walk this way

Argentine Tango is a Social Dance, and as such there are certain conventions that we as dancers have to adhere to, some are fluid and flexible, and others are loose and available for interpretation according to personal taste, style, or point of view. From a certain point of view, most of these ‘conventions’ are all valid, most. Again, depending how you look at it. Some work, some don’t, and some are less than desirable. And some are myths or misconceptions.

A myth that I run into from time to time in my private lessons is that as a leader and or a follower you require force and body tension, and/or “pressure’ to accomplish your goals. Another way to think of that is one must push, be pushed, pull and be pulled, and or generally be jerked around in order to ‘dance’. I believe that this is not true.

There are aspects of the dance that can seemingly look like force or ‘pressure’ is being employed, and I can assure you that’s not the case. 9 times out of 10, what you see on a social dance floor by well practiced, and near professional and professional dancers, or will see is performed, is done through ease, and a lack of bodily tension…no body, muscled force has been applied. However, that’s not always the case. There’s a lot of versions on this idea, so it may be the case. However, none of the dancers I regularly dance with, or my teaching peers teach these ideas (that I know of).

One myth that I run into a lot, and there’s good reason for why I run into it, as a very popular leader/teacher talks about this concept a lot, is ‘Engagement’. Some folks have taken this idea to the extreme. Its the more common one that I run into. In short, the idea of ‘Engagement’ is that the muscles of the shoulders are always pulling away from the on-coming shoulder. Its actually more than just the shoulder, as there’s more going on here than you imagine. This idea, in my opinion, leads to the dancer thinking that the entire arm, forearm, and hand should be pulling, and or creating a state of tension to hold the ‘frame’ of what you’re trying to do with your arm. And that one should in fact maintain this throughout the entire dance. This is not true. Engagement is a tool through which you can achieve a greater level of dynamic motion, to add ‘spice’ that did not exist before hand, but it is NOT the end all through which you can create the dance, or dance through.

And still another…

There is a the concept of “Two Pounds of Pressure” as a means of creating physical connection in order to move and be receive the instruction to move. Which is to say that in order for ‘connection’ to occur you must be weighted, grounded, and pressing into the embrace and outwards at the same time, but not so much that you compromise the form, shape, or motion being transmitted. Put another way, most followers have heard this refrain from their leaders at one time or another, “I need more pressure from you”. I believe that this line of reasoning is a fallacy, that has propagated a whole cadre of less than desirable dancers.

In my opinion, the only thing that “Two Pounds of Pressure” and/or ‘Engagement’ does is sends your chiropractor’s kids to any Ivy League College of their choice!

There is another way to dance.

Its called “INTENTION“.

What is Intention ? I want you to think of a Balloon, full of helium. Now I want you to imagine that Balloon floating at about head level just in front of you. There is a string tied to the ballon but the string isn’t tied to anything at all. Now pay close attention to this part: What happens if you softly exhale towards the Balloon ? Reaction: It floats away from you. If you think of leading as though it were that soft exhale, and following as though it were the Balloon floating away in reaction to the exhale of breath. That’s the beginning idea of Intention. You can lead and follow through Intention alone. Force is not required. As a matter of fact, through Intention its possible go much deeper into the minutia of the dance that isn’t possible through ‘Engagement’ or “Two Pounds of Pressure”.

One way to think of this concept of Intention is to imagine a stereo playing music turned up at full volume. Imagine that this is pretty loud to the point of being deafening. Now place in the same room a woman whispering a Shakespearean sonnet. Question: Can you hear the woman whispering ? More than likely you can’t. You can see her lips moving, but that’s about it. Now imagine this: Turn down the volume of the music to the point where you can hear BOTH the music AND the sonnet at the same time, and here’s the kicker: clearly and distinctly!

That, my friends, is Intention. This is what I teach.

So what you can do with Intention ? Far more than you can imagine. It is by its very nature a completely different way to dance, and a completely different way to experience the dance. I’ll tell you this much, once you experience a trained Intention-based dancer, you won’t want to go back to your old way of dancing, ever again. Really.

Note: Once you do experience it, you’ll think it was the finest thing since sliced bread, just how easy it was to lead said follower, or how easy it was to follow said leader. Aside: There’s something else that goes hand-in-hand with this kind of dancer, leading and following from the ‘core’. Its a whole other way to move! You’ve heard the expression, ‘Like buttah…’, and that’s exactly what dancing with this kind of experience is like.

It is through this idea of Intention that the very real prospect of ‘tangobliss’ has fertile ground to exist. To be clear Intention is NOT tangobliss, but is an essential component in the groundwork so that tangobliss can occur.

To be fair, you can employ all 3 of these ideas in the course of a single dance (Intention, Engagement, and Two Pounds of Pressure) for a desired effect. However, it is my belief that the staple of the dance should be Intention.

The Language That We Speak.

Have you ever learned French ? English as a second language ? Spanish ? Ever taken a language course at all ? If you have, then this will sound familiar. Think back to your first few lessons of the language. You started off learning how to say “Hello”, and “Goodbye”. How to say your name, spelling words, learning how to say the latin alphabet (if it was a romance language), and generally starting from scratch, just like you were 5 years old all over again. Within a matter of weeks you were conjugating verbs, and just starting to put whole sentences together. And a few months after that, depending on how deep you went into the language, your vocabulary had grown to the point where you could actually hold a conversation in the language beyond, “Hello My name is …… “, etc. And a few months after that if you were really diligent, you were actually speaking and conversing nearly fluently, and had started to think in the native language of your choice, and even dream in it.

Sound familiar ?

If it doesn’t that’s ok. There’s another language that you have learned, that has had pretty much the same learning curve. Remove the word “language” from above, and replace it with…yup, you guessed it, “TANGO”.

Tango is a language.

