Layering
Some quick reflections after the past two weekends of workshops with Hsueh-tze Lee and partly due to the short discussion we had on the approaches to learning.
For someone not having the luxury of “Tango immersion”, either in Buenos Aires or in the various Tango strongholds in Europe or USA, from a purely technical point of view, I like to imagine the learning process for Tango as a little bit like an onion. An onion has many layers. At the core, there are the basic philosophical principles. The next layer out will be some generic techniques. Finally we come to the outer layer of “style” that is usually the first thing people see.
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Thoughts on teaching
I recall a comment made by Andrea Misse in one of their group classes with her and Javier Rodriguez (J&A for short) during one of their visits to Singapore, perhaps sometime last year!?.
It was something to the effect that, when teaching group classes, they do not start with the intention of trying to completely replace a person’s pre-existing way of doing things. Instead, they try to complement and enhance what each one of us already has.
Consider this: by the time many of us who are outside of Buenos Aires took up Tango, it is likely that we had already been walking for a good 10-20 years, if not more, and therefore had developed our unique style. Good or bad, this is “us”. So, what is a visiting Tango teacher to do under the circumstances, given that walking (for social Tango) is such an integral element? Well, J&A’s approach as they said during that class is to try to add something on top of what we have naturally, rather than trying to eradicate everything and replace it with “Javier/Andrea memories”.
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Visualisations
Examples of mental imagery which I learnt during another wonderful round of workshops with Javier Rodriguez and Andrea Misse.
Feline walk, with feet caressing the floor. In fact, the sensation is very similar to what is described here, which is very relaxed and calm.
A quick tip that changed the my embrace in a matter of seconds: picturing that I am trying to embrace five people in one go.
Finally, my favourite (the context being men connecting with each other and respecting the space in line of dance, and ladies taking the opportunities to express herself):
“Men create the order; ladies create the beauty.”
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How long for newbies
Got into a conversation recently lamenting the fact there it’s very difficult to bring in new people – and guys in particular – to our Tango community. One of the main point, it seems, is that Tango, when compared with, say, salsa, is a difficult dance and so people drop out because of the lack of “instant gratification”. That is, people tend to drop out because it takes too long for them to reach a level where they can enjoy Tango!? A gross generalisation, perhaps, but there is probably some element of truth in there? Perhaps it is happening right in your community?
To a certain extent I’d have to agree with the assessment above. However, since people join Tango for various reasons, with pursuit of excellence being but one of many, I believe it is also fair to say that most people during their initial brush with Tango just want to have fun, and preferably with like-minded people. In fact, in my opinion, it is rather the exception to find people who are very serious and dedicated from the word go, except perhaps for people from competitive dance background, e.g. ballroom/dancesport.
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