Hi everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. What do you think about as you're walking out onto the floor to dance with someone? What's front and center in your thoughts?
If you're a beginner, you might be thinking something like "I hope I don't make a complete idiot of myself," or "Please don't let me make a mistake." On the other hand, if you're a
highly skilled veteran, and you're about to dance with a partner who you know is also skilled, you probably don't think about anything at all. Instead, you simply take things as they come, allowing yourself to enjoy the dance and your partner's company from moment to moment as it unfolds.
Somewhere between the confusion (and sometimes absolute paralysis) of being a beginner and the fluid, apparently effortless mastery of finally knowing what you're doing (do we ever really get there?)
is that mandatory joy ride of suffering we call "the learning process."
There is so much "stuff" you have to assimilate in order to dance Tango at even a rudimentary level that it's no wonder so many people quit before they give it a fighting chance to succeed. And maybe the biggest problem is that most of the really hard things jump out at you right away -- I mean, from the very first moment you hit the floor. You have to stand up straight; maintain your balance; keep your feet
together at rest; don't lurch, when you walk; lead/follow your partner who right now hasn't got a clue what he/she is doing; try to remember a bunch of brand new I-never-did-this-before movements from one second to the next.... Did I say, keep your balance? It goes on and on. And don't forget to breathe, right?
Just have fun with it, the teacher says.
So here you are, smack in the middle of your process. You're not going to give up no matter what; you'll get this
thing, if it kills you (good attitude!); and you venture out onto the floor with a partner ... what are you thinking about?
If your answer is, "I don't know," I have a feeling that you're going to stay a beginner for a long time.
Instead of just remaining a blank canvas (Ommmmmm), let me itemize a few goodies you can consciously and deliberately bring with you as a leader/follower every time you walk out onto the dance floor. These elements are part of what I describe to my
students as your "Tango Tool Box."
Item number one: Make an ongoing commitment to maintaining appropriate posture.
If you don't stand up straight, you look amateurish, and -- more important -- your balance is going to be severely compromised.
Item number two: Solemnly swear to always keep your balance.
With any kind of athletic movement -- and Tango can get very athletic -- balance at rest as well as during and at the end
of motion is crucial to the ongoing integrity of the dance.
Item number three: Sign a binding contract to keep your feet together.
By feet, I'm really talking about your entire legs -- from thighs down through heels. This can be a significant challenge, especially if, like me, you're a little bowlegged. But there's plenty you can do to make it happen after any given step.
These three items above are things you can think about and practice by
yourself. Get them firmly in your mind, and work on them consciously all the time. As for tools that will help you work effectively with a partner, these are perhaps the most essential:
Item number four: Make it a priority to learn how to lead/follow.
Leading is not physically dominating or brutalizing a follower. Following is not hanging on for dear life, and praying for the end of a dance. However, for most of us, lead/follow is
not at all instinctive. You can learn the very specific mechanisms of lead/follow by finding someone who knows how to teach them -- and working on this crucial skill until it's in your system.
Item number five: Treat your partner with respect, patience, and a sense of humor.
Tango is hard to learn, and hard to dance. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody has issues. There are people in our community who seem to use Tango as an occasion to beat each other up.
(What in the hell is with that, anyway?) Do not ever be one of those people. Period.
There's lots more in my "Tango Tool Box" for later, but these are what I would consider essential in getting started. If you find that it's impossible to think about all these things at once, try them one at a time in successive dances.
Posture, balance, feet together, lead/follow, respect, patience, a sense of humor.
These are your key words. Burn them
into your memory, learn what they mean, and don't walk out onto the dance floor without bringing them with you. Eventually, you'll be able to incorporate each of these "Tango Tool Box" essentials into your muscle memory, and you won't have to think about them anymore.
One last note: Beginners often ask, "How long will it be before I can dance Tango?" I usually reply, "Ask me that next year." (I don't want to scare them too much.). "In the meantime," I tell them, " just do the
work."
Do the work.
