1.- Floor Displacements: I know that I may offend the intelligence or ego of some of you, who have been dancing for a while already, but the bottom line is that "the walk" of all of you is not what we need in tango. I also know that you wish to dance with somebody else, all the time, thinking that while more you dance, the bigger it will be your progress. I regret to tell you that this is NOT the case. You ALL! need to devote more time to yourself, ALONE! so when you dance with somebody else, you make that somebody else happy to be dancing with you.
2.- Just in case you have not noticed it, the average American person today, walks less than two blocks per day. So walking is becoming very rapidly an activity of the past. This sad fact together with poor eating habits, and long time spent in front of the tube, is slowly diminishing our physical ability to dance, run, move, or whatever you wish to do with your body.
3.- In order to improve your walking, you do not have to have a dancing floor or special shoes. You can walk ANYWHERE, hopefully barefoot, or soft jazz sneakers, so you can use your toes to propel yourself forward or backwards.
4.- As a reminder of the workshop, this is what I would like YOU to remember, and put it in......ACTION!!!!
4.1.- Men: remember you need to have a good posture to begin with, and then the walk follows this sequence for you:
-Sink your trailing heel on the floor first, while dropping down your leading hip, advancing your knee forward and dragging the tip of your leading foot.
- When you reach the maximum extension forward with your leading leg, place your heel on the floor, with a small "whip action" of your straight leading leg, and at the same time, "push forward" with your trailing leg, trying to reach an "extra inch or two". This is called "suspension".
-And finally transfer completely your weight to your leading leg, positioning your chest on top of this leg, now on the floor. This is called "to finish the step". As soon as you finish the step, the sequence is repeated, making sure that while you drag the trailing foot, this one does not stop the motion, EVER!
4.2.- Women: remember the same: good posture, and to establish a soft "connection" with your chest, on the man's chest.
The sequence then, is as follows:
-Soften you trailing knee, do not bend it, so you don't lower your center of gravity, and you can keep the chest attached to the man's chest. At the same time that you soften this knee, lower your leading hip down and move your leading leg back, just a little, making sure it's straight, with your toe slightly open to the outside side of yourself, and your HEEL ON THE FLOOR!
-When you feel the impulsion from the man's chest, PUSH back at the same time with your trailing leg, while dragging your HEEL touching the floor all the time. The "push" will be as strong as the man's impulsion, so in this way you are always away from the reach of the man's feet.
-As soon as you reach this maximum extension back, transfer all your weight to this foot, while at the same time you keep the connection with the same pressure as you started the motion. And then you start the whole sequence again, assuming that the man keeps walking.
4.3.- For both men and women: do not forget to "breath" while walking in any rhythm you wish. The idea is NOT to tense up any muscle in you body with the exception of your core.
5.- If you are practicing the walk on a dance floor, it would also help a lot to play some slow tango music (..Canaro, Carabelli, Lomuto, Di Sarli). And do not try to walk on every beat, but do it slowly, stepping every other beat, and then slower if you can later. To walk slow and gracefully is an art!!
Walk on Both Sides
After just WALKING on the floor, the most important exercise to practice, is the walk on both sides of the woman, in parallel and crossed system. I will talk only about "parallel system" today. This is the most distinctive characteristic of tango.
The goal of walking on both sides of the woman is to promote lateral flexibility. The three main blocks of the dancer, head, body, and legs MUST work independently of each other. By far the stiffer part of the body of everybody is the waist. When you practice the walk on both sides, you are making your blocks work as they should.
Men should start this movement from the walk, making a more intense contra body, BEFORE they step outside the woman. And while doing the "contra-body movement with the torso, they should project to that side, the KNEE of the foot which is going to step outside the women first. if the knee does not touch the woman, the corresponding foot will not either. The foot which is stepping outside, crosses over the other foot in the man.
Men and Women MUST keep their hips straight and following the line of dance. At the same time, their chests should not separate, nor slide sideways. The "connection" remains as you were walking in straight line and inside the woman.
To walk outside the woman in parallel system, does not affect the contra-body action of the dancers: it remains exactly the same as in the walk.
The sequence I recommend to practice as much as you can, is as follows:
- Man starts with the right foot going to the right side of woman, and crossing over the man's left foot. It would help some, if you over reach a little and for one instant the man's leg softly touches the right thigh of the woman.
- The next two steps are inside the woman, like a normal walking. In case you feel loosing your balance or confused, it is OK to step several times inside the woman, as long as it's an even number of steps. In this way, you will be ready to go out again with the other foot.
-Then do some contra-body turning your right side to the left, and step with your left foot on the left side of the woman.
