, Argentina

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