The simple truth
Over the past weekend, I attended the first half of Hsueh-tze’s Art of Tango workshop series which will run over two weekends. I am happy to say that while some of the materials taught were already familiar to me, I was still able to pick up many subtle technical points. If anything, I think her demonstration of different ways of dancing to D’Arienzo’s “La Bruja” was well worth the price of admission, as they say!
Something that was mentioned in the class really stuck in my mind. A statement which Hsueh-tze attributed to one of her former students went something like this:
A good leader makes everything “simple” (for the follower).
Here the word “simple” can be taken to mean “effortless”. In other words, a key characteristic of a good lead is clarity, so that there is no ambiguity in the follower’s mind and no further interpretation is necessary.
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Mind vs instinct
(Renaming the post to something I feel are even more appropriate. 22/10/08)
During a recent practica, it suddenly occurred to me that, while practicing, I really need to be careful that I don’t over-emphasise the “intellectual” side while practicing techniques at the expense of shutting out my body’s natural instincts.
What do I mean by this?
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Tango essence
After a weekend of workshops, a couple of privates and an enlightening conversation with Javier Rodriguez and Andrea Misse over supper, if you were to ask me: what is the essence of good Tango salon? My answer would be simply: the embrace.
While there are various techniques and perhaps stylistic considerations which I had briefly alluded to which contribute to a good embrace for dancing, here I am actually talking about only the attitude: one of unreservedly inviting and accepting the opportunity of holding someone with love. “Love” here does not need to have any sexual contexts but can simply be humanly love between two people. After that, the rest can in fact be seen as mere formality…
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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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