And like all languages Tango has different accents, and dialects. To be clear, in case you’re not, an accent is a pronunciation of the linguistics, a dialect is not only an accent but in addition to that the dialect may have different meanings for the same words, or may in fact have words that bear no striking resemblance to any word in the mother tongue at all, or any cognate at all to speak of.

Tango is the same way. Over the last century as tango has become more diversified, and more ubiquitous, it has also sprung some rather interesting dialects, and most definitely some very fascinating ‘accents’.

By example of what I mean by accent, vs dialect. Take the ‘basic 8′ for instance. There are some schools of tango that teach the ‘basic 8′ as the foundation for everything. There are some that teach everything but, and then are some that teach that the crossing step is a lead step, and some that teach that the crossing step she’s required to do, period. And still there are schools that teach steps 3 thru 5 of the ‘basic 8′ and call it “The Argentine Cross”. All of these are variations on a theme, the crossing step for the follower. Some of them are accents, by example – Steps 3 thru 5 of the ‘Basic 8′…and some are whole dialects, ‘The Basic 8′. Think about it the ‘Basic 8′ had its roots in the Argentine floor shows that came to the western world (the states) early on, and the stage dancers asked the show dancers of those shoes what were the basics of the dance. “The Basics ?” The argentines looked at each other, scratched their heads and made up step to teach the beginner dancers the dance. Those stage dancers thinking that they’ve just learned ‘tango’, took that and ran with it.

Well that’s one story anyway of how we go the ‘Basic 8′. No matter, that story is probably not true, who the hell knows, but it shows you how an idea of the language of tango could have been introduced to a group of people who took it and ran with it. In the end those few steps probably bore little resemblance to the dance of the day.

Here’s another interesting one, look at Ballroom Tango or International or American Tango. This dance bears little resemblance to the dance that we all know and love, the embrace is radically different, the steps are ‘cleaned up’ and standardized, and more over…here’s the kicker, the music is exactly the same. Being that the music drives us, how could ballroom tango stray so far from the mother root ? Continental drift ? Nope. The simple answer is Puritanism! Or more simply put, it strayed because the purveyors of what would become ‘ballroom’ (read that as Arthur Murray and Fred Astaire) realized early on that one of the only ways you could sell argentine tango – ‘the forbidden dance’ to the masses was to keep a respectable distance from your partner and clean up all that body on body nastiness that america just wasn’t ready for, thereby removing from the dance any and all traces of anything that closely resembled body on body touching, but keeping the ‘spirit’ of the dance intact…hence the music stayed but pretty much everything else went by the wayside…and instead became stylized, or euthanized, depending on your point of view.

My belief is that in learning any language one must have a good, clear, clean, understanding of the foundation, structure, syntax, and correct grammar to be understood clearly without a discernible accent. At the same time when we step out onto a social dance floor, we’re asking the person that we’re dancing with if they speak our dialect or our accent, and or if they can translate, or if we can translate theirs to ours.

In each case where its a dialect or an accent or some such in between…you still have to start with the primary tongue itself. The foundation, or in this case, “hello”, “goodbye”, or to put it in tango terms, Forward, and Back Steps, respectively. We start conjugating verbs when we get into Ochos. And we begin putting simple sentences together when we work with the molinete. And then we graduate to the Argentine Cross! And that’s just open embrace simple vocabulary, let’s not even get into the dialect known as ‘Close Embrace’ or its many many accents, and super dialects….oy.

In these respects one can easily start to see that we have in fact learned a language, and its the language of tango.

So the next time you are out on a social dance floor and you see a pair of dancers that looks ‘odd’ to you, ask yourself this question, “I wonder what dialect they speak ?”. Far too often when think that we’ve achieved some level of mastery over the dance (I know I haven’t), we think that we have the right to judge other people’s dialect or accent as invalid, and the fact is that we don’t, well I believe we don’t. I learned early on that those dialects or accents, or the middling in between are valid to those people that dance them.

One last point, there is a difference between a dialect, and accent, and POOR GRAMMAR! The difference is that POOR GRAMMAR is simple laziness and a lack of understanding on how to be correct within the chosen dialect or accent. To put this in tango terms, its the difference between performing an ocho WITH disassociation and without. Or more to the point applying disassociation or having it applied for you! Where the latter is bad and the former is good.

That said…Happy Dancing.

I am not a stellar dancer.

I’m not.

I am not amazing.

I’m not.

I am not even by any stretch of the imagination clean, clear, or even very ‘good’.

I have absolutely ZERO illusions about that or delusions by some people’s standards.

Once, long ago. When I was just a wee little tango devotee. I had the fortune to ask the following question of a dancer that I thought had his collective shit together. I won’t name names here, but if you come to my classes, I’ll tell you who it was! I asked him what his greatest failure was, and he was said….”My Musicality”. I thought I understood what he was talking about at that point. I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had no facility to understand it. At the time when I heard that I was astounded, dumbfounded actually, and for me…rather speechless. I sat there motionless for a little bit, letting the words settle. And then he went on to explain that what he was referring to was how he interpreted the music.

There is a reason I started this post by stating that Im not a stellar dancer, and that is because the better I get (by some people’s standards), the less proficient I feel. Which is the same as the story of the dancer above. I didn’t understand his statement above, and now years later I do understand it. He felt inadequate. As do I. These are natural feelings, the better and more studied you are about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it, the more you realize that you know absolutely nothing. Tango is one of the only places in the world where not only can you imagine that you’re bad, but you can see it up in your face on a regular basis. You will see this at any given milonga on any given night. You can see who’s who in the room and how they’re dancing and how their partners feel about dancing with them. And you can easily see just how you stack up. This is not about being better or worse but being proficient in your skill set. My first tango teacher used to say to me, if you can get to say “YES” to another tanda, you’re doing pretty good!

I am however a good teacher. I know HOW to teach what I know about tango. And I dance exactly what I teach.

