450  attracting more dancers--

Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 17:25:02 -0300
From: SMC Administracion <adm@SMCAR.COM.AR>
Subject: attracting more dancers--

Bruno E. Romero wrote :

"
I think if you are a good host, good instructor, and are able to provide
your students with an experience that they will not find elsewhere chances
are you will succeed at building a good tango network. The first two
attributes may be a given or one could work at it to get these attributes.
The third one is a bit more complicated. How do we provide an experience to
our students they can not get elsewhere?

"

This tuesday I took a lesson with Mingo Pugliese,for the first time ever.
The place is in San Telmo, Social and Sporting Club General Belgrano.

I keep thinking of the "trilogy" that Bruno E.Romero mentioned for a good
teacher :
a host, a good instructor, an experience provider.

Mingo Pugliese has this three qualities exceedingly. Now we have to consider
what "host" could be for one student, and for another student.

I presented , said what was my background as student , he say " take a seat,
I will have
later a woman to dance with you and watch meanwhile".

After some minutes , a woman came, we begun to dance , I think I have made
just a round
of the floor, he came and say " let s start from the beginning, your walking
and the way you
lead the woman an eight" . He speaked very little, but was right to the
point , showed me , and make me to
continue the dancing.

This time I keep a bit more , the woman make some comments also , since she
was an assistant,
I follow the comments peacefully (because she said " you do not resent
receiving instructions
from a woman , do you ?? Because some persons do not like it") . I made
clear that I was a
student, therefore any comment , any help, was blessed.

Mingo Pugliese came a bit late, he said" let ´s see now what do you do when
you arrive to...
well, what you students call ´5´ , for me will be ´4´, but numbers in tango
steps .... after the
woman has crossed, you lead her and she does not look good, she is not in a
neat position.

Why don t you turn and take her to your side, so you two are both aligned
??"

"This is like having a meal. You can eat in the floor, with your hands . Or
you can eat at
a table neatly dressed, with fork and knife, and the food in the plate . In
both ways you
will be fed, in one of them it will also be neat ".

I keep dancing, then I changed to dance with a female student , who was a
bit nervous because
it was her first class. However , she have a nice attitude, and we begun
walking with the
music . Just walking. I think not less that 15 minutes.

Did I mention there is not a break ? There is not a break, the lesson is
from 8.30 pm to 12 pm,
the music is set by Mingo Pugliese himself. You can leave the floor and have
some refreshment
of course,since there is a bar with drinks and some simple meals.

After dancing with the female new student, Mingo Pugliese came again and
said " you are squeezing
the poor woman too much, she could not walk with normal steps that way ,
release your hold , see?
this way " . And he showed how. And then he make me to lead him , it was
very clear.

That was the lesson for the day , later we have some dancing , and there
were other women visiting, two
foreigner. Mingo Pugliese came to my table and said very friendly " what are
you doing ?resting? this is a
milonga , hush hush . Take that lady to dance , she came from USA, she
expects to dance, you could not
be seating "

And there we went until 11.30 pm, I leave the salon after thanking Mr.
Pugliese for the lesson. The cost was
3 argentine pesos(around usd 1,50) .

Should I have three gold coins , I would have given him , one for host, one
for instructor, one for expertise provider.

But maybe some other male students will think that this is not what they
expected , and will not come back.
It is not everything in the hands of the teacher, there is also a lot , I
think, in the hands of the male students.

Warm regards
Alberto Gesualdi
Buenos Aires