[Tango-L] How we learn

[Tim]

'Mash wrote:
> I know we write alot about how classes should be taught but I am wondering now how we actually learn Tango.
> It would be interesting to hear from those who can still remember what it was like learning Tango for the first time. 
>   
I was just about to start a thread related to this subject when I 
received this post.
One of my points was that there are two parties in a class -- the 
teacher and the learner. Everyone criticises the teacher if the learner 
goes away with patterns rather than technique.

I have been dancing Ceroc/modern jive for four years, and started 
learning tango towards the end of last year.
Many people think of Ceroc as purely pattern (moves) based, with no true 
lead and follow. Maybe that was true 20 or 10 years ago, or in other 
places, but certainly in the past four years in Sydney it has been 
taught as lead-follow, and I now think of it (and dance it) as an 
improvisational lead-follow partner dance with the basic step being a walk.
While I will sometimes choose to lead a particular move, most of the 
time I am simply responding to the music and the relative positions of 
my partner, myself, and available dance floor. You could say I am doing 
nothing but stepping forwards or backwards or sideways or pivoting, and 
leading my partner to step forwards or backwards or sideways or pivot 
(regarding a spin as an extreme pivot).
So I am comfortable with the idea of a dance being improvised 
lead-follow in response to the music.

Now I am learning tango, and I like being given patterns. If I go out on 
the tango dance floor thinking all I have to do is lead forward and 
backward and sideward steps and pivots as the music takes me, then all I 
will do is forward and backward and sideward steps and pivots. It is in 
the patterns that I learn to lead my partner to turn as I step around 
her, that I learn to change direction, that I learn to put forward and 
backward and sideward steps and pivots together in different ways to 
make something more.

At present, when I dance tango, I walk to the music or do the couple of 
patterns I am comfortable with. People who watch me might criticise my 
teachers for just teaching me patterns.

But I do not believe my teachers are teaching patterns. Nor do I feel I 
am just learning patterns (although for the moment I may be just dancing 
patterns).

However, I do believe others in my classes are only learning patterns.
And perhaps if I did not already have dance experience I too would be 
only learning patterns.

For now, patterns help me learn to dance tango. Sometime soon I will 
start breaking down the patterns and putting the parts together 
differently (as I did for a time with Ceroc). Sometime after that I will 
generally forget about patterns or their parts, and just lead my 
follower according to the music and the available space.
But I don't think I can get to that point without starting with patterns.

Tim