[Tango-L] Milonga 101 -- conversation between dances

[Krasimir Stoyanov]

I have seen similar picture countless times.
And it is not because teaching technique is wrong.
Wrong is when one teaches wrong technique.

What is wrong technique? This is when someone teaches a combination in order 
to show technique. The real technique is nothing more than posture, embrace, 
walking and pivots. If you can lead walking and pivots, you can lead 
everything. But the couple needs proper posture and embrace to walk and 
pivot. And, the other way too - to keep the posture and the embrace correct, 
the walking and the pivots must be properly executed too. All these things 
are not possible to separate. There is no fixed geometry, no need for some 
kind of high level structure, etc.

I can recommend two sources of real, tango-improving technique:
One is the site www.tangoandchaos.org, the other are the videos from 
Fernanda Ghi and Guillermo Merlo - "Follower's technique" and "Salon Tango 
Technique". They are true gems in a see of stupid, combination oriented 
videos.

If you combine the two sources, you will have enough information of what 
good AT technique is. It is very simple, once you get it. You may need a 
good teacher to help you . . . Or, if you are close enough to these ideas, 
you will find them very fascinating.

But, the most americans and europeans are so afraid of the fact, that the 
follower should be PASSIVE. Of course, not fully passive (to manage the free 
leg mainly), but a follower must not input energy into the couple, only 
consume it. The leader produces the energy, the follower consumes it. No 
matter the kind of embrace, no matter if it is social dance or not. The 
quality of movement is way higher this way. And the proper technique teaches 
how to enable and improve this process. Not combinations at all, they are 
not important - because they are easy to do once the fundament is in place.

Fernanda says to the followers: "Make your body responsive". See? Not "Be 
responsive". Not your mind should respond. It is the body that responds to 
the influence of mechanical action, taken by the lead.

Whatever, enough free internet lessons. People are used to think that if 
something is free, it is worth nothing.


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Chris, UK" <tl2 at chrisjj.com>
>> Gustavo ... "What comes from only the head alone is worth nothing...
>> only things that come from the heart have any value."
>
> it or not. This Gustavo interspersed with demos and lecturettes explaining
> exactly why the guy's torso turned through this angle while the girl took
> that number of steps etc.
>
> I watched with dismay as the standard of dancing steadily deteriorated.
> The struggle to get bodies at the required angles and feet in "the right
> place" left no hope at all for anything that really mattered. In the hands
> of even normally good leaders, the girls were suffering torture. Feeling
> for partner? Feeling for the music? Feeling for the ronda? Not a chance in
> hell. By the end of the lesson there wasn't a single couple left doing
> anything one could remotely call dancing.