Snobby People

The fact is that there are snobby people everywhere.

There are always going to be the ‘holier than thou’ among your local group, and really anywhere you travel.

The fact is that you can’t get around them, you have to deal with them, and there is a way to do that. Ok, truthfully you could avoid them all night long if you wanted to but that doesn’t help you very much.

Is there a way to deal with the snobby, holier than thou ? Yes. Smile. Say ‘Hello’, and ‘Good bye’. Be as polite as peaches really. Deferential almost to the point of pain. Why ? Because the more deferential you are with them, the more of a high road you take with them, the more it makes you look like the better person and in reality you are.

So how do you deal with snobby people in tango ? Be nicer!

MORE REMINDERS

The Unseen

There is an unspoken, unwritten rule with regards to Argentine Tango. Actually there are a few of them. However, one of them is that once you are acknowledged you are now persona grata. However, if you are NOT acknowledged….then you are Persona Non-Grata. You don’t exist. They don’t see you. And the more that you stand in front of them, the less that they’ll see you. You are the ‘Unseen’.

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Milan for Followers

A good spot for Followers to plan their next Tango vacation is: Milano. Why ? Several reasons. 1.) The men dress nicely for Milongas. No. It’s true. They actually dress up for Milongas. And as has said before in Vol 3. (Truism 1096), nothing screams ‘come hither’ more to a woman than a man in a tailored suit! And in this case, usually the shoes are handmade as well. 2.) Then there’s the fact that they smell nice.

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The ‘Passion’ Lie

“The Passion of Tango” or “Tango is a Passionate Dance”. You have heard these statements repeated over and over again, from so many people, teachers, dancers, and teacher/performers that it’s almost like second nature at this point. These statements and others like them promote an idea or a series of ideas about Argentine Tango that get people into the dance, and ultimately to stay with the dance.

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New York

Our little summary of dancing in New York City for the World Traveler that will be landing in NY soon and looking for some place to dance.

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Body Contortion

A good portion of people come into the embrace, Lead or Follow, and in one way, shape, or form, contort their bodies to make the dance work while dancing, rather than employ proper technique.

Contort ? Yes. For example: As a Lead or Follow they might dance with a ‘head tilt‘ towards (buried into) or away from their partner, or as a Lead they’ll employ ‘waiter arm and hand’, or as a Follower they’ll dance in their Lead’s armpit, twisting their body to the side, and un-leveling their shoulders. This is contortion. 

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The Tango Haus

What’s below is a small snippet of 13m:06s audio podcast of Today’s Topic on the benefits and detractors of building community using the idea of a Tango House. “What I refer to as the Tango ‘Haus’ idea. In this case this is the German spelling of ‘HAUS’. I just like the way it sounds. But we can use the American spelling of ‘House’. So a few years back and I may be bastardizing some history here. There was a tango house, and I’m not going to name the city, that grew up out of a U.S. based city. This community, at the time had a number of teachers in its area, and they were all using the typical model of how they wanted their students to learn to dance.

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10 REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE

There are 4 Levels of Access: Free, Basic, Premium, and Premium+. Free pays nothing but gets a perk just for signing up. 

1.) Free Users get to see 5 of the 125 Different Tango Topics on the site. Plus you get access to the entire Tango Reminders and Tango Ideas sections of the site. These are short form Topic descriptors with a little detail about the topic and the video.

2.) 
Basic and Premium users Save A BOATLOAD of MONEY! Buying this stuff outright is expensive.

3.) Basic, Premium, and Premium+ users get access to the ALL ARTICLES and THE FULL ARTICLE which you can’t see right now.

4.) Basic, Premium, and Premium+ users have way better video resolution: Free = 420p, Basic = 720p, Premium = 1080p and 4K. 

5.) Basic, Premium, and Premium+ users get the ‘Dancing Perspectives’ & ‘The Soup’ sections of the document you just read (Lead, Follow, and Dancing) which are open to you. And that’s where all the good stuff is at. 

6.) Video Downloads! 

7.) Access to the Tango Topics Music Library (22 Curated Golden Age Orchestras)

8.) Access to ‘Tango Del Dia’ – Our Music Education System with access to 14 Days of Music, 30 Days of Music Education, and 30 More Days of Tango Del Dia. 

9.) We explain things, break the vocabulary down in a visual way, from multiple angles, showing feet, hands, and close ups! Yes there’s a lot of talking but we want you to understand what it is that you’re doing and why, not just steps, patterns, and figure

and #10:
No more annoying ads at the bottom of the page, begging you to subscribe! 

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. 

DROP ME A MSG HERE

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