The ‘Right’ Shoes

Some day soon, you’re going to want the perfect pair of shoes.  These shoes in your mind, completes the Tango image you have for yourself dancing socially. They make you look elegant. They make you feel like you can do anything. Mind you that image is an illusion in your head, but let’s not quibble about reality. These shoes are either handmade in Italy, Istanbul, Buenos Aires, or somewhere and/or something in between. They’re the shoes you always dreamed of. They’ve got all the features that you believe will allow you to become, finally, the dancer that you’ve always wanted.

The Reality ? The shoes really don’t matter at all! It’s the skill inside them that matters the most. Work on that, instead of the 200.00 you just spent on a pair of shoes you can’t wear because you haven’t learned how to walk yet! 

Put another way, a good number of people (women & men) are sold a bill of goods when they start dancing that they must have ‘the right shoes’ in order to dance, when that’s not the case at all. If you’re learning to dance at a studio, they’re trying to make money by selling you as much stuff as is humanly possible, and you don’t know any better. So the shoe is just one high priced ticket item, that sucks you in and keeps you coming back. The fact is that you need to learn how to walk first and foremost, and that’s not something you’re going to get in 5 minutes (it’s not) but slowly over time, as you retrain your body to do something that is wholly unfamiliar to you. And the shoe, actually, truthfully, honestly gets in the way of that happening for a variety of reasons. 

To be fair there is something to be said for comfort and finding the right pair of shoes that do not hurt your feet. However, that is for a later topic. 

Do you need shoes right now ? No. Eventually, yes you will…well not really – a pair of socks will do the job just fine until you get your foundation clean/r/ed (that’s the ‘walking’ business above). But eventually you’re going to want to go dancing and not look like a social misfit because you’re in socks, so you’ll want an actual pair of shoes! Honestly though, you really don’t need them, socks or street shoes work just fine, or socks over street shoes. 🙂 However a pair of Comme Il Faut (which had a reputation of being desirable, the company was sold a while back, and the quality isn’t what it used to be – the world has moved on to Madame Pivot actually), or something like that, are just a pair of shoes. To be clear, no matter whom you’ve seen wearing the latest brand of ‘hot shoes’ and the things that those people do in those shoes, it’s not the shoes…it’s the skill set in the shoe – that person! That human being has sweat in front of a mirror for hours, weeks, months, years at a time. Working on refining over and over and over again their ‘technique’. The shoes ? They mean nothing. Don’t miss-hear that as shoe bashing. That shoes aren’t pretty and shouldn’t be worn. No. That is not true. They should be, eventually, but not at the beginning, and certainly not until you have mastered your foundation (which is going to take awhile). Save your pennies (euros, rubles, etc), focus on your technique, focus on practicing (solo practice, and exercises) on a daily basis, focus on actual social dancing. That’s where the real skill lay, not in the shoe. The shoe is an illusion and only an extension of what is inside of you.

MORE REMINDERS

The Importance of Two Millimeters

Contrary to what you might believe or think, distance, space, and rightfully precision absolutely matters when it comes to Argentine Tango. Let’s back up a bit and define a few things before we delve too deeply into today’s Tango Thought. Precision as defined by Webster’s Dictionary (2017) is a noun as derived from the English word ‘precise’ which is itself an adjective meaning “definitely or strictly stated, defined, or fixed”. Clear ? Not. In short, ‘Precision’ means that there is an area of exactitude, and/accuracy, finite accuracy, finely tuned acute and tight accuracy. And that just about sums up what has to happen with regards to Argentine Tango.

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The Former Salon Canning

There are very few places left in Buenos Aires that still evoke the majesty of Tango’s yesteryears, for many, that is Salon Canning. From the moment you walk in the door, down the long hallway towards the white double door ‘entrance’ to the dance floor, you know you’re in a special place. The walls are lined with pictures of dancers that have come and gone, artwork and photography from local tango artisans. The entry hallway almost looks athenian, almost. It may help that the columns outside add to that idea.

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Tango Frustration

Contrary to what you may have heard, the reality of Tango for some people is, as a Lead as well as a Follow, is not all happy and lovely. The fact is that some of those dancers go to the Milonga knowing that they are going to sit, a lot. And that sitting leads a winding path through a host of emotions that ultimately lands them on the door step of Tango Frustration.

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Head Tilt

The tilt or position of one’s head (for lead or follow) is far more important than you might imagine. First and foremost, where the head points the body tends to follow. There’s a reason for this, your equilibrium, contrary to popular belief your balance is not generated in the center of your belly. This ‘myth’ is better known and often repeated as to indicate your ‘core’ muscles. This is a lie.

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The ‘Classy’ Move

Truth be told, the beginner dancer that does this will make themselves, and their dancing partner look absolutely fabulous regardless of how the dance went. What is it ? It’s The ‘Classy’ Move.

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The ‘D’ Word

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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Spectrum of Ideas.

Because there are no ‘Standards & Practices’ in Tango, therefore ‘Right’/’Wrong’ are subjective, which are for the most part, based on your teacher’s point of view of how things should be done. And as a result you, the unwitting student, take one those ideas as your own because you believe that because X is teaching that they must be the soul of all wisdom. Very infrequently do tango teachers teach a fair and balanced, or well rounded point of view. They usually teach what their subscribe to in their Tango world view, what they agree with, and what their teacher showed them. Very infrequently will they teach something that is outside that world view.

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Alternative

There is another option as it’s referred to in the Tango world, Alternative Tango. Sometimes Alternative Tango is known by it’s other names “Neo” Tango or “Nuevo” Tango (which is a misnomer, as this was name that Astor Piazzolla gave to his musical genre that changed Tango music forever). Frequently “open embrace” is lumped in there as well due to the fact that a good portion of the vocabulary of Alternative Tango seemingly comes via an opening of the embrace.

Read More »

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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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