[Tango-L] Getting educated

[Jeff Gaynor]

With all of the talk about qualifications for teachers, it dawns on me 
that I don't have a functional definition of what it means to be 
well-rounded and educated in tango.

At this point my education is spotty. I know some close embrace. It 
impresses me that getting well rounded should be my next goal. Since I 
cannot go for depth of material, I'll have to go for breadth.

(OK, I'll come clean. I've laid off tango for a while for various 
personal reasons and for the fact that there are no women in my 
community that are interested in dancing at a high level. Consequently I 
found that mostly when I danced I was getting into the habit of 
correcting for their bad technique. One factor that made me decide to 
lay off was taking lessons from a few excellent teachers all of whom 
independently told me that dancing with poor followers was the biggest 
single reason I was stuck. At this point I'm at a dead end, so it's 
either figure out something to keep me active in the community or just 
drop out from boredom and frustration. I'm not alone, I suspect -- how 
many people who drop out are in the same boat as me, I wonder?)

Oh and *please* keep the ideology to a minimum. Look, I'm no pro, right? 
In the case of CE vs. OE vs. Fantasia etc. what has happened is you've 
thought about it for years and with a sound background, gravitated 
towards what suits you best. Fine. However (this is me talking as a 
teacher in other fields), narrowing down the field to your particular 
love runs the real risk of stupefying your students. If they do it just 
like you say, it should be the case they can hold their own anywhere 
rather than give a pious sermon on how something is not "real". This 
just looks like they cover their ignorance with sanctimoniousness.

So people, what in you opinion would you count as a good basic education 
for someone who wants to do tango?