Beijing, July 17, 2006

The Beijing papers

This series of 6 articles on argentine tango wishes to be a modest but
positive contribution to the Beijing argentine tango community.
They will be distributed via email every week or every second week
until the 11th of September.

Here are the titles of the articles that will be published in the
coming weeks:

-How to maximize your dancing experience during milongas
-The twelve most common mistakes in argentine tango
- How to avoid the twelve most common mistakes in argentine tango
- Our most precious assets in argentine tango
- Musicality for tango dancers
…and maybe more, once these topics will be covered.



First paper

How to maximize your dancing experience during milongas

In a young community, or in a community in constant state of flux with
a large turnover like Beijing, characterised by few people with long
tango experience, a certain attitude during milongas (dance evenings)
will help you bloom in the dance and develop your dancing skills.

Let's start by looking at some basic factual evidence: there is
usually a gender imbalance in favour of men in any tango communities.
Generally speaking, dance appeals more to women than men.
In places like Beijing this is especially acute.
Men dancing tango have usually a short dance history, and/or due to
work obligations etc are more likely to come and go.
Typically they will be new to it, or will have learnt it just enough
to reasonably enjoy themselves and not be rebuffed by the ladies. Once
they feel they are there, they usually stop learning.
Only a few of them wish to take it to the next level. This is true
here, this is true everywhere.
There are a number of reasons for that, and they are good reasons too.
First, men are usually more challenged by dancing than women, they
find it rather difficult, and argentine tango is a difficult dance.
Second, to learn it properly, you need the sustained presence and
attention of a good teacher that you trust.
Third, you have to commit to that teacher and take lessons regularly,
preferably private ones (the best way to learn) and this implies an
investment in time, effort, and money.
Fourth, you have to practice.
The milonga, the dance evening, is not a practice per se .
To find and keep a good practice partner is difficult. Many women
would say that they would eagerly volunteer for it but, due to the
emotional nature and difficulty of the dance, practice can be rather
technically frustrating and/or emotionally bumpy.

Solutions:

The first thing that all building tango communities should do is to
nurture their (too few) leaders.
In other words, dance with them. This happens usually naturally since
the odds are in their favour.
But the question here is:

How do you build confidence in your new leaders while not letting
their lack of skills potentially destroy your own dancing?

I mean this regardless of the level of the follower.
Typically, I am thinking here at a leader, a newcomer or a rather
poorly trained one that is tense, uses force, hints more than leads,
and expect you to know, and/or precipitate everything.
Let's take tension for instance. Due to the intimacy of the dance, if
he is tense, he will make you tense.
A tense body cannot dance. Period.
Tension is like noise. If you have too much background noise on a
record, as it amplifies it will eventually take over and drown the
music altogether.
Can you relate to this?
Did you experience tension?
Did you feel exhausted after dancing or felt pain in your body tension
induced?
If affirmative, you know that this is not pleasant.
In fact, this is terrible.
Why? Because if you allow tension to be part of it, you tell your body
that this is normal and it will remember it as such. Tension then
will creep in and may become intertwined with your dancing technique
to such a degree that it will do to your dancing what excessive noise
does to music.
Please, ask yourself these questions:
Am I tense when I dance? Where am I getting this tension from?
From the leader or am I bringing it to the dance myself?

In any case here is what you should be doing:
Stop being tense!
How?
a) center yourself and learn how to breathe properly from your center
(from the belly).
b) be nonchalant, don't try to be perfect. Accept that what works
works, what does not work does not work at this point in time.
c) be humorous, relax and have fun with your friends. When you dance,
try to focus and concentrate a bit but not too much…
d) still stressed? …have a glass of wine. (although for leaders
alcohol makes you rather sluggish).
e) don't go to a milonga to dance away your problems. This bad energy
will only make matters
worse. If you need to transfer bad energy find other outlets or go
to a therapist, they do
that for a fee.



f) tango is fun. You can make it deep fun, serious fun, artful fun,
passionate fun etc.
But nonetheless it's fun!

Obviously, these are general pieces of advice, but what can you
specifically do when you have accepted an invitation and you are stuck
on the dance floor with a tense and rather insecure leader?
You have to manage the situation now.