-Next two steps, are again inside. And continue as many times as you wish. Do it in straight line first, and after you do it comfortable, try to do turns, using the same pattern.
Do this exercise VERY slow first. If you can not keep the connection steady, do it in "practice embrace" first, until you get the mechanics of the exercise right, and then try in close embrace.
There is a LOT more to talk about this exercise, but for the sake of brevity I will stop here. Please feel free to ask me anything you do not understand.
Walk on Both Sides in the Cross System
I will assume that every leader knows how to do a traspie. So from the walk in parallel system, the leader does a traspie left, and immediately, on the next step, follows the right foot's track of the follower with the leader’s right foot. In this system both dancers move their right foot at the SAME time, and then, their left foot at the SAME time.
So, you will be walking in three tracks: track one with the leader’s left foot, track two, leader and follower’s right foot, at the same time, and track three, follower’s left foot.
It is important to notice that leader’s chest will be rotated to the right, as well as the follower, in a mirror image. And you will keep the chests orientation unchanged as long as you are walking on this side of the follower. There is NOT contra-body action.
In order to change to the left side of the follower, leader will step with his right foot in diagonal, moving and placing the foot on the left side of the lady. On the next step, with his left foot, the leader will follow the step of the left foot of the follower. Now the leader’s chest will rotate to the left side, so is the follower’s, in a mirror image again. The dancers will be walking again in three tracks, and remember that not contra-body action is required.
There is a third alternative, which is the leader walking in FRONT of the follower, in four tracks: leader’s left foot, follower’s right foot, follower’s left foot, and leader’s right foot. In this case the follower will be moving backwards doing “back ochos”.
In order to come back to parallel system, the easiest way is for the leader to do another traspie. Of course there are other ways to do it, which will be taught in our course later.
ABOUT FOOT WORK: ZAPATEOS.
Last workshop we worked quite a bit on Foot Work on the floor, which is an indispensable activity in order to dance well, and to be able do smooth transitions. One of my favorites Is Zapateos (Tap dancing), which is a very versatile step, in place, rotating or moving laterally.
Starts from the walk where the man step, let’s say with the left foot, without completely transfer his weight to this foot, but instead, he moves his body back to temporarily tap with his right foot in place, and then step back with his left foot again. And then repeat the process once again, with the left foot going forward and then backwards, and so on.
The sequence is Left forward, and Right in place, Left Backwards, and Right in place, Left Forward, and Right in place, etc… Actually the “and Right in place” it’s between beats, so actually it's a way to syncopate. Needless to say, that while doing these movements, the leader’s upper body MUST keep doing the contra-body, otherwise the follower cannot feel what is going on.
A nice variation of this step, is to move the leading foot forward and a little bit side ways, and then backwards and side ways, in this way the couple starts a lateral displacement to the side. Obviously when you are tapping with the Left Foot the displacement is to the left of the leader, and when doing it with the Right foot, the displacement it’s to that side also. I order to finish the “lateral zapateo”, it is possible to end it, while stepping forward, to a “cruzada” for the follower, assuming the leader can lead it with a subtle movement of his chest.
Another variation of the “zapateo”, is a rotational movement around an axis. The axis in this case would be the Right foot tapping in place, and the Left foot tapping forward and backward around the Right one. Make sure that all the leader’s steps are short, he must keep the contra-body motion of the second block or upper body, and the rhythm follows the music played.
Finally, this step is something you can do in different tempos, so you can use it in tango, milonga and vals. And most importantly, is a SYMMETRIC step, meaning that you can do it to both sides of the leader.
I am just trying to refresh your memory, since all of you did this step during the first class of our last workshop.
BASIC EIGHT AND SOME USEFUL VARIATIONS
If you ever read the Syllabus you don’t need to read the first paragraph. If you didn’t, this is what it says about the Basic Eight Count:
OPEN and CLOSED SIDE BASIC EIGHT COUNT: This VERY important exercise it’s the basis for most of the tango movements that come afterwards. It is like the foundation in a house. You never see the foundation again, after the house is built, but you know it’s there. In tango the basic eight very seldom is used completely, but parts of it are incorporated in the dance all the time.
It consist in three parts: “SALIDA” (Depart), “CAMINADA” (Walk) and “CIERRE o CONCLUSION” ( Conclusion).
Last workshop we defined how to do it nicely, stating that the first part is the
SALIDA (DEPARTURE) which are two steps from the leader’s point of view: RF (right foot) which does an short step back (1), followed by LF (left foot) stepping to the left side of the leader (2), and at the same time, rotating the leader’s chest to the right.
PAUSE!
