1690  torso and hand lead

Date: Tue, 12 Aug 2003 00:27:40 -0400
From: Sergio <cachafaz@ADELPHIA.NET>
Subject: torso and hand lead

I received several notes asking a clarification of the following:

Tango Guy says:
"The more traditional styles weren't led with the chest but with the arms. "
"...as the decades passed, different and hopefully better techniques
developed. One of those techniques was the chest lead.
Traditional styles of Tango are still with us today but mostly in South
America."

The traditional way of leading tango (IMO) involves both the chest and the
hands.

Most instructors of Tango Salon are going to lead a boleo by interrupting
the woman's back ocho with their right hand. It is a minority of
instructors that are going to use a counter body motion to interrupt the
back ocho to cause a 'whipping's boleo. Many will use both with a more
subtle counter body motion than the one used by the 'New tango' dancers.
This (IMO) results in a more elegant lead.

Most good dancers know how to lead both ways.

Everybody uses the chest to lead, most use also the hands. The left hand of
the man is firm to give support to the lady and his right one is used on the
back of the lady to lead boleos (low and high), amagues (front boleos)( low,
mid and high), syncopations (by lifting), calesita (by keeping the lady on
her right leg (with frame and perhaps lifting with right), planeo (by
lowering her torso with right hand), will use rt. hand to lift to indicate
syncopations to the lt., to the right (mostly in milonga), to make the woman
lock behind, to lead front and back ochos, etc.
Traditional lead will use the torso during giros (turns), enrosques, etc.

The chest is always used, one can even dance just with the chest keeping the
hands behind the back.

The dance requires that both partners keep a frame, the man and the woman
maintain their chests framed, in front of each other throughout the range of
motion of most steps. Even when the torsos are separated, let's say during
a mirror step, the chests maintain an" intention "to each other.
So (IMO) it is incorrect to say that in traditional tango one leads only
with the hands.
Both the hands and the chest are used.

It is the so called 'New Tango' instructors that emphasize the use of the
chest in leading versus the use of the hands. This does not mean that the
traditional way of leading does not use the chest.

IMO this results in exaggerated movements of the upper body, (counter body
motions to induce boleos , etc) are not as elegant as the classical
torso-hand lead. This is only my personal opinion. Other dancers, I am sure
will have a different perception.

Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2003 23:58:27 -0600
From: Tom Stermitz <Stermitz@RAGTIME.ORG>
Subject: Re: torso and hand lead

Sergio wrote:

>I received several notes asking a clarification of the following:
>
>Tango Guy says:
>"The more traditional styles weren't led with the chest but with the arms. "
>"...as the decades passed, different and hopefully better techniques
>developed. One of those techniques was the chest lead.
>Traditional styles of Tango are still with us today but mostly in South
>America."
>
>The traditional way of leading tango (IMO) involves both the chest and the
>hands.

There are obvious and non-obvious aspects to this.

In ALL dance, movement is initiated from the center of the body.

In partner dances we embrace each other with arms or bodies, or
perhaps across space in a modern dance duet.

Using words like chest or body lead is great. It focuses us on the
idea that momentum and energy all come from the center of our body as
opposed to pushing our partners around with our hands and arms. Start
a movement from our center, keeping tone in our shoulders, arms and
hands, and the leads feel comfortable.

This is one of the hardest skills to master for a beginner.

We are all used to manipulating the world with our hands (driving a
car, opening a door, sawing a log, etc). In other words we are very
"articulate" at fine motor skills in our fingers, hands and arms.
Tango requires us to become articulate with our bodies...spiralling,
rebounding, sensing the body-to-body communication as if the embrace
or the hands didn't exist.

In my (fading) memory, the average embrace in Argentina is quite
firm, to the point of causing some sore muscles, when compared with
the average embrace in the US, which might be described as "too soft"
or timid.


The really subtle aspects of tango communication have to do with more
intuitive ideas such as "good connection", two people moving "as
one", transcendent lead-following....

Proprioseptic is the sense of touch and body posture. In tango this
goes far beyond "me plus you equals us", rather it is as if our
nervous system goes into our partner, and we become part of their
body. I sense how much energy is needed given our muscle tone and
momentum in order to make a boleo happen slowly or more quickly, or
an ocho to go 270 degrees instead of 180 degrees. All the subtle
communications of lead and follow combine into something that is
almost telepathic.

Horse riders achieve a similar extra-body awareness.


The thing with nuevo dancers is that they have been informed by a lot
of modern dance and movement concepts, such as rebound.

