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Good Tango Is Reletive

‘Good Tango’ is very subjective. Because your idea of ‘good’ and someone else’s idea of ‘good’ are based on their experience, and a built (or created) appreciation for what you’ve been taught.

MORE REMINDERS

The Walking Debate

April 10, 2017 No Comments

A good portion of Follower’s close their eyes while dancing. The Lead, obviously, can’t close their eyes, but they do cast their eyes towards the floor to watch their Follower’s feet (tsk, tsk, tsk). They close their eyes for a variety of reasons: 1.) To be able to concentrate better. 2.) To ‘feel’ their partner in a more ‘connected’ way. 3.) To not be so distracted by the rest of the room. 4.) To feel more intimate. 5.) To tune out.

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The Female Lead

July 8, 2017 No Comments

This post isn’t about the benefits of learning to lead for the woman that dances, of which there are many. No. Nor is it about the hyper awareness of all the things you do not want to do as a Follower, which is going to happen by default. Nor is this post about the supposition that women of a certain age swap shoes and end up leading because no one wants to lead them anymore. Not. Nor is it about the fact the simple fact that some women do enjoy leading quite a bit and are actually (contrary to what you might believe) pretty good at it. No. Today’s Tango Thought is all about Women that WANT to Lead! (Just as a side note, most of this stuff also applies to the male lead too, you need the reminders).

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Getting To Buenos Aires

September 11, 2017 No Comments

You’ve been dancing for a while, and you keep seeing these posts about Buenos Aires. Your dream has slowly developed to go to Buenos Aires, to experience for yourself what all the fuss is about. First there’s the dancing, you’ve heard it’s the best. There’s the shoes! OMG the shoes. Then there are friends that have been and rave about teacher X or Milonga Y. You’ve see the videos of performances at Salon Canning (but didn’t know it was Salon Canning), the pictures from Milongas, and thought to yourself that it didn’t look all that challenging than your local milonga there are just more people. You’ve heard that Spanish isn’t necessarily a requirement because there’s a lot of foreigners that speak English, and a good portion of the teachers speak it too. So you if you went, you wouldn’t really need to learn Spanish. 

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The Row of Men That Stand

February 7, 2017 No Comments

There’s that row of men that stand at every milonga. They hover. They waver from side to side. They stand with their arms crossed. All by themselves. They never sit, and they seemingly never dance. There’s usually a row of them, more than 3 or 4. And no matter what happens, you almost never see them dance. There’s a reason for that. It’s because a good portion of the better Followers in the room has had a less than desirable experience with them.

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The ‘Connection’ Fallacy

November 17, 2016 No Comments

“Connection” is a wonderful idea. We like to believe in the romanticism of this word, and all that it implies, which is as it turns out a considerable amount. However, the word itself, from a Tango perspective, has been beat up and bruised that it more than likely has lost it’s original intent. When you say the word to someone it could mean any one of eight (8) different things as it relates to the dance. However, this is not a definition of the word, for that please see the Tango Topics Definition of the word "Connection". 


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Wood Floors

February 11, 2018 No Comments

The toy of choice for most dancers is a ‘Sprung’ floor! That’s a work of art, science, and pure magic. Sprung floors are to dancers, what honey is to bees.  A ‘Sprung’ floor ? What’s that ? A Sprung floor is a dance floor that easily absorbs shocks, giving it a softer feel. Such floors are considered the best available for dance and indoor sports and physical education. They enhance performance and greatly reduce injuries.

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Milan for Followers

February 3, 2017 No Comments

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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Snobby People

November 18, 2016 No Comments

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.

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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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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:
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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 dancing! Whereas 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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