[Tango-L] Please don't help me!

[desdelasnubes@web.de]

Hi Tim,

helpful followers are bred in class teaching where patterns are taught and/or where beginners dance with beginners. Helpful followers might be blessed with a good memory, they can remember the combinations taught more quickly and lasting than the lead. So they easily internalize patterns. 
Plus they might be ambitious to perform well, to look good and to show they succeeded in learning the lesson.

Don't be desperate. There is a cure for this disease: helpful followers stop taking group classes 
and to go to dance in milongas instead. 
There is a fair chance milonga dancing will liberate you from helpfulness ;)

Anna



> 
> Please excuse the following rant; I just need to vent some frustrations. :-)
> 
> ******
> 
> At a recent class, through the vagaries of rotation, I spent most of the 
> time paired with a very helpful follower.
> When I tried to lead the pattern we had been shown, she very helpfully 
> did her steps exactly as taught.
> When I tried to lead something slightly different, she very helpfully 
> did her steps exactly as taught.
> When I tried to lead the pattern we had been shown, she very helpfully 
> did her steps exactly as taught.
> When I tried to lead something slightly different, she very helpfully 
> did her steps exactly as taught, and she very helpfully backled me 
> through the correct steps.
> 
> I have heard many times that Argentine tango is very different to any 
> other dance. At that recent class, I realised just how true that is. In 
> every other dance I have tried, the follower's steps vary according to 
> what the leader does. Tango is the only dance I have tried in which the 
> follower's step are identical regardless of what I do.
> 
> On a related question, in browsing various sites and discussions about 
> tango, I often read about a good lead being necessary. Why is a good 
> lead necessary? After all, the follower's steps do not change in any way 
> with the lead.
> 
> ******
> 
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> 


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