[Tango-L] Why is it so hard to walk?

[Eero Olli]

This thread started by Sharon asking:
> How do you help your beginners to walk reasonably and musically?
I think that is one of the most important questions to ask.


Walking alone in a ring
I like to have people walking alone in a large ring. There are
problems that are individual and there are problems that belong to
the couple. Walking alone allows the student to concentrate on
their own
technique.

Tango walk is a little different from regular walking styles; there
are differences in posture that require some changes in how
muscles are used. Walking alone gives people a chance to
concentrate on these small changes. The walk needs to be
automatic. Because we have a life long practice in walking, our
habits are strong. In order to create new habits hours and hours
of walking is needed. Nevertheless, if you keep students walking
alone for 10 hours, they have learned postural chages worth one
year of tango lessons.  Spend a 20 minutes of walking alone in
the beginning of every class to improve individual technique and
dance.  It is like practicing scales with an instrument.

I try to get beginners walking with purpose and pride, without
talking too much about the details and different stages during the
steps. It is better to get them really moving, use their walking
competence and adjust that a little. Trying to teach walking
theoretically step by step, works for with people who have a high
level of  body control (dancers, actors, some athletes and
movement  instructors). Regular beginners will loose all
confidence and ability to move.

Posture
You can ask them to change posture while walking - just try out
things: what happens in your back, neck and the hips when you
lift  your arms to an abrazo compared to having them down?
What happens if you in addition let your shoulders come down?
What happens, if there is life and movement in your upper torso
while you walk, compared with a stiff upper body? What happens
if you move your chest a little forward? What happens with your
head and neck, if you look look forward. What happens if
you let your neck relax?   What happens if you create a column
inside your body that start from the perineum and lifts upwards
through your chest to the top of your head?

All directions
Walk forward, backwards, sideways, and sometimes men forward
and women backwards.
Walking backwards requires that everyone keep on equal
distance to the person they can see closest to them. This will help
to keep the ring. If the person closest to you is about to step on
you, reach out with your hand to stop them = helps to create the
trust needed to walk backwards.


Learn the good from the bad
You can ask students to do some bad and weird things (lift your
feet high, stick your head forward or backward, stick your pelvis
forward, Walk with unsymmetrical shoulders, walk up and one
down, walk low with short steps= knees bent all the time) The list
of errors is endless, after each error guide them back to a good
posture. Feeling what the bad things do to your walk, helps to
recognize them later in ones own dance.

Finding the beat
Some men have hard time converting the music to weight shift.
They  hear the rhythm (they can clap it) but they are not able to
figure  out where their body should be during the beat. Walking in
the ring gives them time to watch what others are doing and it
gives the teacher an opportunity to walk next to them and guide
with their body. Put the students hand on your lower back, which
allows them feel your weight shifts in relation to their own walk.
Allow them time to synchronize their walk with yours - sometimes
it takes a whole dance.

Use slow, regular, pause or double tempo steps.
You know the drill...

Short steps vs. long steps
Find the relation between height and step length. I like to call a
normal step length, the step you can take without moving your hip
or changing the point where your weight is placed under your
standing leg.  A normal step can be stopped without leaving your
previous placement of weight.

Prolonged steps
Some beginners have seen tango dancers do long steps on
stage, and they are trying to do prolonged steps as their normal
step, which is not a good way to start. Knowing that prolonged
steps exist, can help the beginners to avoid them. Prolonged
steps are too difficult for for beginners to use in dance. But if you have
mixed level class, it can be a nice excercise.   Prolonged steps (or
perhaps extended steps is better English) add an inch or two to the step
length. The leader will ask for a prolonged step by moving a little
further during the step = the weight is not comfortably in the ball of the
standing foot any more, but in the very extreme front of the standing foot
at the moment, when the moving foot is placed on the floor. Be careful to
not increase the length by moving only the hip forward.  The same applies
in steps to any direction. A good exercise is a slow milonga. I don't
remember the name of the step (double step-walk?): you reach out with one
foot, stop with a small weight on the forward foot, and step again one
inch longer with the same  foot (this is resembles the prolongement used
in tango). Repeat on every step.  When students know how to do the
prolongement with a stop, drop the stop, and do just reach out and prolong
= make one extra long step that has a gliding type of continuity. The
prolongement requires a commitment to the movement and the step.  The
prolongement cannot be stopped without leaving your previous placement of
weight. (You can of course go to your new weight and change direction and
come back, but your have take your previous foot off the floor. If you do
not need, it is not the kind of prolongement I am talking about.)

Crosses
Practice all crosses as a regular walk, where the arriving foot,
instead of passing the stading foot, crosses.   Pay attention to the small
changes in directions between each step.  We seldom do crosses while we
walk on the street, therefore we have a habit of trying to avoid them.
Doing 1000 crosses helps to open up the brain for the possiblity of making
a cross.  A cross should be just like a regular step, without any alarms
going off in the brain. * Walk forward cross with right: Step forward with
left- step into cross with right. Repeat. * Walk forward cross with left.
* Walk backwards cross with right. * Walk backwards cross with left. *
Cross with right - step - step - cross with right. Repeat.


Pivots
Add small pivots to the walk for each step. Practice both forward
and backward until the next step can be controlled.  In the ring
only small pivots (5-90 degrees) and the molinete will work.

Combinations
When they know how to do one thing, give them combinations to
practice the changes. Lots of repetitions is nice for creating
automation, but combinations helps to move a single item to the
dance.  These combinations work also as repetition. Make sure
that every new piece of of information is repeated several times.
* Give very short combinations of steps, lenghts and rythms that
can be chained together. Do them all together, to check that
every one got it.


Expression
Until you are able to walk with expression alone, you are not able
to lead or follow with expression.
*Ask students to walk with passion, fear,
resentment, happiness, eagerly, in pain, with expectation, lazy,
stressed, in love, sad.
* Ask them to move like a movie character or an animal. Help
them to exaggerate. It helps to push their uppor limit of
expression. In their dance, they are perhaps able to use 10% of
the expression they do in an exercise. So if they are able to
double the range of expression during the exercise, they will
probably feel more comfortable to use a little more expression
during their dance. Sometimes expression can ruin the
technique, so you need to find a right balance, without killing the
joy of expression.  People tend to do things that they never could
do as a couple, but that is OK. Combine expressions and
elements:
   - Humphery Bogart style double tempos
   - Marilyn Monroe style pivots (they are very different from Lady
Gagas)
   - Do 121 crosses like an happy accountant
   - Do long steps like you had a stone in your left shoe
   - make every sidestep left like it is a step away from you hateful
ex-partner and every sidestep right like it is a step to your new love
whom you do not really know that well yet

The freedom to improvise
Some men are fear struck while leading. Walking and dancing
alone, helps them to find the music in their dance. For women it is
a great opportunity learn to listen to and use the music.
* Improvise with full freedom and express the music!
But before you get good in improvising you
need to practice. Give them only one to two elements to improvise
with. The limitation forces people to make up and use new
combiantions. If they are totally free, they just tend to repeat old
ideas.  For example: * No pivots. no crosses. Use as many corners as
possible. Try to use all different corners you can come up with (with or
without a change of foot in a corner).  * All steps in normal tempo, with
the exepction of a pivots than have different tempos. In otherwords, only
tool of expression are the pivots. Therefore, one must use the differences
in pivot, in order to dance to the music.


Walking together.
It is also possible to walk in the ring in couples with abrazo ;-)
It allows for a whole new sets of comments and focus on  the
interplay between dancers. All of the above exercises can and
should be done also in couples.

Happy walking,
Eero





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