The second part is the CAMINADA (WALK), and it start with a short step forward with the RF (3), followed by a long one with the RF (4), and the leader finishing putting his two feet together, bringing the RF to the LF (5), and at the same time, moving his chest in the direction of the line of dance, or rotating it left again. In the meantime, the follower on the step (5) crosses her LF over the RF, called the CRUZADA (CROSS).
PAUSE!
Finally comes the CIERRE OR CONCLUSION (CONCLUSION), which the leaders starts stepping short with his LF (6), followed by a side step to his right with his RF (7), and finalizing by slowly bringing his LF together with the LF (8).
There is a lot more to this description of the Basic Eight Count, but for the sake of brevity, let’s just leave it here.
Some Useful Variations of the Basic Eight Count of Many, Many more to Learn.
-Elimination of step # 1. This is very important, since in a crowded milonga the leader should avoid to step back, AGAINST the line of dance.
-Cadencias while doing step # 3 or # 4, or both.
-From the walk, to do # 3, #4 and # 5 only. Cruzada (Cross) from the walk.
-Elimination of # 4 and # 5: called Baldosa (Tile or 6 count). This is the most basic step used in Milonga. It can be done also with syncopation in the last three steps.
-Elimination of # 1, #2, # 4, and # 5. This is called Baldosa Reducida, or Reduced Tile of four count. Very pretty and useful in Milonga. Also used with syncopation in the last three steps.
-# 2, # 3 and # 6 only and then reverse. It is called the Cuadrado (Box Step). This is turning step of great use in all three dances, tango, milonga and vals.
-From the walk to directly # 5, Cruzada. It can be done once only, or to repeat it several times: Corrida ( Run). And it also can be done in straight line of circle.
-Turns while doing the Basic Eight Count, using the #’s 1 and 2, or the #’s 6,7 and 8.
There are a lot more that can be done, but I would be extremely happy if you learn only these ones, as long as you can do them to the open and close side of the embrace.
This will be the CHALLENGE for the November workshop.
RENO TANGO NOTES
17 November 2011
Hola Tangueros!
It is already a week that came I back from Reno, where I had the pleasure of working with all of you. I shortly gave you my impressions at the end of the workshop regarding how you are dancing, and how to further improve. Now that I am here, at home, I am thinking of you, reading my notes, and I want to share a few things with you.
My overall impression is that ALL of you have improved a lot and in a very short time. You are now capable to go to any milonga in the US, and to do well, although you may be a little intimidated. Congratulations for that!
However there are many details that must be addressed and corrected. Men, for instance, they still do not walk with enough “suspension”, still do not “finish the step correctly”, and in general the walk is timid and short (…I usually use the word “wimpy”, but I was told not to use it anymore!). The posture of all of you is a lot better, but you need to work with your posture not only on the floor, but in ALL the activities of your daily life. Otherwise you come back to bad habits, which in tango are not very desirable.
Women: I know you are dying to do “big stuff” like you see in presentations of tango performers. I have bad news for you: I will not teach you ANY of those complicated movements, until you walk grounded, you stay ON your longitudinal axis ALONE, without the help of the leader, and you make your three blocks work independently. I suggest you AGAIN, that you practice alone your walk technique, dividing it in three parts: first dropping your hip down while moving your leading leg back, just A LITTLE; second, after you do this, push with your trailing leg your whole body back, while stretching that leg, according the impulsion given to you by your leader. And finally collect, keeping the connection with your leader unchanged. Remember ladies, all of you MUST learn to stretch the muscles in your calves, otherwise you cannot move your leading leg sliding your heel on the floor! Pressure of your leading heel on the floor, is what we call GROUNDED!!
Men and women alike: some of you have shown me a remarkable progress with your “cruces”, but some of you must work a lot more on them. I found very interesting to see some ladies doing fine cruces at the class, and then at the milonga, while doing front or back ochos, forgetting completely what is all about. After walking, this is the MOST important exercise to practice for all of you!!!!
Men and women alike: you all need to work in lateral flexibility, which means to move your upper body, or middle block to either side, while your lower block, or from you hips down to your feet are facing another direction. I know that you kind of do this to the open side, but not all of you can do this to the close side of the embrace. Lack of lateral flexibility has a huge consequence in your dancing, and I emphasize this factor a lot more on men, who are the leaders, than in women. Just like a side note: you will NOT get the lateral flexibility while taking a class, nor you will improve your posture! It is something you must do alone, and all the time!
I am looking forward to see you all again in December. Our big challenge will be MOLINETES. I need you all doing good cruces, so we do not have to waste time correcting something you already know, although it needs a lot of practice at home.
Have very nice holidays, dance as much as you can, and think positive about yourself!
Abrazos y besos a todos