Here is how:
Usually we accept an invitation at the beginning of a tanda (a group
of three or four songs in the same style).
Etiquette requires that you dance more than one (one song is
considered rejection), so you are there for two songs minimum.
What to do then?
First, if you feel tension, the first thing that must pop into your
mind is: "ahah! tension here,
I will be as calm as he is tense to start with. I will not allow
tension to creep in my body and destroy my dance".
Second, tension leads normally to the use of force and this is
confrontational in nature.
In other words, you meet tension with tension.
You don't want to lock horns with him.
So what do you do? You absorb it.
Example: He wants you to take a step back but can't lead it and uses
his left hand to push your right hand to try to move you. The worse
you could do would be to step back. Why? Because it does validate it
and tells him "it's OK to lead me that way".
No, you don't do that. Instead, you just let your arm become like
cooked spaghetti and drop it. Maybe he will try a couple of times but
will stop when he sees that force does not bring any results.
If he gets the message, and usually leaders get it because they do not
use force for force sake, but
because they usually do not know alternate or better ways to get what
they want…
So, if you see now that he still wants this back step, because he
makes it clear through his intention and his body language but has
stopped pushing with his arm, take it!
OK, you may have compensated a bit, but you remained calm and cool
and, more important, you made him feel that he can get results by
other means.
As you dance with him, you see that he tries something else, a giro (a
turn) for example but is not too sure as how to lead it, and you feel
that he is at the point of tensing up or forcing you into it; go
ahead, compensate, do it and stay cool.
Send him good waves too, I mean, that you appreciate his dancing,
especially his calmness with the intent message that just being there
with you simply walking is good enough and that he must not try all
kind of things fearing that you might get bored.
Body language does speak volumes!

Now, let's shine the light on the follower.
In this next example, we assume that our leader is an "enlightened
beginner",
Which means, somebody who assumes who he is as a dancer, that does not
want to show off; someone who just wants to enjoy himself and make it
equally enjoyable for his partner in a way that allows both of them
to connect to the music, with each other, and keep things cool and
relaxed.
But the follower now is tense. She is a beginner, maybe a bit of a
perfectionist, or she does not want to disappoint him etc.
If he senses that, his duty now is to show her that everything is cool.
He will keep things simple to make her relax. He will watch her body
language.
Example: He locked her in a close embrace where the bodies touch. She
has accepted
the embrace but is arching her back considerably. He should read her
body language. It means that she is not too comfortable that way…than
he will relax the embrace and let her come back straight. She pushes
on his left hand, he relaxes his left arm to defuse it. If she has
balance issues,
(because of high heels etc), he offers more support with his right arm
around her while maintaining a good presence and support on the left
side of her thoracic cage.
And he does not forget to send her good vibes too…
As he sees that she is relaxing and regains confidence, he might try a
few simple steps he masters well.
If she tenses again, drop it off, simplify to the max, slow down and
never forget that:
Tango is not about steps, Tango is about connection!

In all cases, you should be surprised how fear is what often gets in
the way and prevents us from dancing properly. Fear is the great
inhibitor and can be overcome quite easily with a good, positive and
affectionate partner.

We said at the beginning that tension kills the dance, creeps into the
other and spoils everything.
It is a vicious circle.
But in tango we have a virtuous circle as well, meaning that what you
do well is also absorbed by the other who will reciprocate and invite
you to give more etc… we can create harmony this way. The dance then
will become magical.
You do not have to be an advanced dancer for experiencing tango
moments. To be an "enlightened beginner" is more than enough.

Now let's consider another potential source of tension:
What do you do when being an "enlightened beginner" you have
accepted an invitation from an advanced tango dancer?

Example:
Mister Big has extended an invitation.
It can be rather stressful indeed. What to do now? your palms are
sweating, your heart is racing, you are nervous…

Mr Big may be your teacher, or your friend's teacher or you have seen
him on stage etc.
Now you want to be at your best, rise to the occasion and shine… what
should you do?
Nothing!
Remember the phrase of the architect Mies van der Roehe:
"Less is more"

It applies here 100%.