I state this because as I’ve learned over these 4 and a half years, there are 3 kinds of dancing teachers in this tango world, there may in fact be more than this…however, I haven’t run across them.

I’ll explain:

The 1st Kind: The Dancer/Teacher. The first kind refers to the Dancer whom by their very nature has risen above the masses and been asked to perform for a room full of people because they exemplify the very nature of the principles or values that we hold near and dear to our tango hearts – they look good dancing! And because of this, they’re usually asked to teach what they know or how they’ve gotten to what they know to be true for them. They may not be the best teachers in the world and frequently have little facility for communicating through one modality, let alone multiple modalities, their point of view which is usually ‘monkey see, monkey do!’. That’s not true of all Dancer/Teachers but a fair number of them that I’ve had the pleasure of taking classes with. The student is left, as I was, to figure it out for themselves the HOW to do X, Y, and Z! Mind you there’s nothing wrong with this kind of teacher, some people seem to learn best through this method of instruction, and actually a greater number of students actually prefer this method of instruction that includes very little discussion of technique but more emphasis on how it looks but not how you actually do…

The 2nd Kinda: The Teacher/Dancer. This kind refers to the dancer who has turned to Teaching because they’ve experience dancing a little bit, and risen above the masses a bit, and/or think that they have. They possess a fervent desire to control others to get them to do things RIGHT, and while their own dancing may not be stellar, they can at least correct others or so they believe they can. They may in point of fact be quite adept at figuring out the dance, and are quite skilled at explaining that to others. They may have had a LOT of private lessons with a lot of different teachers, and are able to recite the language of those different teachers in a cohesive way on multiple levels. They may have even go so far as to travel from different city to other cities, staying a while and picking up more dancing experience. Through it all they do posses one thing that most dancers do not possess, the ability to analyze and to communicate what they have discovered in a cohesive and clear fashion! Passionately, but cohesively. Mind you, this type of dancing teacher may not dance all that well at all. May have issues displaying x, y, and z vocabulary. Has terrible posture, uses force to accomplish his or her goals, treats the follower as a play thing, or any number of bad habits.

The 3rd Kind: The Dancing Teacher! The last kind refers to the rarity of the mixture of the best of both of the first 2 kinds of dancers. They have an innate skill to dance exactly what they teach and to teach exactly what they dance, and to do it well, and at the same time, have put in enough time to be well respected by their peers and other dancers of all different ages ranges, and styles. They speak with a voice of years of experience. They dance with such grace and unfettered brilliance that you can’t help but admire them. They teach clean and clear technique and style all at the same time. They may be adept at both leading and following and are able to display both sides of the embrace equally well. They are popular for a reason. Their classes are always full and they are able to teach in to multiple modalities not just one. They are able to literally lift up who they dance with and make them look stellar (a rare quality indeed, I’ve only seen it done a handful of times myself) even though who they’re dancing with are absolute beginners. They’re able to dance with the most advanced dancers and the most beginner dancer with equal skill and talent and makes you literally scratch your head.

I think if nothing else I aspire to be the 3rd kind of teacher.

[note: I am not the sole of all wisdom here, this is just my observation of the available data. I am by the very facts, coming late to the conversation, and in point of fact just a very very advanced beginner. I just happen to be a lot more advanced than the people I am teaching. In another 40 years, assuming I live that long, I may actually have a clue as to how to walk...maybe. Having said that, my viewpoint on tangobliss maybe complete rubbish. Its just my viewpoint. And it may or may not be valid, but I do know this, that this one experience can literally change your whole perspective! And once it starts to happen on a regular basis....god help you.]

The Reason To Stay.

My last post was on 25 Reasons to Quit Tango.

This is on the singular reason to stay. And what is that reason ? Its tangobliss.

Tangobliss is that ethereal state of being fully aware of one’s own body, one’s own movement, and being in relationship to another human being, in time to tango music that can create an ‘other worldly’ state of existence that is at once transcendent and again rather grounding.

That is one explanation, and which doesn’t even begin to cover it.

For the practical folks reading this, tangobliss consists of several parts of the ethereal, several parts of the physical, several parts proficiency, and 2 parts musical. When you put them all together, those elements can create near perfect conditions for TangoBliss to occur. Read that last line again, there’s a lot of uncertainty in there. Then again, read the first part of that sentence again. There’s even more there. TangoBliss can not be manufactured, it can not be created, but it can be generated by presence of other parts being present. If you will pardon the gardening reference, the proper fertile and well fertilized ground must be present.

Five Elements.

Here are 5 elements that I have witnessed, and been party to that can contribute to the existence of tangobliss.

1.) Proficiency of Skill. The truth is that you need to be at the top of your game. Which means, a light, soft, clear, and consistent embrace that does not pull, push, poke, prod, or intrude in any way, shape, or form. Your walk must be clean…precise, sharp. Your bodily presence must be FULL and fully committed. You must have a clean, and clear foundation, and a command of your basics. Period.

2.) Know The Music. Hearing a song a few times just doesn’t cut it. You must know every single orchestral arrangement, almost to the point of which piece is playing which part, and then some. Know it cold. Know it in your sleep, know it like you wrote the damned thing. That, my friends, is KNOWING THE MUSIC. Anything less than that is a waste of your time. Know it cold. Here’s a ‘for instance’: When I say to you, “D’Arienzo”. You should know where he was born, what his influences were, where he started, what changed the course of his life, who the major players of his orchestra were…and so on. That, my friends, is knowing the music cold. Know who played what is a huge piece of knowing your music. Its not just knowing the notes and where they fall. Because the truth is that the music that was written on the page, was done so in a lot of cases AFTER the fact of the recordings, and in a lot of cases is an approximation of the music that was actually played.

