Hi everyone, Fran here with your Tango Tip of the Week. Over the past several Tips, we’ve been focusing on both the leader’s and the follower’s responsibilities in social Tango. Today, I want to turn things around, and discuss basic expectations. What does a skilled follower expect from a skilled leader? What does a skilled leader expect from a skilled follower?

Notice that I purposely used the term skilled here. I am, of course, talking about an ideal situation — one in which both partners have actually attained a true level of expertise, which they now each bring to the dance relationship. I am NOT talking about a leader who has arbitrarily elected himself an expert without actually knowing what he’s doing. Nor am I referring to a follower who wishes she could understand and respond to leads properly, but, in reality, doesn’t have a clue.

Right now, let’s discuss what the skilled leader expects. Fundamentally, he wants his partner to be able to understand and respond to his invitations one element at a time, and to be able to bring herself into conscious balance — what I like to call “neutral” — at the end of each step she takes. To put it another way, he expects her to energetically and confidently execute each individual movement he leads, then come to a definite stop and wait for the next lead. At the same time, he expects his follower to avoid “doing her own thing;” i.e., to anticipate what she may think he wants by moving on her own.

If he’s dancing with this partner for the first time — or if he hasn’t danced with her for an extended period of time — the skilled leader recognizes that it will almost certainly take her several dances with him before she will be able to respond to his individual way of employing the lead/follow mechanism with a sense of clarity and freedom, and that he needs to be generous, patient, and forgiving during this essential one-to-one “learning” process.

At no time (this means NEVER), does the skilled leader ever, ever, ever attempt to teach his follower what to do.  Over my years of teaching Tango, I’ve observed that almost the very first thing an unskilled leader does in the dance relationship is to place himself in the role of all-knowing advisor, feeling that he somehow has the right to teach his follower how to dance. In fact, this is usually a covert way (whether he’s aware of it or not) to deflect from his incompetence as a leader.

Ladies, if you ever hear a leader begin a sentence with the words “You are/were supposed to …,“ you can safely assume that he doesn’t know how to lead, and is trying to make his ineptitude your fault. And leaders, even if she doesn’t laugh in your face and walk away from you, when you try to impress her with your wit and wisdom, just remember that while she’s standing there quietly nodding acquiescence to your inspirational superiority, in reality she’s onto your game. Instead of thinking, “What a wonderful teacher you are,” she’s actually saying to herself, “Get me away from this bozo!”

Learn how to lead, my brother, and you won’t have to keep telling your partner what she’s “supposed to be doing.”

Next week, we’ll talk about the basic expectations a skilled follower has of her leader. In the meantime, remember that the three crucial parts of the equation in a successful social Tango interaction are a skilled leader, a skilled follower, and a very good teacher, who possesses the ability to help both partners achieve and maintain that level of expertise over time. I don’t know any other way for leaders and followers to get there, except, of course, to be born in Argentina, and spend about forty years, hanging out in the milongas and working on their moves. If you know another way, however, please let me in on your secret.

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