First, if your hands are sweating and your heart racing let it happen
(breath correctly though).
What is is. We do not lie in tango. (anyway we cannot lie, you can
try, but it does not work…)
Second do not, I repeat, do not excuse yourself (true at the
beginning, the end AND during the dance… even if things go a bit astray).
If you are a beginner or an intermediate it is not your problem. There
is no shame in that
HE has extended the invitation, you did not ask anything, so HE must
take care of you.
Plus, if he is so good, he should be able to make you dance, right?
That is one of the reasons why it is the men who do invite according
to tradition. If they do not want to dance with you, their loss!
If they invite you, they have to make sure that you will have a good time.
They have to behave like a real "caballero" (gentleman). This is very
much in the tango tradition
By the way, this etiquette would be known to an "enlightened beginner"
too.
The man is there to take care of the lady and not the other way around.
(and certainly not to correct her and give her free dance lessons on
the dance floor…)
Beware gentlemen, even if your follower should beg for advice, do NOT
give dance lesson on the dance floor, this is bad form.
There are outlets for that: Practicas!
What is a Practica?
A Practica is an informal dance where people go to practice their
steps between partners and friends and help each other. It could be
supervised or not.

So, with a good dancer, the follower must simply do nothing… But what
exactly does this nothing means?
To answer this properly, first let's remember what we have said
regarding the attitude of the follower with a beginner leader.
We talked about how reducing tension by way of compensation or
anticipation while the follower has to remain calm and tensionless all
the time.
But for the calm, the rest of it is wrong now.
In fact, compensation, anticipation, decoding in the mind of the
follower etc, all this is normally to be avoided.
In the first situation, she fills the blanks a bit, now she must not
do that at all.
A good leader will (must) dance in her body. He will control her
pivot, make sure where her axis is at all times. He will trigger the
movement by using his/her spiral and will lead by invitation only.
To lead by invitation might be a bit confusing at the beginning. Let's
explain it a bit.
The invitation means that, from the energy it feels, the body of the
follower will move accordingly.
There is no push-pull at all but
grounding-spiral-intention-preparation and release.
Let's not dwell too much on these technical (cryptic?) words as it
would lead us to too technical a discussion.

In the first case the follower helps a bit, in the second case she
just let it happen.
Passivity? Not at all.
Empowerment instead.
In the first case:
Her mind thinks, her body dances.
In the second case:
Her body thinks, her mind dances.
(the best way to climb the stairway to tango heaven…)

Her role as a follower is to connect, amplify and beautify the dance.
Add colour and flavour to the dish if you want.
Once, I asked my former teacher in Montreal Noel Strazza (Pablo
Veron's partner), what are the essential qualities of a good follower?
She answered:
"To be silent, empty, and awake"
From there, she feels that she can add fragrance, colour and flavour
in a complementary way while giving herself totally, being totally
free at the same time, be totally in the moment.
These words are worth meditating by all followers, but let's be even
more practical.
To do nothing means to be totally grounded, on axis (offering your
most perfect posture), in possession of your spiral, peaceful and
calm. Now your body is tuned like a good violin and ready to sing.

You can embellish (add adornos) but do not backlead or take any steps
of your own, do not even think of that.
Just be there.
The most beautiful gift you can give your leader is: Freedom.
Freedom for the leader means options.
Example:
Let's take a giro, a turn from a side step to the right (seen from the
perspective of the follower):

a) from a beginner point of view:
The beginner takes a side step to the left, starts turning his
shoulder, the follower understands it as a turn and triggers the
sequence of a giro taking in succession a back-side-front-side, than
the beginner pushes her back (sigh! he should not be pushing) to
continue walking etc.

