[Tango-L] milonga revisited

[Huck Kennedy]

On Mon, Aug 16, 2010 at 11:17 AM, Trini y Sean (PATangoS)
<patangos at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> A few weeks ago, I fretted about whether folks were still teaching
> the man's orientation with his back toward the center of the circle.
> Most of the milonga workshops I have attended in recent years
> had the man facing the line of dance and the focus has been on traspie.

     If you were to pretend that the line of dance was north, I was
originally taught the basic steps of milonga with the leader facing
not north, not east (perpendicular to the line of dance facing the
wall), but rather southeast (SE).  His first step was a right backstep
(from his point of view), which would make it in reality a forward
step for the couple, diagonal center in ballroom-speak (or NW in my
compass terminology).

     The six-count basic milonga step for the leader was back right,
side left, right forward cross, left forward, right side, and close.
There was wiggle room to pivot around in there a bit, but the sequence
both started and ended with the leader facing SE.

     A four-count basic milonga step for the leader was back right,
side left, right forward cross, and close, again, starting and ending
facing SE.

     We never danced in cross system, and we never did a cruzada,
unless it was just momentary in passing going into little forward
ochos around the man.  While the basic step had the leader facing SE,
there were some situations where he did face forward--for example, he
might face NNE to lead back ochos--done in parallel system, of course,
never crossed.

Huck