3.) Command of Vocabulary. I can’t stress this enough. Gancho, Gancho, Gancho is NOT the way to creating tango bliss. Its vocabulary. Its also SPICE, not the dance itself. One’s dance should likely consist of the following: Walk, Walk, Walk. Ocho, Ocho, Ocho. Molinete. Cross! That’s it, that’s all! Anything more than that should be SPICE to the meal of WALKING! So if you’re going to perform that fancy cool move you saw X, Y, or Z perform, you should practice that thing until you are blue in the face, and then practice it some more, and when you’re done with that…PRACTICE IT SOME MORE. Then about 6 months from now, late at night, near the end of the milonga, with a partner that you’ve danced with before, then pull out the flashy move ONCE…and then let it go.

Having a tool does not necessitate its use.

Having a command of your available vocabulary means being able to deploy vocabulary without pulling, hanging, pushing on anyone at all, in any way, shape, or form, with suitable ease and sufficient simplicity with clear, and precise form and shape, that you should be able to replicate it with any partner of any skill level, at any time, anywhere, to nearly any piece of music, to make it musical, fun, bright and clear. Period. That is a command of your vocabulary.

4.) The Ethereal. This one is hard to quantify. However, it starts with a clean spirit and constitution. An open mind, an open heart, and an open space in your life. That does not mean that you’re trying to fill a hole, but rather the opposite. You have a small amount of personal holes, and there is a clean headspace that you can enter and stay in wihtout effort of a pain or a specter of a personal gaff that’s is in your head space. Heavy hearts, too much interpersonal work…not gonna fly here. But rather the polar opposite. I believe that for the Ethereal to occur you must in fact be clean of spirit.

5.) The Physical. You must be in good physical condition. Can you walk a mile and not breathe hard ? Then you’re in good condition. Can you run a mile and not kill yourself ? You’re in better physical condition. Can you go up and down a flight of stairs with ease ? Good. Now can you go up and down the same flight several times without breathing hard ? Even better. Do you smoke ? Do you drink ? Do you smoke and drink ? I’m not talking about the occasional glass of wine. But I am talking about the constant need for a cigarette. Now to the other part of the Physical. You must be comfortable with your body, and you must be comfortable with being touched and touching that isn’t creepy, sexual, or that doesn’t raise the hackles on the backs of people’s necks! You must be very comfortable being body on body, and have it all be about the dance, and nothing else.

Two More

Those 5 elements are the elements that can contribute to a tangobliss experience. However, it is NOT tangobliss. Its not. They are contributing factors so that the experience has good soil to take root in. There are 2 other elements that must be present for the experience to occur, and these are seemingly difficult to attain in any sufficient quantities, so much so that you may very well find yourself wondering what in the hell you’re waiting around for…this is where boredom usually sets in, and you feel a little like Godot. The two other things that must be present are:

a.) A Partner of Sufficient Skill to dance with.

b.) Being in the right place, at the right, time with the right partner of sufficient skill.

And again, even those may not be enough.

The first of these two are elusive enough as it is. Looking out on a room full of dancers, you see varying levels of skill, and the more proficient dancers tend to keep to themselves, depending on what communities that you’re dancing in (for a variety of reasons), and its those very dancers that you need to improve your skill, just a few tandas with the more proficient dancers on a regular basis could in fact change your whole reality. However that is, unfortunately, not the case. Sadly. So its easy to see that getting “THAT” dance is elusive. And when someone new comes into the equation, its understandable that you’d want to try them out to see if they possess what it is that you have been waiting for.

And now to the latter of these two…The Right Time. Oy. Need I say more ?

A Singularity

Ok, now that we’ve described the shape of TangoBliss, now we get to the heart of the matter, the sole reason to stay with the dance.

Just 2 seconds of TangoBliss, and you really don’t need much else. There is no drug, no addiction, no want, need or desire that can be more powerful than TangoBliss. For 10 seconds of TangoBliss you will literally sell your soul, but what happens in those 10 seconds can seemingly drag on for an eternity. A very very looooong eternity, that seemingly never stops, has no vista edge that is discernible, or can create such a shift at the base of being a human being. Now think about this – think about those couples that you see dancing for several tandas that seem to take up the entire night. They enjoy dancing with each other more than anything else, they may or may not be romantically involved, but that doesn’t enter into it. If a tanda is 3 songs by the same artist/orchestra, and each song is about 3 minutes long, then a tanda is 9 minutes. A couple of tandas would be about 4 tandas or 27 minutes, which if we round it up…a half hour. Several Tandas….you can easily see how this is going to stretch…right ?

Now imagine this: An entire Hour of TangoBliss. Now try two. Three. Four. By the time you’re done, the night has gone by….and an eternity has opened up to you.

Tangobliss: Once you have a small taste of, you will move mountains to have another taste. It is an ailment for which there is no cure, except MORE of the ailment! And what a lovely ailment and a predicament to find yourself in.

Be appreciative that you have the facility to hear tangobliss when it calls your name, be rapturous when tangobliss walks in your door, be ecstatic when tangobliss takes you into its embrace, be thankful after tangobliss has left. But while you’re in it…stay as long as you can. For it will not come your way again…..until the next tanda!

[NOTE: Warning, this post contains explicit thoughts and language. Be careful. Further more and lastly this is only a partial listing of some of the complaints and concerns I've heard from people in the time I've been dancing.]

At some point along the curve of your tango insanity, you will likely come to a road sign that says, “QUIT TANGO” with an arrow pointing in another direction. More than likely one of the reasons to quit are below. All of these reasons are valid, and only 1 of them may be real at the time, but they all come down to only 1 thing: Tango isn’t doing it for you the same way anymore.

So first let’s look at some of these reasons below, then we’ll flesh those out, and finally, we’ll get to the nitty gritty.