b) from an advanced point of view:
The leader invites her into a side step of a certain width controlled
by pressing the ground, this is validated by a corresponding pressure
on the left side of the follower rib cage. Once the step is landed, he
grounds and invites her to ground, then start spiralling from the
muscles of his back. She mirrors this. Once the spiral has reached
the proper degree in his-her torso, he grounds more and relaxes (flex)
a bit the knee of his supporting leg, she mirrors it, and this creates
an inner tension in her spine. Once it has reached sufficient
potential energy, she lifts the heel of her supporting leg and a pivot
occurs naturally. The leader, taking advantage of the pivot, gives it
an extra impetus in his spiral which triggers a rhythm of simple or
double time (quick-quick-slow). Then, while remaining on the same
spot, in his mind and body he dances each and every step of her giro
by feeling her body going from a pivot to a back step to a circular
side step where he pivots her again to prepare her for the front step,
than pivot, than side step, than he grounds and let the pent up energy
of the turn dissipate. Once all is quiet again, he invites her to a
walk, in order to contrast circular with linear energy. She will be
doing this with her eyes closed and will realise (or not) after the
fact that she just did a turn there. In fact when we enter in the the
"flow" of tango, we do not even remember what we did (we don't even
care), we just remember how marvellous it was that night dancing with
such and such person.

Alternate scenario: after the side step he spirals her, grounds,
everything looks very much as if a turn will start imminently, than he
changes his mind and transforms her back pivot to a front one and it
becomes a front ocho etc.
Why? maybe because there was no room anymore on the dance floor for a
turn, or maybe because he thought that on that particular spot on the
music it was more interesting choreographically speaking to do a
front ocho; or maybe just because he felt like it…
Total freedom, total spontaneity!

A follower that gives options to her leader opens doors to his creativity.

Let's not forget that we are always thinking about a relatively
beginner follower.
And we reiterate that it is the problem of the leader to find the
steps that will make her feel comfortable.
If it is only walking, well, if he is good he will make walking feel
creative and wonderful.
If walking is too difficult, he can spot dance her.

Finally,
What to do when you, an "enlightened beginner" leader have extended an
invitation to a female tango star and….gulp! she has accepted.
Chill!
But don't freeze 

Offer your most beautiful connection, lose yourself in the music and
do keep it simple.
Create the magic!
Do not try to dance above your level.
Please, do keep it simple.
Bear in mind that this woman dances complicated steps every day with
the best in the trade…
and may be a bit tired of that too. The fact that she has accepted to
dance with you, could be an indication that she would be perfectly
happy with: fresh, spontaneous and sincere!
Besides, you are not Pablo Veron. 
Yes, it could be nice to try these complicated sequences and off-axis
turns you learnt somewhere in a workshop. Indeed she would make them
feel gloriously beautiful if you master them well, but what if you do
not lead them properly?
Is it worth the risk?

In a word: No!

She would not resent you, but you might resent yourself though. It
could be enough to bruise your ego and make you become frustrated and
self conscious at once. Bye bye the connection, bye bye the magic, and
welcome frustration.
Indeed, it can be rather frustrating to have had the opportunity of
your lifetime to play on a Stradivarius and, instead of playing music
you know, feel and play well, you tried a complicated piece that
resulted in a bunch of wrong notes and no music at all…

Less is more!








Conclusion:

Flexibility and awareness are paramount in dancing argentine tango.
One size fits none.
Have more than one style of dance to offer. If you do have to
compensate, being fully aware of it will prevent it from generating
unconscious ingrained bad habits that practice would only make
permanent. But try to keep all this (these sins…) to a minimum, use it
sparingly and with the idea of serving a better purpose like building
up confidence in your leader or to battle the evil of tension. Be
vigilant.

Said otherwise, just remember that with a proper attitude and
flexibility in your dancing, tailored to the reality and the
circumstances you are in, you can make argentine tango a qualitative
and fulfilling experience, enriching your life in so many ways while
discovering the specificity and the inner beauty that each dancer,
each milonga or each tango community has to offer.

Love to all,
And see you on the dance floor!


Richard S.





Richard Sagala bio notes:
Canadian born musician and dancer, a certified music teacher, Richard
Sagala has been teaching and performing argentine tango in Canada, USA
and now China.
While a student in the conservatory of music (where he graduated with
four diplomas: DEC, CES, DES, Premier Prix), Richard studied classical
ballet and got involved in ballroom dancing from 1990 to 1999.
Richard discovered the art of argentine tango in 1999 and has pursued
it relentlessly ever since training with the best and brightest
everywhere.

While in China, Richard teaches with Beijingtango. You can get
information about regular and private classes by writing to
beijingtango@...