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Basics

There are 5 basics for both lead and follower: 

1.) Walking.
2.) Ochos. 
3.) Turns. 
4.) Crosses. 
5.) Embrace. 

The 1st is the golden fantasy of Tango, not the reality on a modern social dance floor.
The 2nd is usually Traveling Ochos, and infrequently Milonguero (“Lazy”), there are 8 kinds of ochos!
The 3rd is modern Tango to a ‘T’, the Turning Dance. 
The 4th is usually done in Parallel Walking System at first, and later on, Cross!
and the 5th causes more problems than it’s worth, mostly due to instability, compression, tension, force, and resistance.
The 3rd and 5th are where you’re going to spend all your time.

MORE REMINDERS

Body Contortion

December 14, 2016 No Comments

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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Sweating

January 28, 2017 No Comments

Tango can be, and usually is, a sweaty business for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that in many places there are noise ordinances that prevent Milonga organizers from opening the windows. Or the venue where the Milonga is held, their air conditioning units are not up to the task, and are easily overwhelmed by more than 50 people in a room for sustained usage.

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More Classes

March 11, 2017 No Comments

At some point along the curve of your tango life, continuing to take classes seems like a really stupid idea. You’ve learned everything you need to know to get around the floor. Practice isn’t really that important any longer. And going to Milongas is really the important part, so who needs to practice ?

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Architecture

January 16, 2017 No Comments

Architecture. There are certain things we want to do with our bodies in relation to Argentine Tango and Social Dancing, one of them is to ‘close our fingers’ or bring our fingers together in every possible place where we lay our hands on our partners or they come into contact with our partner’s bodies.

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Posture

January 9, 2017 No Comments

As has been said, many times, which is exceptionally important, and is frequently mentioned by many dancers almost immediately is: Posture.

Posture for most people boils down to the following two lines:

“Head up!”.

“Elongate your Spinal Column.”

This is a ‘good’ posture for most people.

Sounds easy enough, right ? Just lift your head up, and then ummmm ‘elongate’ your spinal column.

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The Birthday Song

May 22, 2018 No Comments

The Benefits of a Birthday Song. There are a few, but important, benefits to having a Birthday Song for one or more people at the Milonga. 1.) From an organizational position, the Milonga Organizer can use this as a way to advertise the weekly Milonga. "It’s Miles’ Birthday, Come and Dance with him into the wee hours!". That sort of thing. 2.) It’s a way for the Community to come together and support one of their own.

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Giving Feedback

November 10, 2016 No Comments

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.

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Talking While Dancing

April 25, 2017 No Comments

Tango is a ‘Social’ dance. Meaning that the whole reason you are there is to hang out, meet new people, and to be social with each other. The dancing part is what brings us together but it’s really about being a social creature. That’s why it’s called a ‘Social’ dancing. Social in this case means talking and sharing your day or what’s been going on with you. Mostly it’s lots of talking, sharing, listening, and more talking.

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Rejection

April 5, 2017 No Comments

What follows relates to the verbal ask for a dance and the rejection, this thought does not talk about the reject from a failed cabeceo or mirada. Let’s lay out some facts before we get to the heart of this stuff. Fact: The ask, no matter how ‘sly’ you think you’re being, is going to be awkward.

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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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