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.

Sometimes that’s not enough, you need something immediately. You need to play with this stuff now. So as a result some folks will go to the next available practica, and/or class, or their local private lesson and try this stuff out, sometimes with very mixed results.

Some people go the route of actually getting that private practice time, and then videoing themselves immediately. The immediate part is insanely important. They don’t want to talk about it. They just want to see it work without talking about it. They want to see what happens and then play that response back several times without necessarily talking about it or discussing it. This is known as ‘playing with the blank response’. Blank response ? If you lead/follow something the right way, there should be a specific response, but if it’s not done the right way, they’ll respond with their training or technique. And that response is golden actually. It provides useful information in how we lead and follow something and why something happens. That’s a blank response. At the same time, later on, we want to figure out the what the possibilities are. What MAY happen. And some people video this too. They want the unvarnished responses, the one where you haven’t processed it, and practiced it. But rather just to see if both parties get hear the same things.

These processes are really great when there’s an available partner.

But what happens in the case of not having an available partner ?

That’s where we talk about Tango Sticks.

For years, when a Lead has wanted to try something out, or a Follower who has been paying attention in what they’re being led to, and there is no available partner (with no onboard ‘issues’) available one used a pair of broomsticks to substitute the dancing partner so that they could ‘practice’ these issues or map something out.

Some people have even gone the route of performing with the sticks and showing what you can do with them. And some folks use this process as teaching tool, and exercise tool for mapping things out.

There are some major minuses to this work and there are some major pluses.

The minus is that a thinking, breathing, human being will respond with their foibles, issues, and technique. The pluses to this ? A thinking, breathing, human being will respond with their foibles, issues, and technique. It’s a lose-lose, or win-win situation depending on your point of view.

Mapping something out is never a bad idea. It reinforces your own thinking about how something MIGHT be accomplished. It may not answer the question entirely until you have a live person in front of you, but it does allow you to work out all the gross details of a particular idea. So here’s a good idea, get yourself a pair of cheap broomsticks and start playing! And just in case you want an updated broom, Tango Topics suggests the venerable ‘Walking Stick‘, which does the same job, it’s generally made out of aluminum instead of wood.

MORE REMINDERS

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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Saying ‘No’.

So without further variance, below is a 10 step process in “How to say ‘No’, and not dance with Y!” 🙂

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Follower Bashing

All too often a good portion of Followers get the short end of the stick as it were. They’re blamed for missing this or that, not having enough resistance (a major no-no), not pushing, not leaning enough (false apilodo another major no-no), not stepping in the right place, not keeping up with the lead, etc. They’re blamed for a host of things from walking, to musical interpretation. After a while they develop a complex of just taking responsibility for almost everything that happens that isn’t desirable in the dance, instead of the Lead taking rightful responsibility for what’s been led! This is known as ‘Bashing The Follower’.

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Going to El Corte ?

The words "El Corte" translated to English from Spanish literally means ‘Cut, Court, or Edge’. However, in the Tango world the word has another meaning: Nijmegen, The Netherlands. What’s in/at Nijmegen ? A dance studio of certain renown: El Corte! Think of El Corte as one of your GoTo destinations. Assuming you want to experience a quality of dance in an environment that is at once fun, and at the same time entirely engaging on multiple levels. Caveat: You do need to have your sh*t together if you visit, while at the same time you must be willing and open to a whole different way of looking at the dance (again, on multiple levels).

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All Night Milonga ?

Yes you read that correctly. There are places in the world where a Milonga does (theoretically) go ‘All Night’. The idea is very romantic, that you’re dancing until the sun comes up. ’Theoretically’ ? Because ‘all night’ has different meanings in different places. If, however, we’re talking about Buenos Aires, there are 3 Milongas that do in fact go all night long 1.) La Viruta (on the weekends), 2.) Salon Canning on Monday nights (usually until about 5 am ish), and 3.) El Yeite (Pron: Shay-tay). There are others that go ‘late’ to 4 am, but not necessarily until the sun comes up.

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Perfectionism

There are those of us that separate being ‘good’ as being good enough, and anything beyond that is just ‘unnecessary’. It’s really about getting around the floor, and if no one complains about the embrace, or you don’t hit anything, or anyone, and you can throw in that cool move now and again, so much the better!

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The Same People

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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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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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!

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