[Tango-L] Breaking the 'paso basico.'

[Jake Spatz]

List,

Trini y Sean (PATangoS) wrote:
>> So how can the 8CB be taught successfully?
Is your objective to successfully teach improv tango, or to successfully 
teach the 8CB? Or to teach dancers to place the 8CB (or parts of it) 
within another context? Answering that should probably point you 
straight. (Although I should add... I myself don't often use either the 
cruzada or the so-called "resolution" for anything like what you 
describe in your post... most of the time it's quite the opposite, 
actually.)

As for the question (put by 'Mash) of how to UN-learn the 8CB as a 
default pattern... which is how this thread started... I might suggest 
_leading it entirely on purpose_ first, so that at least it's deliberate 
rather than "automatic." From that point, it'll be easier to NOT do it, 
because you'll have started using the one tool-- namely, intention-- 
that you need for everything. No departure from the 8CB will be freely 
available to you, except by accident, unless the 8CB itself is first 
made deliberate, and therefore also _freely_ available rather than forced.

Many people use the same method of self-correction to overcome 
"automatic" (i.e., habitual) typos: first they make the typo on purpose, 
to bring it within their conscious control. This gives them the ability 
to exercise their (conscious) will in favor of other ends, and reduces 
the typo from an automatic habit to merely one action among several 
alternatives. In other words: Make the mistake on purpose, in order to 
establish "on purpose" as the overriding factor. Performing the action 
consciously rather than unconsciously can liberate you from it.

How the 8CB became automatic, or was learned at all, is IMO largely 
irrelevant. Plenty of other things become automatic too, for any number 
of reasons-- they're just not so vilified.

Jake
DC

p.s. This isn't straight out of Freud, but it might as well be. In any 
case, the statement "when I am nervous my mind blanks itself of any 
variation of steps" certainly indicates something quite /like/ a mild 
neurosis. ;-) ... as does the confessed frustration in coping with it.