The Golden Nugget is a Tango Topics construct, and is quite possibly the one tango pattern that you will ever need to know to dance tango. Put another way it’s a piece of Tango vocabulary (a pattern) that works in all 3 dances, is highly extensible (meaning it can be modified endlessly), extremely adornable (meaning you can adorn it), and is insanely musical!
What are Walking Systems ? These are 18 different ways that we can walk in Argentine Tango. Not the how-we-walk, or the mechanics of how we walk but the multiple methods to the ways in which we might want to walk. The ideas comprise a composite or overall vantage point that no matter what situation one is in, there is a walking solution for that situation.
Beginner Tango is the starting point for all of us. Our first steps, our first movement to tango music. This article quite literally walks the reader through those first few motions and ideas of what tango is and isn’t.
1.) Learning the Pauses. First let’s dispense with the fact that you ‘Yes you must know where the beat is at’! That’s a given. Tango Topics does an adequate job of giving you the tools to hear the beat, not to mention describes what the on or down beat is, also what the off beat is and how to hear it, as well as the tempo of the music, and the frequent error that happens in relation to ‘tempo’ for a lot of people when hearing and then dancing to the music. Learning the Pauses is only one method of learning the music.
For most Followers, that haven’t been properly trained, they are rushed into an Argentine Cross right from the start of their Tango dancing lives. Aside
Dancing and teaching are not the same things. Choosing a teacher based on whether or not they dance well as the sole criteria for whether or not the can teach you to dance is not a good idea. These are two very different skills. Far too often people make the mistake (followers) of being impressed by this the skill to dance thinking that equates to the skill to teach.
What is "THUD!" ? In the simplest way we know how to describe this stuff, "THUD" is an uncontrolled, unsightly, and ungainly foot heavy and overly weighted placement of the dancers foot, which results in a sound that resembles a rumbling of the floorboards under your feet when you jump up and down: THUD! It occurs because the dancer in question has generated a heavy step, an impacted step, that they don’t realize that they’re doing it.
What is Intention Based Dancing? In its simplest form ‘Intention’ is really about not using pressure, tension, or force, with one’s arms, or hands in any way, shape, or form to communicate an idea, a thought, or a movement. But rather the idea of ‘Intention’ is to intend to do something. To propose, to invite, to advice, to guide, to profer…these are all statements that we, as dancers, are asking our Partners to engage X.
Let’s dispense with a few misnomers right out of the gate. 1.) Balance is not the same thing as Stability. 2.) Balance is a component of Stability. 3.) Your stability is generated via 3 very different mechanisms that are all connect via your nervous system. And so that we’re clear on this one, one of them is not your ‘core’, and anyone that tells you different is either lying through their eye-teeth, or doesn’t understand anatomy and physiology of the human body. Truth be told, your ‘core’ muscles have absolutely nothing to do with stability. Nada. Zip. Zero.
Leads you have a role and a job, several, and one of them is creating an embrace structure that is comfortable for the Follower while at the same time creates the iconic visual that is a Tango embrace, that allows for maximum effect with minimal input. Put another way, you have 3 primary goals: 1.) Navigation. 2.) Architecture. and 3.) Music. Under the category of Architecture we have 2 sub-categories. 2a.) Form. and 2b.) Vocabulary. Think of 2a as what we look like (the visual), and think of 2b as what you do with 2a in time to 3, while employing 1. And all of that starts with – Engaging The Embrace.
Why Should You Signup ? The simplest reason is that you won’t find this stuff anywhere else. It’s a different kind of tango education. It will help you to understand what you want, how to do it, and why you want to do things with Intention in mind. It will show you how to listen to the music, and how to create different types of vocabulary, as well as how to engage in the milonga environment. This site is all about showing you a better pathway towards a type of tango that reinforces the ideas of Social Tango thru Intention Based Dancing.
