[Tango-L] Open/crossed step uses?

[Joe Grohens]

Jay Rabe wrote:

> Not sure I understand what you mean by "sacada" being a term of  
> description rather than the name of a step. I always thought of a  
> sacada as a step where one person displaces the foot (being lifted)  
> of the other as they take a step. Surely there are many possible  
> sacadas, so perhaps it would be better to say "sacada" is a category  
> of steps, and you have to add more information to actually "name" a  
> given step - "leader's right sacada on follower's trailing left foot  
> as she does a right forward ocho." But how is this different than  
> "ocho" as a name of a step, since there are likewise several  
> different versions. Maybe we're playing with words, but if you could  
> elaborate a bit on what you mean...
Using words in the teaching and learning of tango is fraught with error.

I remember saying once at a practica something like "it helps if you  
really go 'up' when you arrive on that leg" or something like that. I  
know I used the word "up". Later I was seeing that everyone was going  
up on tip-toes. I asked them why. They said "we're trying to go up".  
Up for me meant "stand tall" or "lengthen".... They didn't know that  
meaning.

The meaning of words is developed socially. In tango it is commonplace  
to find different people using the same words to mean very different  
things.

The tango term "sacada" (removal / displacement)  -- for me -- means  
that one person moves somewhat deeply into the space of the other  
dance partner, taking a position that creates more rotation and  
leverage during the transition between two steps. The legs or feet of  
each partner may or may not come into contact. If the man produces a  
sacada by stepping in between her feet, it is desirable that he  
*avoid* pushing her leg. In my way of thinking, if the legs touch, it  
should seem as if her leg accidentally touched his, not that he pushed  
or kicked her leg. The sacada / displacement action occurs in the  
bodies, not the legs. That is what it means *for me*. Different  
dancers use sacada action in different ways.

Are we referring to the same thing? Hard to know just through talking  
about it.

...

I remember my first private lesson with a certain teacher, some years  
ago. Near the start of the lesson he had shown us a movement sequence,  
and we did it, and later we had moved on to something else, and we  
were absorbing his technique corrections in walking and use of the  
legs. I then wanted to ask him how something he had just said applied  
to what we had been doing earlier.

I started out with "What do you call the step we were doing before?"  
That elicited a tirade. "You Americans, you always want to know what  
things are called. The movements in tango don't have names. They are  
not defined steps. There are no names. I don't understand this  
preoccupation with names for things. All you worry about is learning  
the name and you write it down and then you don't learn how to dance.  
etc. etc. etc."

When he had finished I asked him, "Well, OK, I'm just asking how you  
would describe it so I can ask you something about it."

He said "If I have to call it something, I would call it walking  
around while turning."

At the time I thought he was totally missing the point in what I was  
trying to ask about, and was giving me an unwarranted scolding, sort  
of mistaking me for someone else.

Now (years later) I think I really did deserve that lecture, and that  
it is just starting to sink in.

-joe