Possible Reasons:

1.) Tango Politics.*
2.) Nobody to Dance with on a Regular Basis.
3.) BAD, need I say more ? *
4.) Idiots, Ingrates, and Assholes.
5.) Less than desirable floorcraft. (see my earlier post on the subject) *
6.) Less than desirable musical choices on a regular basis. *
7.) Not enough venues to dance at.*
8.) Its the SAME (X number) people at EVERY single event. I’ll go INSANE!
9.) I don’t like myself anymore, I don’t like these people. Golf is much simpler.
10.) Its NOT BsAs, its (fill in the blank), do the math!
11.) My husband/wife/girlfriend/boyfriend doesn’t dance and they’re jealous and want me to stop. *
12.) Someone keeps wanting to dance with me that I don’t like and its a small town and I don’t want to hurt their feelings so I should just stop.
13.) Someone hates me and doesn’t want me around. I feel like a leper and a social tango outcast. *
14.) I’m not good enough.*
15.) This is not fun anymore.
16.) I don’t hear the music.
17.) The shoes, the music, the clothes…good lord Im going to go bankrupt!
18.) I haven’t been to BsAs and I’ve got no interest in going.
19.) No time.*
20.) Its like high school out there, and I HATED high school!
21.) Kids, need I say more ?
22.) Salsa (could be: Blues, Swing, Ballroom…) Baby! *
23.) Sex. I’m not getting laid as much as I used to because of this f*cking dance!*
24.) None of the Above.
25.) All of the Above in some measure or form.

A Few Details.

Tango Politics. This means for those of you that teach, organize, or teach and organize, that you have had enough of the local infighting of teachers for students, that you have had enough of the nice-nice game that happens, and really just want to speak without having to guard your words, be criticized, be critical of, you just want to be yourself for a while…and not deal with all the silliness that comes with being at the center of a tango community. Its a lot of work. Its painstaking work actually. You’re always working to support other people, you’re a tango resource for your students, for the people that frequent your venue, you’re always at or near the center of activity…its f*cking tiring. Everything you do or say is personified a 1000 times in some way, shape, or form. And to be honest with you, you are just SICK of it all. It’d be nice to kick back and not have to worry about all that stuff anymore…wouldn’t it ?

BAD. You look around a room and you see all measure of bad on any given night. You see the same guys pushing and pulling their followers. You see the same followers who you WISH would just go take some private lessons, please for the love of christ. Just go take some lessons, please! These people have no idea what the ‘real’ tango is all about, because they’d never survive in BsAs. This is what YOU see, Im not saying this is what I see, but you see it that way, and its REALLY disturbing to you.

Floorcraft http://www.barefootango.com/thoughts/floorcraft.

Musical. Let’s face it, its the same 400 or 500 songs you hear from 10 to 12 year span of tango music. Its in a different order sometimes, played by different people, at different intervals. You have your favorites, maybe. But realistically its the same music. Why is there this obsession over the same 400 recordings of 70 year old music that sounds like it came out of a tin can ? I mean really you’ve got better things to do with your time right ? Like for instance, sorting your lint collection for one. I for one have let me lint collection go and I need to get back to it.

Venues. If you live in a small town, you’re lucky if you have ONE milonga a month, let alone a week. 2 milongas in the same month ? Wow, what a luxury! Why learn this arcane dance if there’s only ONE milonga month, and its populated by all sorts of bad (see above) ? What’s the point. Or you have to drive like an hour just to get to a milonga, and maybe just maybe dance for 9 minutes, or 1 tanda with BAD, and then drive home. What’s up with that ? What’s the point ?

Romantic Partners. Oy. Talk about a drag. They don’t dance. They’re not going to dance. And they don’t want you to dance either. You love them, they ‘love’ you, or something resembling love, and they just want you to stop dancing because its just wrong to be in someone else’s embrace for that long and not want to have sex with that person. Right ? Well that’s their argument anyway. It makes them uncomfortable, and really down right surly to think of you in the arms of another person. There’s something not right about that. Or something along those lines. Really they just don’t get the whole dancing thing. And its causing WAAAY tooo much strife in the relationship. Is tango really worth all of that ?

Social Tango Leprosy. You have experienced social tango leprosy. Its not fun to walk into a room and feel the hate on you. There’s no way in hell you’ll ever survive it. Its just best to stay home and deal and watch TV. That level of disgust with who you are as a person is just too much for any one person to bare for any great length of time, let alone months if not years in some cases. [Miles Speaking] I’ve been on the receiving end of this far too many times, never the giving end, and to be honest with you…its tiring. I’ve wanted to hang up my shoes more times than I can shake a stick at simply because of this reason. No one likes to be hated on. [/end Miles Speaking]

Not Good Enough. You think, believe, or know that YOU suck as a dancer. You can not put one foot in front of the other. And what’s worse is that the whole room knows it. Its true. You can’t dance. Period. Why bother ? You should just go home. Right now. Not kidding. Stop reading. Disconnect from your facebook tango friends. Stop. Cease and desist all this tango jabber. You can NOT dance. True dat! Well that’s what you believe….

No Time. You are a busy busy busy person. And life just keeps pulling you in other directions. You’ve a life, a job, a wife, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a husband to support and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. You love tango but you love _______ more. I mean really, its like high school anyway. So why bother ? Right ?

Other Dances. Salsa (or ___________) is faster, easier to learn. There’s more salsa venues, more salsa dancers, and there’s just more. And you can dance all night long. I never sit at Salsa. There’s always someone to dance with. With Tango I sit a lot. I can’t ask anyone to dance, or when I do I get shot down. I feel like a social leper half the time like Im high school. Salsa is just easier. Its more fun. I have a better time there.

SEX. I haven’t been laid in _____ (days/months/years) because of this fucking dance! All of my friends are tango dancers and I don’t want to date any of them or sleep with any of them. My father always used to say to me, never shit where you eat, it will always taste like shit…eventually! Not to mention its also not that good for you. You know a person has NEEDS and I NEED to have SEX. I just can’t figure out a way to have sex, dance, and not have sex with a dancing partner that doesn’t end in a romantic dysfunctional explosion all over the dance floor and we have to divvy up the milongas!