A Nuevo dancer might describe the two styles of leading boleos as
counter-body and with-body. Most dancers lead the "with" boleo.

If you don't know counter-body boleos, they can be awesome,
explosive, wicked things, or as subtle and inevitable as a
breath...it is all a matter of energy, momentum, and intention.

Sergio describes leading a boleo with the right hand.

This sounds to me like a very brutish or aggressive choice of words,
which it would feel like if the leader did not have a good sense of
momentum, timing, rebound...AND DID NOT INITIATE THE MOVEMENT FROM
THE CENTER OF THE BODY.

In any situation, the actual boleo is a spiralling rebound in the
follower's body. The resulting leg movement is a DECORATION of the
boleo, not the boleo itself.


I would say that elegance is a STYLISTIC layer that you can put on
top of nuevo or traditional concepts. I would agree with Sergio that
there is a certain elegance in traditional tango, that seems to get
lost when tango becomes too athletic....especially when attempted by
less-than-athletic dancers.




sergio continues:

>Most instructors of Tango Salon are going to lead a boleo by interrupting
>the woman's back ocho with their right hand. It is a minority of
>instructors that are going to use a counter body motion to interrupt the
>back ocho to cause a 'whipping's boleo. Many will use both with a more
>subtle counter body motion than the one used by the 'New tango' dancers.

This (IMO) results in a more elegant lead.
...

>Everybody uses the chest to lead, most use also the hands. The left hand of
>...So (IMO) it is incorrect to say that in traditional tango one leads only
>with the hands. Both the hands and the chest are used.
>
>It is the so called 'New Tango' instructors that emphasize the use of the
>chest in leading versus the use of the hands. This does not mean that the
>traditional way of leading does not use the chest.
>
>IMO this results in exaggerated movements of the upper body, (counter body
>motions to induce boleos , etc) are not as elegant as the classical
>torso-hand lead. This is only my personal opinion. Other dancers, I am sure
>will have a different perception.

--

Tom Stermitz
https://www.tango.org/
stermitz@tango.org
303-388-2560

Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2003 19:31:04 -0400
From: Sergio <cachafaz@ADELPHIA.NET>
Subject: Torso and hand lead II

Tom Stermitz says:

"Sergio describes leading a boleo with the right hand.

This sounds to me like a very brutish or aggressive choice of words,
which it would feel like if the leader did not have a good sense of
momentum, timing, rebound...AND DID NOT INITIATE THE MOVEMENT FROM
THE CENTER OF THE BODY."

I have explained in detail that leading involves both the chest, (in some
way the whole body), and the arms.

The left arm gives firm support to the lady and the right hand is used to
lead or at the very least to make the lead more complete.

I did not invent or discovered this form of leading, I can assure you that
most people lead Salon Tango in the form that I have described.

Most of the great Argentine Tango instructors of Salon Style lead the same
way. Nito, Mingo Pugliese, Osvaldo Zotto, Puppy Costello, Carlos Coppello,
Jorge Firpo, etc, etc, etc. Few great tango instructors lead with solely
the torso and make a big effort not to use their hands ( Gustavo Naveira,
Fabian Salas, Chicho, and their followers). This last ones decided to use a
different pedagogic approach.

I can assure you that there is nothing "brutish or aggressive" in the lead
by me described. Quite the contrary, it is subtle, delicate, lightly felt by
your partner and not perceived by anyone else. It is easily understood by
the follower.

Going back to the example I had given: a boleo (back flick) is lead from a
back ocho by interrupting this movement with your right hand.

This is explained in excellent detail by Diego Difalco and Carolina
Zalkowski in their video tape (Tango technique for the follower).

Anybody who thinks that this lead is brutish or aggressive totally ignores
what I am talking about.
There is nothing wrong with leading in some other way, but to criticize the
way most people lead tango using that sort of vocabulary...I find this to be
a very brutish or aggressive choice of words. :))) I imagine that this
misconception arise from observing poor leaders "over leading" with arms
and body. This is frequently seen in beginners that "crank" the poor women
and raise their shoulders as they lead, completely loosing their frame.

Those that dance Milonguero or Nuevo tango lead more with the chest and less
with the hands.

A good tango dancer has his way of leading adapted to the style that he is
doing at the moment.

May everybody lead properly, in a delicate form, a way that is elegant,
gentle and easily understood by the follower.

This is the way I, and everybody in my group leads Salon Tango, I have no
doubt about it. Amen.