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Giving Feedback

see > ‘giving and receiving feedback‘

This is probably one the most important things in Argentine Tango that you can do for yourself and the people that you dance with. Giving constructive, clear, concise, clean, direct, and most of all, honest feedback. It is what is required. While feedback is subjective, it is not personal, it’s what is going on for you in the construct of the dance, the walk, the embrace, and how someone moves in relation to you.

The Trick ? Is to be honest with the people that you dance with, and the more honest you are, while it may be painful to say or painful to hear, assuming that feedback is of a ‘hard’ nature, it can be one of the better things you can do for someone, and yourself. Failure to do anything else is wasting their time and yours!

To be fair, some people don’t want to hear feedback. They like what they’re doing. And they either believe how they dance, their embrace, their walk, their choice of vocabulary (over and over and over again), their execution of said vocabulary (too slow, too much, too sloppy), their interpretation of the music is just fine, or they’re ignorant of what they’re doing, or because no one has ‘complained’ that everything is just fine. From their perspective they just want to ‘dance’, and feedback is pointless. These same people hear feedback, and really any feedback, as negative. Or they attribute the feedback to the person that’s giving it as being a perfectionist. These people are not ready to hear feedback. So giving them feedback is a complete waste of your time, effort, and energy. 

Start with a simple question “Would you like some feedback ?”. If the answer is “Yes”, then proceed with three ‘i’ statements, and only three. Do not go beyond this. Most people can only hear at most three, and that’s pushing it. ‘I’ statements are “I think…”, “I feel…”, “I see…”, “I hear…”, “I am experiencing …”, etc. “I feel pressure from your hand”, “I see that you stepping away from me”, “I hear the beat in the music as ….”, etc. Capice ?

MORE REMINDERS

The ‘D’ Word

August 23, 2017 No Comments

At the beginning of our Tango lives, most of us who start out taking a weekly series to get our feet wet, just so that we can say we ‘learned’ to tango. If only that were the end of it. It’s not. The classes never stop really. If you want to improve. If you want to get better and better dances with better partners, then you need to improve.

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The Row of Women That Sit

February 6, 2017 No Comments

They’re at every milonga in the world (with an exception or two – Russia & Asia). Every. Milonga. THAT row of women, of a certain age, and a certain disposition, that for a few valid reasons (pretty or not) who are sitting, and not by choice. Most have been sitting for more than an hour or two.

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Physiological Contact

January 2, 2017 No Comments

There is one aspect of The ‘Connection‘ Fallacy that comes up a lot and that’s the idea that there is some mystical/spiritual/magical way in which we communicate in the dance. That communication is stated as how our ‘connection’ is to someone and them to us and how well we ‘connected’ with each other. Rubbish! Not to piss in someone’s Cheerios but that’s just magical thinking.

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Practice with Tango Sticks

June 9, 2017 No Comments

At some point along your tango curve, you have wanted 1.) to practice a step, a pattern, or a figure. Or 2.) you have seen something that you want to try out. Or 3.) you’re imagining an idea of how something might work and want to try it. In all three of these instances, you will need a practice partner. You’ll need to schedule their time against yours. And once you’re in the same room with them, balance their issues of how they do X vs. how you engage X. And once that challenge is overcome then it’s getting into the idea of what it is you had in mind to begin with. All told, this could be several hours or days between the idea and the actual doing of it.

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Dancing In Berlin

February 21, 2017 No Comments

Berlin is known for many reasons around the world, it’s culture, it’s Berlin accent of German, it’s fact as a post-cold war city, and most recently the financial capital of Europe. Tango was certainly not on that list. If however, you happen to be a Tango dancer, and at a very specific place in your dance, then you have heard Yoda-like whispers of “Berlin…you should go to Berlin…”. There’s a reason for those whispers, which has turned into ‘talk’. It’s because there is a reason for all the ‘fuss’ over Tango in Berlin.

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Discipline

October 24, 2016 No Comments

Ballet dancers know all too well that a good dance teacher is strict, hard as a nails, and won’t let you get away with anything. While it may be hard on the body, and hard on the ego, the fact is that dance teachers like that are a godsend. However, the teacher is only one component to the educational process.

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Going to El Corte ?

January 25, 2017 No Comments

The words "El Corte" translated to English from Spanish literally means ‘Cut, Court, or Edge’. However, in the Tango world the word has another meaning: Nijmegen, The Netherlands. What’s in/at Nijmegen ? A dance studio of certain renown: El Corte! Think of El Corte as one of your GoTo destinations. Assuming you want to experience a quality of dance in an environment that is at once fun, and at the same time entirely engaging on multiple levels. Caveat: You do need to have your sh*t together if you visit, while at the same time you must be willing and open to a whole different way of looking at the dance (again, on multiple levels).

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