There are a ton more reasons to leave tango than what I’ve written here. I’ve gone through every manner of these myself. In any number of variations.

However there is only 1 reason to stay though.

TANGOBLISS

Tango is supposed to be fun, yes. Its not supposed to be so serious that you can’t see straight. Sure there are moments of intense concentration, however, if you’re not smiling, laughing, and having a good time, then there’s something not right here. Really.

However, fun is only a smaller piece of the picture: TangoBliss is where its at baby! If you say FUN, people can relate to that! However, tell them ‘TangoBliss’ and they stare at you funny and then you have to explain it to them.

Hmmm, but how to create TANGOBLISS ?

First things first. Improve your skills. Really. You want a whole different quality of tango fun, a whole different level ? Private Lessons, or Classes on a regular basis from a variety of teachers. That will most certainly change your perspective and what you’re able to do, and there by change what’s possible for you!

Secondly, get out of Dodge! Really. Go some where else. Repeatedly. You need to get out of your home dancing turf, go experience what tango is like in other communities. Not just once, Not just for a festival. But a lot! Variety is the spice of tango. Has it occurred to you that all of the reasons listed above are due to boredom or lack of excitation. Remember what it was like to go to a milonga for the first time…or the first few times ? That’s what you want. That anticipation of the unexpected!

Thirdly, I can’t speak for the high school aspects of tango other than to say that some people are small, petty, and really need to check themselves at the door but rarely do, myself included! I mean its just tango, rrrright ? However, you can improve your own experience simply by smiling…A LOT! Don’t look like a stiff!

Fourthly. Really, Time is a bitch, there are no two ways about that. You never have enough time in the day to do the things you want. Other things always get in the way. My father always used to say to me, “Son, you make time for the things that are important to you.” He was right. You’ll make time for tango or you won’t.

Fifthly, really relationships happen. They come and go like the wind. People come into your life and then they leave for one reason or another. If someone that you love, and they’re not dancing with you, or won’t, trust me the reason that they don’t want you to dance, has nothing to do with you…it has everything to do with them. Telling someone not to do something because it hurts YOU is no reason to for them not to do it. Its selfish and wrong, period.

Lastly, if you want to leave tango, please go right ahead, but don’t announce it to the world, do it. However before you do, trust me when I say that there’s a reason you are here in this dance at this point in time. There is something for you to learn about yourself, about the people around you, for you to interact in the world, and something else that you haven’t even considered yet.

There is more to the ‘one reason’ you should stay, actually there are a lot of reasons to stay. One that comes to mind, is that every once in a while, along comes a tanda that changes everything. They happen less and less frequently with time for a variety of reasons, but when they do happen…wouldn’t you rather that the door way for those moments to happen be open than naught ? Close the door on Tango but think of what you’d be shutting off…think about it for a moment. Where else, in what other place in your life do you get that tanda that just blows your whole circuitry ?

As Garrison Keillor says at the end of every one his The Writer’s Almanac Podcasts, “Be Well, Do Good Work, and…Keep in touch…”

Now read the one reason to stay.

What is Floorcraft ? And why is it relevant ?

The short answer is this: Floorcraft is in its essence an observance and awareness of other couples in the room in relation to you, your dance partner, and vocabulary choices one makes whilst staying in the line, lane, and progression of dance of the rotunda at a milonga. Usually floorcraft issues arise due to the amount (or lack there of) of the available space a dancing pair can take up, *AND* at the same time the application of certain codes of etiquette of the dance. Like for instance, not stepping on anyone’s foot, or trying to keep your dance safe and contained as much as is humanly possible, etc.

Floorcraft is probably the single most talked about thing that most people complain about on either side of the gender divide. At the same time, most people, unless you point it out to them, have absolutely no idea what Floorcraft is, and/or why its an absolute necessity. The following is a paraphrased statement by Tony Rathburn out of Denver applies very nicely: Floorcraft is Dancing like the way you should Drive!. Well said. However, I disagree with the simplicity of that statement. While its very clear, very clean…it lacks a little clarity in terms of having it spelled out. As I have learned in dancing over the years…some folks really do need it spelled out for them.

With that in mind, I’ve put together my own list that takes into account several previous authors and their attempts at the subject via a recent thread on Facebook. Thanks to Robin, Vanja, Homer, Manuel, Debbi, and Tony, and many others I have forgotten.

What is below is not a complete list, but its my interpretation of the list of suggestions for floorcraft on a social dance floor. Your mileage my vary, and I reserve the right to change this list as the need arises. This list is by no means complete, nor is it as concise as it needs to be. It is a work in progress and Im not the sole author here. This is just my take on the issue of Floorcraft.

Rules of Floorcraft

1.) Leaders when entering the line of dance, make eye contact with the on coming traffic of leaders and acknowledge that you’d like to enter the line of dance and only do so when you have consented acknowledgement of the leader next in the lane of dance. Also remember that we want to have 1 couple merging into the Rotunda at a time, IE: Queue up!

2.) Keep your dance vocabulary limited to the size of the Lane and the Progression of dance of the rotunda. Avoid, stepping backwards into the line of dance, avoid leaving the lane of dance, and respect the space of the couples ahead you, behind you, and next to you, try not to tailgate or hold up the progression of the rotunda.

3.) Try to form multiple LANES of dance so that we can all share the space together. Keep the lanes moving in an orderly progression. Try to keep the ‘flashy’ moves to an absolute minimum, so that it doesn’t interfere or frighten other couples.

4.) When collisions happen: Smile, Make Eye Contact to acknowledge the collision, and then *APOLOGIZE* as soon as is humanly possible, even if you think you are right.

5.) In crowded spaces, try to keep your vocabulary limited to foundational movements in close or open, and really try to keep the follower’s feet on the floor. If you must throw a boleo, aim for the edges of the dance floor.

