[Tango-L] Getting tango lessons to the needy

[Trini y Sean (PATangoS)]

--- On Tue, 7/5/11, Alexis Cousein <al at sgi.com> wrote:


> I know some teachers will use an "obvious entry" that's 5
> counts long to get into e.g. a right hand side cross system and may
> want to bolt on an exit that's also quite long to get back into the
> LOD

Yes, and a teacher would do that for an intermediate workshop but shouldn't be doing it for an advanced workshop.  To give an example of how chunking works, let's say the teacher takes the follower to the cross to set up the figure (positions 2 thru 5) before he does whatever movement he's going to teach.  

- A beginner might use up 5+ chunks just for the walk to the cross.  
- An intermediate would use 1 chunk and his second chunk would be whatever the movement is.
- An advanced dancer would still be waiting to see the next 4-5 movements before calling it 1 chunk.  The whole walk to the cross would be disregarded.

And the LOD wouldn't even need to be discussed because advanced dancers know they can bend anything they want to go where they need to go. They'll figure it out on their own. 

Oh, and the number of chunks for short-term memory is "7 plus or minus 2".  I tend to chunk things up so that I only need to remember 5 big chunks at the most.

This is why I prefer to take notes during workshops instead of just recording videos.  It engages the brain more to create bigger chunks of information for long-term memory.  I also read recently that as we age (ages 40+), our brains get better at connecting relationships (seeing the overall picture) even though we might lose minor things.  I think that works well for tango.


Trini de Pittsburgh