[Tango-L] teaching technique vs. choreography

[Tom Stermitz]

Jay makes some good points.

The most important point he makes is: "Beginning students are anxious  
to start dancing."

This goes double for retaining the men.

Men quit tango when they are frustrated or unconfident. Complicated  
patterns keep men in that frustrated, complicated mindset. It is not a  
personality flaw on the part of the man; rather the teacher who  
forgets the beginner mindset.

Walking a beautiful woman around the room can be taught in a one hour  
class. He leaves excited, thrilled, confident, happy, successful.

The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT RULE for retaining men is to recognize this,  
and make sure they leave each class, each month, each workshop, each  
series feeling confident and successful.


On Jan 18, 2008, at 9:58 AM, Jay Rabe wrote:

> I agree that technique (how to walk/step, posture, balance, how to  
> lead, how to follow) is the most important thing to teach. But, some  
> comments:
>
> 1. Learning technique is a life-long process. There are dozens if  
> not hundreds of individual "technique principles." It's not  
> something you learn once and then you're done. You may quickly learn  
> some key points, but refinement and fine-tuning continues for years/ 
> decades.
> 2. "Pure" technique is pretty boring, and hardly qualifies as  
> "dancing." Beginning students are anxious to start dancing.
> 3. Simple steps can be executed with pretty sloppy technique. More  
> complicated steps/patterns require more refined, more precise  
> technique.
> ...
> I guess the point I'm trying to make is that you can't effectively  
> teach JUST technique without boring and losing all but the most die- 
> hard students. You have to embed the technique instruction into a  
> dancing context of some step or pattern.