[Tango-L] basics - "swayback" & "around-the-lower-back-grip" in followers - origins?

[Alexis Cousein]

On 20/09/2010 08:40, Brian Dunn wrote:
> === Potential functional advantages of a swayback posture:
> - Some women appear to express the music by sometimes doing very high
> boleos, (backwards linear or Back-cross circular), either when led or as an
> adornment on an otherwise simple tango moment.

High boleos as an adornment, without a strong lead that indicates
there's room? To call that reckless would be an understatement
(unless you have followers in your neck of the woods
who have in the years grown the necessary eyes in their backs).

Personally, it gives me a lot more pleasure to see (or feel)
a very strong boleo in which the follower's foot stays low and
even almost connected to the other foot. That's not where the
boleo happens anyway, and a follower who's demonstrated foot
control shows me that
a) she's boss over her own members ;)
b) she knows where the boleo really happens (i.e. at the waist;
the foot merely follows, or doesn't when there's no room
-- or to make a statement ;D ).

When I lead a really energetic boleo (obviously only when there
is LOTS of room) and she decides to swallow that energy and
*not* send the foot away, she also shows *me* who's boss,
even though she lets me lead. Me likey!


>
> For some followers, an embrace around the
> leader's waist would help to provide useful "connection enhancement" in
> cases where the leader's signals were fading into vagueness through an
> attempt to maintain an overly "gentle" embrace.

Well, two wrongs a right don't make...

Mind you, it's possible to dance in a frame like that (though it
borders on the not-really-an-embrace frame). But an embrace should
always be negotiated, and not imposed by any partner (that's what
we have intros for, right¹). And it should certainly, if it's
a choice, not simply be used because it masks the deficiency
in someone else's posture or lead/follow (well, I'll concede
that in a milonga you can indeed "cover up something with
the mantle of love" as we say in Dutch, but always consciously,
not too often and certainly not systematically).

> As long as we're discussing style, I invite similar non-judgmental
> speculation on how the "waiter-serving-drinks" horizontal position of the
> leader's left hand may have evolved - I have my own theories ;)

I always tend to start with the wrist in a neutral position (hand
oriented like the arm, little torsion) and ultimately
(after settling in the embrace) as little torsion for me and
the follower there as possible; that means it naturally
adapts to the rest of the embrace (in close embrace,
with a lot of difference between embraces that are frontal
and others in Vee with an open left side for me).

I've never thought to see how my hand is, as long as it feels
right. When it doesn't, it's usually the dreaded arm-wrestling
or pushing-against-the-other hold with elbow sticking out
the back. A horizontal hand would require me to twist
my wrist *outward*, and I can only see that happening out
of overcompensation.

--
¹Pet peeve #2: people who start charging as if they
were bisons in a stampede before the intro has finished,
making me (carefully negotiating an embrace with
someone I don't know) feel like a bowling pin in
an alley.