Some of us really don’t care what we look like when we dance. It doesn’t really bother at all. And still for others, they care, but its not a primary focus. Still for a great many, unless you point it out to them, its just not on their radar screens. I had a student a while back that came to me because he liked the way I looked when I was dancing and wanted to look like me. While that was flattering to me on some level, I actually didn’t like the way I was looking at the time.

In my travels, and watching a lot of dancers, have noticed that there is a sharpness to certain dancers, a clarity in how they move, an economical behavior to their structure in body placement, in choices, in frequency. I would offer that this is ‘cleanliness’. Its not just a matter of keeping ones feet or knees together. Nope. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s the rest of it, which is as I stated above, which boils down to ‘economy of movement’.

Let’s take a slice of this economy of movement thing apart. What I see is this: 1.) Tension is your enemy, because it doesn’t allow for a converstaion to occur. You’re too focused on the tension to allow a dialogue to happen, and you miss a whole lot of the conversation and the subtle undertones of what’s being said and why. I liken that to coming into conversation that’s already happening between your friends over dinner, with an anger and attitude of a bad day at the office. You’re vision of the conversation is clouded with the anger of the day you’ve just had. Tension in tango is just like that. Usually I’ve attributed tension to being fear based. However there’s another kind of tension, that is fully intentional and rather helpful. So in this case of Cleanliness, tension refers to the fear reaction that we have when we do something wrong, or miss something in the dance. Its a natural human instinct that has to be worked on constantly. 2.) Effortlessness. The old adage applies, “If you have to ask how much it is, you probably can’t afford it!”. The same thing is true in tango. If you have to apply force, then you’re doing something wrong. 3.) Ease. Think about walking to the bank, or to the store. You don’t think about this process of walking to the store. You just do it. You don’t examine it, you don’t consider it, you don’t even rationalize why you do it, you just know that its happening and that you’re getting from point A to point B. How you get from point a to point b is seemingly a lack of mental energy, and maybe not physical motion but definitely a lack in your mental perception of it. 4.) Smallness. Tiny. With all things the devil is in the details and usually those details, especially in tango, is in the small unseen things. Unseen yes, but definitely FELT. 5.) Lastly, Simplicity. The simple things are always the hardest. They require that you ‘grok’ in the fullness of time the studied item. For example. How perfect is a circle ? Even in the many variations of it, a stone circle? a hand drawn circle ? a bitmapped macdraw/macpaint circle ? a circle computed by bits and bytes ? A laser printed circle ? Pi computed out to 6 million digits ? The same is true in tango. Walking.

I think to redefine cleanliness we have to re-think what that actually is, and for me, I believe that’s an economy of movement. That’s the beginning of being ‘clean’. That ‘clean’ perception is just the beginning of clarity. The more clean you are, the more clear you become.

I once had a dance with my first tango teacher, after I’d been away from him for about a year, and he was leading me in milonga. I have never since had a milonga so quite clearly directed or danced in my life. I knew exactly what he wanted and how he wanted it. It was probably the single most satisfying dance I had had to that point in time. I remember it so vividly as to when I’m teaching milonga that is what I have in mind. Trying to convey to my students that sense of order, cleanliness, but more over…CLARITY of what was being asked of me. He wasn’t pushy, pokey, proding me. He just directed me WITHOUT force. Think back to when you were a child and your parents were taking you by the hand, and walking with you. You always felt that when you strayed from the intended path, they continuously guided you back to where you should be. Same thing. Only without the arm pulling, screaming, and crying associated with those experiences.

Clarity of purpose he used to say to me. “Miles, see her feet in your mind. I know where your feet are at all times. And because of that, I know where your body is going to be and how to move you so that you end up in the right place, at the right time.” Wiser words were never spoken, well in tango that is.

I think from my perspective these many years later, that his economy of movement created a clarity in his lead that was ‘effortless’.

What follows is very a strong opinion. It is just one opinion. If you take offense to my opinion, my sincere apologies, really! I speak with a strong voice for one so young in the tango world, that can easily be mistaken for arrogance. I am very adamant about my view point for a variety of reasons. In my mind I see that tango is a dance between strong equals, both parties showing up. Meaning that in order for the dance to function on any level that’s actually enjoyable, both parties have to be emotionally, physically, intellectually, spiritually, universally present and intentionally listening to each other. Failure to do that, and someone is being pushed around by a brute, or is dragging around cement! (see ? strong opinion, proceed at your own risk)

The Default Vocabulary.

A Follower has 7 basic moves. Note I said ‘moves’, and not ‘steps’. Let’s review just what those ‘moves’ are so that we can have a vocabulary of understanding each other a little bit.

Those moves are: 1.) Forward. 2.) Side. 3.) Back. The next 2 moves, comprise the first 3, with one minor difference, the judicious application of the principle of disassociation: 4.) Forward Ochos. 5.) Back Ochos. And the 6th comprises the first 5 moves: 6.) A Giro, or Molinete, or ‘Grapevine Turn’ to the left or right. Ok, so what’s the 7th ? The 7th is the Argentine Cross, if you’re ‘classically’ trained then you’ll think of this as steps 3 through 5 of the linear ‘Argentine Basic’ (there is another version of the ‘basic’ that works in the line of dance and curves).

The Leading Fallacy.

The leading fallacy is that the leader is doing all the ‘hard’ work, or the heavy lifting. In my opinion he’s nothing more than wallpaper, very fancy and pretty wallpaper, but wallpaper none the less.

To validate my point, do the following with a partner the next time you are at a practica: As a couple I want you to perform the following vocabulary – Walk*, Walk, Walk, Ocho, Ocho, Ocho, Molinete, Walk, Walk, Walk. Now, I want you to walk both sides of the vocabulary without a partner, just as if you were doing with a partner. Assuming you’ve completed the task, ask this question: Who did all the physical work, leader or follower ? [note: * 'walk' is 2 steps forward, one step forward on the right and one step forward on the left. 'ocho' is a complete ocho to the left or right. 'molinete' is one complete turn of forward, side, back, side, forward.]

