To Video Or Not to Video ?

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From a teaching perspective, I believe that if you’re not videoing your student’s development and showing them the results of their work, then you’re doing them a monster disservice.

The simple fact is that as a teacher, even if you’re in a couple, you’re going to miss things. You will not be able to identify everything in the moment. You will forget things, misremember things, and more importantly misinform about what’s actually going on because you missed X or Y.

A lot of teachers use ‘Mirrors’ to do their analysis as they’re dancing with their students to show them what’s going on. And if there’s a teaching couple, one watches while the other dances with you. So you get the best of both worlds, right ? Wrong. No you don’t. What you’re getting is 1/10th of the available information. Yes you get the experiential data, and you get the observational data. But they’re human beings, they’re going to miss stuff. And it’s that ‘stuff’ that is a game changer.

Going down the rabbit hole a bit, ‘Mirror-Work’ as it’s sometimes referred to as, is incredibly not useful or helpful The reason ? Is that if you stop in a position, you can only see a snapshot of the motion at that instsant of time. And that’s assuming that you stop moving in exactly the right moment. I always found, as a student, mirror-work to be off-putting at best. And then having to do the reverse image alignment in my head. Video allows for you to see everything all at once without stopping.

The reality is that your teacher is a human being and they’re going to miss things because they can only retain so much information to feedback. Why ? Because the experience of dancing with the student will EVENTUALLY override the information storage capability of dancing with the student. No matter how good they are, they will miss things. Constantly.

To be fair one can train oneself to retain an enormous amount of what you see and feel but even under the best of conditions things will get missed. And it’s those little things aside form the bigger things, that make a huge difference in how the student is developing. Their quirks or ticks, that you don’t see because you’re too busy watching in a mirror!

There is the pink elephant in the room in that some people are self conscious about the way that they look on video. And they get hyper aware of these things. Got news for you, they’re already HYPER SELF CONSCIOUS BECAUSE THEY”RE DANCING WITH A TEACHER THAT’S ALREADY DISSECTING EVERYTHING! So you may as well video them.

I’m certain that some well intentioned individual will jump into the comments section below and remind Mr. Miles about privacy concerns and what not. Yup. that’s a concern but not unless the video is deleted at the end of the session and the student is shown that it’s been deleted. Unless there is a long term agreement to retain the video as a baseline reference material resource for comparison purposes, and then it’s deleted as soon as the the work is completed.

I know that some will misinterpret that the teacher should video the entire session for review later. I don’t. I only video certain aspects, the instructional, the dancing, the practica of the instructional. But to shoot the whole session ? That’s an enormous amount of video storage. On an order of magnitude. 8 hours of video will easily eat up 120gb of storage. And most teachers don’t have that kind of storage capability floating around. I do. But I don’t need it. I’m only videoing certain things. Not the whole session.

THere is a benefit to videoing the whole session where the teacher needs to review their own teaching abilities. Or at the very least should be reviewing their skills on a regular basis. Class notes are fine but again, YOU WILL MISREMEMBER THINGS! Not to mention notation takes up time in what you’re doing. Having the video resource right there you can go back and review what was said and then refine things later on.

Let’s address another aspect here > Nothing trumps the experience of what it feels like to dance with someone. But even under ideal conditions, even the best of us can only retain so much information to feedback.

My thinking has always been, since I incorporated video into my practice 14 years ago (with an iPod series 5 which had video capability) has been to show the student what they’re doing. They can disagree with me all they want, but they can’t hide from themselves. There is nothing more humbling then having the student see themselves making the same error over and over again thinking that they’re doing X when they’re not. Again, you can disagree with me all you want, all day, all night. You can argue with the perception, but you can’t argue with yourself and the video.

To wrap this up: Observational Mirror Work + Video + Experience creates a well rounded feedback loop for student development.

VIDEO DOESN’T LIE!

Is your teacher using video to help you to improve ? If not, they should be in my opinion.

Lastly, time for pay for the soup kiddies. If you find this stuff useful, scroll down and subscribe and help a brotha out. I need 60 ppl signed up for the year at the premium level. Further if you’re anywhere in Europe, I’m available for lessons. Understand that a single private lesson will do absolutely nothing for you. I am a good teacher. I will show you what errors you’re generating. However, in order to change them, you will need constant reminders (think 20 sessions at minimum). Also if you’re in Berlin, passing thru Berlin, or anywhere near Berlin, let’s hook up. I lead and follow. Let’s do this thing baby!

Have a nice day.

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Keep something in the back of your mind: What you’re seeing in a youtube video is a couple that is performing for the 15th row for a room full of people. They’re not social dancingWhereas this website is all about ‘Social Tango’  or how to make things function on a social dance floor. Social Dance floor ? Your local milonga! They are showing you flashy moves as a presentation, to show off! But not stopping and talking about how this works which is what you need to see. This website and all of it’s content show you the how and  why you’d want to put that piece of vocabulary there, or how to make things work. This website is all about those things and more!

You could watch Tango YouTube videos and thereby spend your time, trying to infer, and figure out how things may work in that particular situation. Bend your body this way or that, twist and force this position or that. Place your foot here or there and figure it out. This is known as Tango Twister.  Which can be a lot of fun, but more than likely it won’t help you, because you’re missing something: The explanation from an experienced teacher showing you how to properly excute this stuff from a Leading Perspective as well as from a Following Perspective!

The goal of YouTube videos is to get you to study with those teachers in person. The goal of Tango Topics videos allows you to work at your own pace, in the comfort of your own space, so that you can play them over and over again to improve your understanding of the vocabulary or technique being described to therefore better your dancing experience. The goal of classes and workshops is to get you to come back over and over and over again, thereby spending more money with that teacher. This website and the videos under it are here to act as a resource for you to help you to improve your dance. Pay once and you’re done.

Eventually, one way or another you’re going to pay for this lesson, either here and now, or with them. TANSTAAFL! The difference between that lesson and this ? Is that you get to play this lesson over and over and over again. Further still, there are supporting materials (other videos) that help to explain the language and the underlying technique of how and why things work, so you can easily reference those things in the corresponding articles that go with the material, and or any language in the Tango Topics Dictionary. 

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