[Tango-L] Lead and follow

[larrynla@juno.com]

[part 2 of "Lead and follow"]


(2) A man must know very clearly what he wants his partner to do.  The 
certainty alone gives a woman the confidence to surrender her will to 
his.  But his knowledge will also communicate details of his desire to 
her in a dozen subtle ways, many of which he is not conscious.

He does not need to know all the details of HOW she executes his 
request.  That is her job.  He only needs to know WHAT he wants.  It 
does help, however, to have practiced the woman's part and know some of 
what she does.  This helps him better to judge if he should make a 
request, or if he should give her more time for some movements.

When learning advanced and complicated movements often men will focus 
most on their own part.  But if he focuses on her's instead his part 
will become clearer, because it is determined by what he wants her to 
do.  Also sometimes he may discover more than one way to do his part of 
the movement.

A woman enters into an unspoken contract when she accepts an embrace 
not to undermine a man's confidence, which for most of us is more 
fragile than we like to admit.  Only in an emergency should she refuse 
a request, and the time to discuss technique is in a class, not at a 
milonga, or at least not on the dance floor.

A leader should be willing, even eager, to risk (harmless) mistakes.  
It's part of being a leader, to adventure.  But it's also part of 
leading to admit to it when one fails - including asking partners to do 
something they cannot do, either because it is beyond their skill level 
or because (perhaps) they are too tired to respond properly.

There are two aspects of making mistakes I don't recall ever 
hearing/reading about.  They  build the leader's skill at recovering 
from errors - which happen no matter how careful and skilled a couple 
are.  Also, in recovering, sometimes we discover/invent a new "step."

(1) Puppy Costello supposedly said "Figures are easy; walking is hard." 
It's equally true that the seemingly simple embrace is hard, and hides 
many subtleties.

The embrace is a pleasure in its own right, and for many part of the 
reward for dancing. It is also the "voice" we use to communicate our 
desires, and for more than just the immediate desires to move in ways 
that execute figures and communicate how well we can or can't do them. 
Learning how to embrace well, and practicing to make the embrace 
better, is crucial to dancing, especially in tango where potentially 
each individual step may be lead.

We who do tango are lucky that pauses are part of the dance's 
vocabulary. I like to start each dance with a zarandeo, a gentle left-
right twisting of our bodies. This means we can begin dancing even 
though we move our feet not at all. We can also begin dancing by doing 
cadencias, named after the way soldiers keep the cadence when stopped 
by stepping in place. The zarandeo and cadencia allow us to define then 
refine our embrace before trying to walk and stay synchronized.

Once moving it is a good idea to dance very simply so we can focus on 
getting acquainted with our partner. The better we know our partner the 
sooner we can graduate to more elaborate moves. Even with long-time and 
favorite partners, however, we should not skimp on getting acquainted. 
Each of us is more than one person.  The depressed or enthusiastic 
person at the beginning of the evening may change so that at it's end 
we are exhilarated or weary and a very different person to dance with.

And thus we scratch the surface of leading and following.


Larry de Los Angeles
http://shapechangers.wordpress.com


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