[Tango-L] Parallel to cross system - different ways?

[Sergey Kazachenko]

Lifting the follower's left side (your third option) works, but more
experienced followers find it cheating. Essentially you are lifting
her so far that her left foot cannot reach the floor, so you are
limiting her moves, even for one "quick" beat.

The fourth option - to lose contact - is breaking the connection, so I
wouldn't even discuss it on a respectable tango list :)

I am not sure how your second option could work at all. You lead her
to change weight, but before she actually changes that you are already
leading a step back? This, IMO, requires some very precise and quick
timing, and I fail to see how this could improves the dance at all.

The way I explain it is this - you are doing a weight change. You
either want the follower to change her weight with you (say, step 8 of
the OCB), or you don't. To have her change weight with you, close your
feet, switch the weight to the free foot and make a pronounced move
down with the appropriate shoulder. To have her not switch the weight,
keep the shoulders level.

Hope this helps,

Sergey

May you be forever touched by His Noodly Appendage... (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flying_Spaghetti_Monster )



On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 9:57 AM, Zpetrovic <zpetrovic at cooltoad.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> Thank you for your answers on time signatures. It seems to me that is a
> complicated musical issue, so I’ll just focus on dancing. Since I have been
> reading posts on tango l for days let me just say it is a great experience to
> learn from those about everything connected to tango. And I apologize for my
> English, it is not very good.
> I have been dancing tango for over two years now and just love music, motions,
> embrace, artistic expression and different styles – everything about it.
> Now I have a question about different ways to lead from parallel to cross
> system? Maybe it’s a good idea to explain my experience about it using the
> example of 8-count basic figure with a change at step 2 for a leader. First
> way I lead it was keeping the upper part of the body still while changing foot
> at 2, so that follower will feel the weight change but not respond to it since
> she follows the movements of leaders torso.
> Second way used was keeping the entire body as a whole (so naturally when I do
> the weight change at 2 followers understand it as a signal to transfer weight
> at 2 with me) and not giving the follower time to transfer weight but quickly
> leading the next step.
> Third way was lifting the left side of follower’s torso slightly so she could
> understand not to change at 2. For lifting I used breathing and/or leaning my
> body slightly to left.
> Fourth way was to lose contact with follower with my right arm (and with my
> torso if we danced in chest contact) so only contact that remained was one
> with my left hand and her right hand. Then, making my left arm not in firm
> position with my torso I could move my body without transferring energy of
> motion to follower.
> Could you share some thoughts about this from your experience? Which way you
> consider best and why? If none, which one it is? Which way is more appropriate
> for social dancing and which one for competitions? Are there any other ways of
> doing this? Should I use one way when music is fast, and another one when it
> is slow?
>
> All the best
> Z.
>
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