The 'Basics' of Tango
Everyone thinks that they don’t need their BASICS, or that they don’t need to revisit their foundation. Wrong. You do. Constantly. Unless you teach, and even then you do – even more so, you must revisit your foundation to help you to fix the errors, and yes you have them, that have crept in that you are unaware of. On this site there are over 800 videos and articles (not including all the other stuff) on Tango Topics for you to watch and learn from. It’s not just the videos, but the articles that contain the most of what you need to know to elevate your dance. We’re not trying to sell you videos here, but instead to inform and engage you to educate yourself wherever possible.
Picking Your Teacher
Dancing and teaching are not the same things. Choosing a teacher based on whether or not they dance well as the sole criteria for whether or not the can teach you to dance is not a good idea. These are two very different skills. Far too often people make the mistake (followers) of being impressed by this the skill to dance thinking that equates to the skill to teach.
Tango Articulation
What is Tango Articulation ? It is a state where by the movement of one’s body parts, specifically the extremities of feet, legs, arms, and hands, create sharp and detailed lines that accentuate the form of the body in relationship to the pleasing and iconic shape of the couple in the embrace. The idea of ‘Articulation’ could mean, but is not limited to, pointing the toes, pointing the foot, generating a horizontal line with the arm around and across the back of your partner, raising of the head and pulling the head backwards towards the spinal column, the elbows, elongating the spinal column….all of these can be ‘articulated’. Articulation is an accentuation of the form to detail the lines or shape of the dancers at all points along a movement, and in long form, the dance. To be aware of that movement and to create clean, clear, sharp lines of those shapes. So in essence the original English dictionary definition of this word isn’t that far off.
THUD!
What is "THUD!" ? In the simplest way we know how to describe this stuff, "THUD" is an uncontrolled, unsightly, and ungainly foot heavy and overly weighted placement of the dancers foot, which results in a sound that resembles a rumbling of the floorboards under your feet when you jump up and down: THUD! It occurs because the dancer in question has generated a heavy step, an impacted step, that they don’t realize that they’re doing it.
You ARE Hanging, Pulling, & Pushing!
You’re at a Milonga, and you dance with someone that feels light, soft, engaged, and effortless to dance with. In the course of dancing with them, you ask them what they do for a living and they’re reluctant to tell you what it is that they do. And eventually in the 30 seconds of the next song you wheedle it out of them, that they teach Tango. "Brilliant!" you think, so you believe that is the appropriate time to ask them for feedback about your dancing, and how to fix it right then and there.