[Tango-L] A. Tango And Smooth Ballroom: Help Or Hinderance

[Michael]

Bob:
Dancing Argentine Tango greatly improved my ballroom. Because of close 
embrace, there's no room for error. If I can't lead the woman to step first, 
there's going to be a collision. In ballroom, the man is off center from the 
woman. He can move his left foot forward without fear of stepping on the 
woman's foot. However, it's a terrible lead for the man to move before the 
woman.

Ballroom has prescribed steps and rhythms. Argentine doesn't have prescribed 
steps and rhythms and forces the man to pay more attention to the woman, 
e.g. knowing which foot she is standing. In ballroom, couples are on 
parallel feet virtually all the time so there's less need for the man to 
know which foot the woman is standing.


Michael
I danced Argentine Tango --with the Argentines

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <rhink2 at netscape.net>
Subject: [Tango-L] A. Tango And Smooth Ballroom: Help Or Hinderance


> Does
> Argentine tango help one dance better ballroom? Does ballroom dancing 
> help one dance better A. tango? In other words, is there a cross-training 
> benefit or does one genre interfere with learning the > other?
>
> Let me be more specific. Smooth (or traveling) ballroom dances, such as 
> waltz, foxtrot, quickstep, and ballroom tango, share things in common 
> with A. tango, but there are profound differences as well. Is there a  net 
> gain or a net loss in knowing one style of dance when trying to learn the 
> other.
>
> Bob