Thank you, thank you, thank you - for making my birthday celebration the best yet (I say that every year because it's true: It just gets better and better.)  Thanks especially to the long line of tangueros who wanted nothing more than to dance with little old me.  I've achieved my junior high school  dream, and you all made it happen.

We're planning some terrific stuff for our tenth anniversary, and we want all of our friends to help us celebrate.  Make sure not to make any other plans for this big day. 

Don't miss our annual Firehouse Tango on the Hudson Outdoor Picnic Milonga Sunday, August 25 from 4 to 8 pm.   The event will be held at the Alpine Pavilion; one of the loveliest spots in this area, right on the Hudson River.

Hi everybody, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. If I had to give followers a single piece of advice in dancing Tango, it would be this:

Followers, it's your second step that counts.

Huh? Second step? What's Fran talking about? Okay, let's discuss what this somewhat vague statement means.

Tango de salon -- social Tango -- is a dance that focuses on lead/follow skills rather than choreography; i.e., unless you're a professional performer. This means that as a follower in social Tango your job is to receive a lead from your partner, and execute it to the best of your ability. So, with that in mind, the music starts and your partner invites the first step. If he's a skilled leader, he makes it very obvious what he wants. Most likely, it will be one of the basic four movements: forward, backward, to the side, or in-place. You read the lead and take the step.

Now what?

Here is where a skilled follower knows exactly what to do, and an unskilled follower falls on her face.

What do you do at the end of that first step?

The answer of course, is nothing. As a skilled follower you know that Tango is led - and therefore followed - in increments of one step. This means that at the end of that first step, you bring yourself into balance on the leg that just traveled, and you stop, waiting in balance for the next lead.

Everything in Tango - the entire dance - hinges on this moment - waiting for the second step, and the third, and all the rest which will come after that first movement. It often happens that the unskilled follower continues to move at the end of this first step. She takes a second or third step without being invited to do so. Even if she doesn't actually take an uninvited step or two, she loses her balance and literally falls into an additional movement. (Teachers sometimes refer to this kind of behavior as "anticipation" or "back leading.") During a dance, a good leader can compensate for this kind of inappropriate practice by a follower. But he shouldn't have to. It all depends on the follower knowing what to do about that very important second step.

To make certain that you dance like a skilled follower, here is what to do when asked to take a step:

1.     Follow the lead by executing whatever single movement is invited.

2.     As you near the end of the step, concentrate exclusively on bringing yourself into an upright position, still in balance.

3.     Don't allow yourself to think about what your leader might have in mind for the next step.

4.     When you're at rest and in balance, just wait. He may invite a succeeding step, and, then again, he might not. You have no way of knowing what he'll do, so your job is to do nothing.

Followers, if you can do all this at the end of every step you take in Tango, you will have overcome the greatest obstacle to skilled dancing that you can possibly face. Almost everything else in the dance will become quite simple.

• Terri Lopez 
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• Jesse Barton
• Mary Epiphan
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• Elena Syrett
• Steve Maisch
• Mike Porro
  

• Walter Petuch
• Eduard Simpson
• Fred Meyers
• Jorge Insfran
• George Ngo
• Carl Remmes
• Bob Brillo
• Edna Negron
• Horatio Piccioni
• Francis & Marie
• Eduardo Campos
  
• Terri Lopez