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The Walking Debate

There’s a great deal of debate on this one thought >

Is the foundation of dance really walking ? Or is it something else ?

Is it steps/patterns/figures ?

Is it the music ?

Is it the Milonga experience itself ?

Is it all of this stuff ? Is it none ?

This discussion point is not going to answer that question, but will offer you an opinion that is exceptionally hard to refute, consider if you will the following:

1. ) In order to get from point a. to point b. we either must take some form of transit, or walk…putting one foot in front of the other (or behind).

2.) Without modern forms of transit or transit that involves wheeled motion, or forms of flight, we are relegated to either animal asst’d movement (horse, donkey, elephant, cow…) or our own two feet.

3.) All dances, regardless of the form, require some form of walking locomotion, especially the partner dances. Even ContactImprov requires it to a lesser degree.

If all of that is true, then the world of transit or getting from point a to wherever is really all about walking. If that’s the case then it stands to reason that tango is about the walk as well. And it is important to focus on the quality of the walk, and spend lots of time working on one’s walk because it is the foundation of everything else that you’ll ever do in the dance. Which is to say that the cleaner that you make that walk, the more that you study that walk, the more that you understand that walk, the easier is is to manipulate and it (mentally) to make it bend to your wishes! Draw your own conclusions from there…

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You say the words, “I want to get better”. You mouth them as you watch the latest performance tango video on youtube. While at the same time, the thought flashes in your mind that you should schedule a private or two with X. ‘X’ being the local variant that teaches what you ‘believe in’. This teacher is also the one that you have gone to before and from your perspective has ‘helped’ you.

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You have local friends that you have acquired through the dance. They met you at a very specific point in your tango development. You’ve danced with them over and over again. You almost never say ‘no’ to them because they’re fun to dance with or they’re nice people. Over time you settle into a nice, almost comfortable routine of your dancing friends, where you’ll go to the practica or milonga,

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Sweating

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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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Practice with Tango Sticks

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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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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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There comes a point in your Tango life for one of several reasons where you find yourself in an odd place – the want to give up Tango. The most common reason is that you’re just not getting the same thing from the dance as you used to get from it. You go to Milongas. You find yourself sitting more, talking more, and dancing less.

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This isn’t rocket science. It’s pure fact. Lower heels for the Follower aren’t exactly the sexiest things in the world. All the attention is on the High Heel and the shape of the foot, calf, and thigh that the high heel generates as a result. The Low heel ? Not so much with that. It’s like the poor cousin, ne’er do-well that comes close but not quite. Uuuugh. 

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