[Tango-L] The Basics

[Huck Kennedy]

On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 11:28 PM, Alexis Cousein <al at sgi.com> wrote:
> On 21/09/2010 05:14, Shahrukh Merchant wrote:
> >
> > That's an interesting twist ... which one could reformulate to the
> > effect that, "Since dancing (well) in close embrace is harder than
> > dancing in open embrace [no argument from me there],

      I guess that depends upon what you mean by "well"--just fairly
good, or truly excellent.

> I'm not sure I completely agree.
>
> It may be harder to dance in close embrace, but
> I'd tend to think it's harder to dance *well* in any kind of open
> embrace (even those with fairly limited room).

       I agree with Alexis on this.  I believe it is easier to get
started as a beginner in the open dance position, and that for a
beginner a close embrace is very daunting, for physical reasons (OMG!
I can't see my feet!) in addition to the psychological ones (What?
You're saying I have to embrace this total stranger?!? ).  But I also
believe that dancing at an excellent level is far more difficult in
the open position than in close embrace.

       If you look at a social floor, you may find that most of the
better dancers will be dancing close embrace, so it is tempting to
deduce that close embrace is more difficult to dance well, but I don't
think it is.  I also think that on the average floor, most of the
people attempting to dance complicated moves in open embrace will look
far more foolish (sorry, folks) than those dancing close, because you
have to be at a sterling level to make open embrace look good.  It
requires much more technique, physical conditioning, etc., and even
the slightest deficiencies are more visible.  And of course, it's
harder to maintain connection, and harder to manage your balance.
Unless the couple are very excellent dancers, open embrace can easily
look more like adversarial wrestling than coordinated fluid dancing.

       By the way, to correlate what I write above with actual
positions and make sure we're all on the same page, I'm classifying
the embraces as follows:

Open--leader's right hand on follower's left shoulder blade,
follower's left hand on leader's right biceps

Closed--leader's right hand goes as far around follower as possible
(depending upon her size), approaching follower's right armpit,
follower drapes left arm over leader's shoulder
     a.  V-style close embrace, connection between leader's right
chest and follower's left chest, forming a small-angled V
     b.   apilado, chests as parallel as possible, sternum to sternum

Huck