Let’s break this down a bit, note what I asked: “Who did all the PHYSICAL work ?”. You’ll hear leaders *AND* followers respond to that question with ,”He’s leading her, he’s choreographing, navigating, interpreting the music, and dancing all at the same time, that’s so hard!”. My response to that is as follows:

“So you’re telling me that the car, horse, buggy, golf cart, train you’re driving isn’t doing anything at all ? That without you, the magical leader, you’d never get anywhere ? Really ? Ok, next time your ___________ (fill in the blank) is taking a day off, just try getting anywhere without it! You my friend are going to do an awful lot of walking that day.”

At this point there’s a lot of eye blinking, looking at of watches, checking cellphones, and a general sound of cricket’s chirping if it’s the right time of year. For those that are paying attention, someone will submit, “What about Musicality?”. My reply is: Tango is a conversation, and what most leaders state as ‘musicality’, is nothing more than a monologue in script! There must be a dialogue, and the space for that dialogue to occur! Otherwise its just someone speaking AT you. To be fair there are some people that like being led around by their noses. Its much easier for them, they don’t have to think or to be an active participant…they just want to let someone else do the driving.

A leader’s job in my opinion is to show off the follower. Create opportunities for the follower to be presented in the best possible light at all times, especially on a social dance floor, and that means dropping the antics and vocabulary and presenting the follower’s best attributes…always!

And in case you haven’t done your homework, and are wondering what the answer is to my query above, who is doing all the physical work ? The answer is: The Follower! The follower is doing all the work. Not the leader. As you’ll discover when you do the exercise, you’ll see that he’s doing nothing more than walking forwards, to and fro, and turning in place. While the follower is walking backwards, in heels, disassociating clearly and cleanly, extending their legs back behind themselves, and oh yeah, then there’s that little detail of a molinete…oy! And the lead is doing what ? hmmmm…yeah, lots of work there.

Summing up the absurdity of leading: The better I get as a lead I realize the less that I actually have to do. Which in turn validates the old axiom that LESS is MORE!

Putting It All Together.

I am not minimizing the importance of a leader, the leader has a role, I am simply putting them in their place, this includes the author. The leader is a guide, a shepherd, and a gentleman in the best sense of the word. At the same time I’m not elevating the follower to take over the dance, I am, however, empowering the follower to take control of their side of the embrace, through their defaults! Expanding a bit, the follower’s role is to perform those defaults mentioned above with an ownership of those movements! Take responsibility for what you do.

Example: As a leader, I may *ASK* for a side step in time to the music, however, the follower takes that request, responds to it to the best of the follower’s ability WITH OWNERSHIP & CONTROL of the MOVEMENT! That means the follower is responsible for the execution, timing within the musical selection, application of technique, and possibly an adornment of options to add a finishing touch!

What ends up happening is a rather amazing dynamic of gender roles personified, and at the same time, literally elevating each other to a greater prominence together than by themselves, i.e.: The sum of the parts is greater than the parts by themselves! By doing nothing, a leader becomes prominent because the leader is allowing the follower to perform their defaults which in turn makes the leader look like they’re being amazing when in fact, it’s an illusion.

There are dancers in the world that astound with their level of creativity, astonish with their depth of musicality, and there are dancers that just blow you off the map onto another one and keep going until there are no more maps to be blown off…those dancers are rare to say the least. The come along once in a generation or two…so I’m told. We all have our favorites, couples that are amazing to watch, for one reason or another, but consistantly can you name a dancing pair that have a depth of musicality, breadth of vocabulary that goes beyond steps and patterns, and takes a stab at originality, something that hasn’t been seen before or hasn’t been seen in a long, long while ?

I can. I can name a few of my favorites, and one in particular that has spoiled me personally for watching others dance milonga. And that would be Horacio Godoy & Cecelia Garcia:.

What does it for me, is the floating aspect to his movements. He literally looks like he’s floating to me, and then he’s sharp and quick like lightening…and it’s the sharp contrast between the two that really push my envelope. While Horacio is known for his Milonga, and very few can say that, he’s actually quite an amazing dance all the way around…and even more so he shows that he’s floating, as he does here with his partner Cecelia.

In my estimation Cecelia is no slouch. To be certain, if it weren’t for her, Horacio certainly wouldn’t be as ‘fab’ as he looks. She reads him like a book, cover to cover. He’s good, but she’s better, In my estimation. She is the sizzle that sells the dance, eg: what you’re watching. And frequently it is the extremes to what he takes her to that look so impossibly graceful, and like she’s floating…not like she’s being dragged across the floor but rather being tossed high in the air and floating down to earth, slowly as if on a cloud that’s resting down for the night. It is her abilities as a fluid, lurid response, and more over companion to his requests as a lead that just makes you spin your head around a few zillion times.

Who ‘floats’ for you ?

Just a quite note about this website.

I am not the soul of all tango wisdom. That’s obvious. I am however a dancer that’s traveled further and farther than most. I teach now, mostly beginners and intermediates that are coming along the path behind me. I am by no means a ‘know it all’. What’s contained in these pages is the expression of some things that I have picked up along the way. I have been humbled more times than I can shake a stick at. I have tread a path ahead of most of you that you can’t even begin to imagine, so please take my words with a grain of salt or if you see some point of brilliance in them, share them, or not. I don’t really care. What I do care about is that this site is a work in progress and that as time goes forward I will correct the language of the know it all, and try from time to time to offer some helpful hints here and there that I have learned along the way. Maybe something will spark some resonance in someone somewhere and if that happens, I’d be very happy. If not, then there’s nothing here that you need to see further than to know that there is another dancer out here to dance with. Remember first and foremost I am a dancer, secondly I am a teacher of what I have learned. That’s it, that’s all.