2128  Alienating leads

Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 03:48:36 -0800
From: H Dickinson <hyladlmp@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Alienating leads

Alegra brought up the question of how to avoid
alienating a man who is "new, is a jerk, does not know
what he is doing..." when she "takes control...", as
suggested by Carlos. She says:

> Carlos, I agree with you entirely, in theory.
> But in practice, if a woman does attempt to do this,
> then she runs the real risk of alienating that man
> forever, or at least being regarded as
> "uncontrollable" by him.
> My tango community is not so large that I can afford
> to alienate any potential partners.

Alegra, studying with Luciana Valle really has changed
my perspective on this. I used to feel that I had to
be nice and put up with bad dancing in order not to
hurt the guy's feelings. Luciana talks a lot about
how the women in the community *must* take
responsibility for the overall health of the
community. If we as follows passively put up with bad
leads, bad manners, poor navigation, then we deserve
the mediocre level of dance in the community that
results. As Luciana says, "Smile, ladies, you are the
Queen!" I have heard similar thoughts from Susana
Miller, Cacho Dante, Brigitta Miller, Cecilia
Gonzalez, Fernanda Ghi, Rebecca Shulman....

What Carlos is talking about is not "backleading"; it
should not be so obvious that it is alienating,
anyway. It is really more like playing, being an
active follow, participating in the partnership of the
dance.

But it also helps to really think deeply about the
whole risk/benefit ratio of alienating the
bad/mediocre dancers. Is it really worth staying on
the list of one of those bad dancers who never
practice, never take classes, pull you around, don't
listen to the music, bump into people etc.? I know
dancers who have had to stop dancing for weeks or
months because someone torqued their wrist or arm or
crashed them into another couple, or a bad lead led a
follow to step on their foot. Why exactly is it
important to make sure that these bad and dangerous
dancers remain comfortable in their bad habits?

There was a point when I stopped dancing with the
mediocre dancers for awhile. It was after I took that
risk of alienating some guys, that my dancing began to
improve rapidly. There was definitely some lonely
time while that transition happened, but it was worth
it. And now I am dancing with some of those guys who
I "alienated", because I tried to remain polite and
nice off the dance floor. And, many of them went
through their own evolution, because after three or
four follows stopped dancing with them, these leads
were inspired to work to improve their dancing. It
does help to have friends among the other women, to
chat and get support as you are working on these
ideas.

When you chat with other follows, listen to what they
say, and then watch them dance. See if you find the
same thing that I did: the follows who take care of
themselves and demand good leading, (not fancy figures
or steps, but good leading) are invariably better
dancers than those who express lots of concern for the
guys' feelings and will never turn down a guy. And
then there is the very high level of enlightenment,
those follows who can dance with good, bad, mediocre,
and somehow all leads become wonderful dancers, and
receive the input of the enlightened follow almost
without knowing it, and certainly without resentment.
But my guess is that most of those rare follows did go
through a time when they did not dance much with the
bad dancers, and then got beyond it.

As Rose stated in her lovely post (so beautiful, thank
you!) it is about heart, and heart connection. I
think that if the woman takes control with heart,
while keeping the dance connection and heart-ful
embrace, this "taking control" for a moment or two, is
not alienating.

> >
> Carlos, I agree with you entirely, in theory.
> But in practice, if a woman does attempt to do this,
> then she runs the real risk of alienating that man
> forever, or at least being regarded as
> "uncontrollable" by him.
> My tango community is not so large that I can afford
> to alienate any potential partners.
>
>
>
> One aspect that I teach my follower students, is
> that they can control
> the man when he is new, is a jerk, does not know
> what he is doing, or is
> bumping into other couples. The follower can control
> the steps,
> direction and rhythm, she can accomplish this by
> making her frame
> stronger than the man's.
>

Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2004 12:02:38 -0700
From: Tom Stermitz <Stermitz@RAGTIME.ORG>
Subject: Re: Alienating leads

Hyla wrote:

>But it also helps to really think deeply about the
>whole risk/benefit ratio of alienating the
>bad/mediocre dancers. Is it really worth staying on
>the list of one of those bad dancers who never
>practice, never take classes, pull you around, don't
>listen to the music, bump into people etc.? I know
>...
>There was a point when I stopped dancing with the
>mediocre dancers for awhile. It was after I took that
>risk of alienating some guys, that my dancing began to
>improve rapidly. There was definitely some lonely
>...

May we all have dances with people better than us!!!


The male role in tango tends to control or impose more on the couple
than the female role. This can be negative or positive for the
follower depending on the quality of the leader. Dancing with a lot
of beginners can cause bad habits to become ingrained. (This can
easily be countered by privates to help stabilize good technique).

Many women have had the true BUT ALSO FALSE experience that a great
leader can make a great dance happen. Sure, she has a good time, but
frankly, if the woman isn't great, he can only bring her up to a
"good" dance. The shoe fits the other foot: a great follower can make
a great dance for an advanced dancer.

So, I see women stop taking lessons, refuse to dance with beginners,
and just wait around for good leaders. This isn't very functional for
a couple reasons. Our communities have many more beginners than
intermediates, and over time, some of those beginner guys are going
to become your favorite partners.


Hyla suggests that one way to create an ideology of improvement is to
stop dancing with people who aren't on a path of improvement.

I would rather that Hyla's suggestion be recast into a more positive
light by suggesting that experienced women take a more active role in
offering encouragement to the beginner and intermediate men.

(NOTE: ENCOURAGING is not the same as TEACHING.)

(1) Attend beginner classes. Most teachers would love to have good
women help balance the gender ratios, and new, shy guys are
incredibly flattered to have good followers giving them encouragement.

(2) If you spot the guys from class at a practice or a milonga, go
welcome them. Give them a tanda and complement any progress. Talk to
them and introduce them to your friends.

(3) Volunteer to be a "crash-test dummy" for a private lesson. (Guys
are notoriously shy about taking privates, especially from another
guy.)

(4) Encourage them to take 2 or 4 classes from every master
instructor who visits. This is a long-term project.

(5) Invite them to take road trips to communities with a higher level
of dance. They need to notice there are higher levels and other
styles.


The point is attaining some level of perfection in tango requires an
ideology of pursuing quality or perfection. Intermediate guys are
unpleasant to dance with mainly because they stop taking lessons and
at this stage become focused on vocabulary and fancy figures. They
get this foolish attraction to vocabulary because believe women would
be bored if they didn't throw all this STUFF into their tango.

Experienced women are in a unique position to improve the level of
dance, but by avoiding the beginners and intermediates you are
perpetuating the problem.