[Tango-L] Your milonga secrets

[Trini y Sean (PATangoS)]

--- On Thu, 12/18/08, Jack Dylan <jackdylan007 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> So if I'm dancing to what I 'hear' in the
> music, I lead my partner to do the same, i.e. to dance to what I hear, not what she hears.

What I was referring to (and I think Jay experiences this, too) is when the woman doesn't hear as many layers as the man does and she's fixed on hearing one layer, then she isn't able to switch to a different layer of music.  In milongas, three different rhythms can be present in the same song -  single time, double-time, and the milonga rhythm.  Sometimes single time dominates but the milonga rhythm lies underneath.  So if she's fixated on the single time, I have a hard time switching to the underlying milonga rhythm.  If the woman hears more layers than the man, she has her ornaments to dance her musicality.  

When I follow, it does drive me nuts when my partner misses the pauses/freezes in milonga (there's not much I can do about it either without backleading).  In Javier's demo, he doesn't dance the pauses the first time they occur, but he catches them toward the end.  When I'm leading the pause but the woman continues bouncing around, it's a bit of a bummer.  If I can get her to hear the change in the music, then she tends to enjoy hitting the pauses when I try them later.

I'm sure there's more work I need to do on my leading, but it's makes such a big difference when the woman is attuned to the music.  


> Some dancers, maybe Chicho, might be skilled enough to
> dance to one rhythm while leading his partner to dance to another
> rhythm but, IMO, that's way beyond the abilities of most - certainly
> mine..

But Jack, you do this every time you lead a woman to the cross in cross system.  Or lead her to do a molinete as you do an enrosque.  Or if you just lead her to extend her foot as you stand still.  Just take those ideas and experiment on them.  Just do it consciously and soon you'll be doing it for the fun of it.

Trini de Pittsburgh