Couples

Couples, as a pair, develop their own shorthand for communicating with each other. They remark on events in their time together as ‘that time we did that thing when that thing happened, remember ?’. They invest their emotional time in each other as caring, loving (hopefully), partners that genuinely are invested in each other’s successes (hopefully). In one respect they are to each other intimates, while at the same time they see each other as support mechanisms, and so much more. 

Enter Argentine Tango. 

Unlike other social dances where you’re learning steps, patterns, figures that comprise the dance, usually from a ballroom, swing, or salsa based perspective. Tango boils itself down to a movement study of intricate complexities and minutae. Yes there are the 7 base ideas that one has to learn (forward, side, back, embraceochosturns, and crosses), but that just scratches the surface. It’s far more than that as most people discover. There are the ‘moves’ of Tango and then there is dancing Tango and one very rarely matches the other. It is the never ending onion of layer after layer after layer of further, deeper levels of technique, music, and history, all rolled into one. It’s intellectual, while at the same time, very personal. It’s kinesthetic, while at the same time, insanely musical. It’s intimate while at the same time being very social. Those first few steps that most people take is the realization that their not going to look elegant, at all, and most certainly not like what their teachers look like. Those people eventually succeed with the dance because of that perspective, it allows for lots of honesty and growth potential. Now add to the fact that Tango brings up someone’s issues, personal and physical in a myriad of different ways that is wholly unexpected. Tango magnifies those issues, and brings them to the forefront, as it mirrors life in so many ways. You can not hide anything on a social dance floor, it’s all there for anyone to see. And that’s just on a personal or individual level. 

Enter The Couple That Studies Together. 

You can see where this is going, right ? You have two people that have spent oodles of time together. They eat together, sleep together, watch TV together. One snores while the other tries not to pay attention. One chews too loud while the other puts on music to mask the annoyance. One has their head buried in their phone, while the other wonders who they fell for to begin with at times. They come to understand each other (hopefully). Their way of talking with each other is at once direct, and then again, not direct. This is the ‘short hand’ communication referenced above. And then ‘BAM’, Tango happens. 

If there were/are areas of concern in the relationship, insecurities, grievances, issues, behaviors that weren’t resolved by the time that they found Tango, all of those things will come out in the educational process, and they’ll certainly come out in the Social Dancing process. They’ll be magnified. And sometimes, not always, but sometimes that magnification process, of feeling the pressure to have fun, while at the same time trying to succeed with the dance can be very stressful on the relationship. Stressful to a breaking point, where one, not both, will eventually give up Tango for the sake of the relationship. It’s just too much.

The proverbial ‘Pink’ Elephant in the room. At the heart of any romantic relationship, especially the monogamous ones, is the belief, and really the trust that your romantic partner is going to be ‘faithful’ to you. Now add Argentine Tango into the equation and you can connect the dots on this one. Seeing a romantic partner in the arms of someone else, and then watching their face enjoying someone else that is not their intended, is hard for some people, not all, but some. Some people can detach from it and see Tango as just what it is, a movement. Some people place real, or imagined, but definitely projected insecurities into what might be very harmless fun. The ‘Pink’ Elephant in the room is the insecurity that has occurred. It’s there. You honestly can’t get away from it. You wouldn’t be human if you did. The insecurity is a fleeting thought that not only is like relatives that come for a Saturday afternoon bbq and end up staying for a week or so, but is right there in their face: Someone else is with your romantic partner in a, seemingly, intimate embrace. That’s the ‘Pink’ Elephant in the room. 

To be fair, this particular Tango Thought is not indicative of every romantic partnership that comes to Tango. It only covers a slice of the spectrum. Like for instance, it doesn’t talk about those romantic relationships that develop because of Tango or the opposite, in spite of Tango. Nor does it take into account those romantic partnerships that have succeeded in Tango without any of the ‘Pink’ Elephants. Nor does it talk about same gendered couples, or opposite aged and opposite gendered couples, nor teacher/student couple dynamics, all of which have their own very specific issues. This is particular thought only covers one slice of the full spectrum

MORE REMINDERS

Getting Into The Encuentro

This is a FIVE step process, that you will want to follow religiously, which does not necessarily depend on where you live. If you’re an American dancer and want to break into the scene in Europe, then this is a post for you. If you’re already living in Europe then you have a slightly different pathway, but the suggestions are exactly the same.

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Rejection

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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Watching The Feet

Put simply – If you can see your partner’s feet while dancing with them…there’s a problem. The problem ? Well actually there are several that you’re completely unaware of, below are just a few of them….

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The Waiter Hand

Another one that you’re going to see a lot of is the Lead who places his palm upward, flat, and outwards, sometimes fingers outstretched as if they were a waiter serving drinks at an upscale bar. The elbow is dropped, and the hand is well below shoulder level.

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5 Reasons

Why does someone enter the Tango world ? What drives them to engage in Argentine Tango ? Not what makes them stay but why do they get involved with Argentine Tango ? There are commonalities to why someone walks this pathway, no pun intended. These are distilled down to about Five Common Reasons why someone enters Tango. These are the reasons why and not the reasons why someone stays in Tango. Those are very different reasons, but rather why they started dancing in the first place.

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The Bloody Toe

The fact is that while open toed shoes can be lovely to look at, they have a practical downside that no one likes to talk about – one wrong move and you’re lookin’ at a serious injury!

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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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Good/Bad & Dancer/Teacher

At the beginning of our Tango lives, most people go to a Tango Class to learn how to dance Tango. Some people throw caution to the wind and just go to the Milonga and ‘learn’ on the dance floor sometimes with positive but most of the time with disastrous results. And some people take the route of skipping group classes all together and start with one-on-one sessions to begin their Tango journey.

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Practice with Tango Sticks

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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10 REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE

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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.

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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. 

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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 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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