436 Drill for Oil
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 15:00:52 +1300
From: Bob Ramsey-Turner <bob.ramsey-turner@QUICKSILVER.NET.NZ>
Subject: Drill for Oil
Early February Rick McGarrey posted his BA diary, I quote two items from it,
below. Since then I have been trying to understand the what he was saying
and trying to put it into practise, sad to say without success.
Can anyone amplify what Rick was saying?
(Quote)Posture and walk are about
all there is to milonguero style tango, and when you have
flaws in both it's a problem. All I hear down here
is "Mas pecho". "More chest, maintain the chest", and
also "Mas bajo, mas pesado". This is subtle, but what
it means is that they want you to "drill for oil" with
your feet when you walk. How you do this while
remaining smooth and light, and not bounce from the
waist up is something that continues to elude me. I
have danced as a follower with Susana Miller4s niece
Maria to feel what it means. She first walked my way,
and then walked in the "heavy" way. At first I
thought the "heavy" example was incorrect (language
problems) but I finally realized that it was right,
and that what I was feeling is what the woman is
supposed to feel. She is supposed to feel your step
(unless of course it's a situation where you don't
want her to, in which case you step in a different
way). I need to work on it.
There is a young guy at El Beso who is very intense,
and for some reason he wants to help me. He keeps
taking me aside and making me walk with him. He
speaks very rapidly, and there is no way I can get him
to slow down, no matter what I say. He literally
grabs me, and we walk across the floor, a very intense
tango walk, around the bar, down the hall, and back
again, with him speaking passionately the whole time.
When I don't get it he just yells louder and more
rapidly. I understand almost nothing, but he's
athletic, and he walks well with a very strong style,
so I keep smiling and nodding and trying to understand
what he's telling me. Last night he grabbed me again,
and kept holding his hand in front of my face with his
fingers spread. "Cuatro animales! Cuatro, cuatro
animales!". He had obviously thought it over, and
prepared a lesson plan to help me. "Uno...Gato!", he
started the step, "Dos! Garza!". I finally figured
out he meant stork, or crane... "Todo pesado, un
pie!". "Tres...ELEFANTO!!". The foot comes
down. "Cuatro, (raising and lifting his torso)
Aguila! Aguila!".
I've been practicing it, and it actually makes a lot
of sense. Begin the step, smooth like a stalking cat,
with a slight pause in the middle, heels together, one
leg raised slightly like a crane, the weight quiet and
totally on one foot, then forward off the back leg to
finish, caressing into the floor softly, but pressing
down like an elephant. This is the hard part, and
I've worked on it constantly since I've been here.
You're supposed to lengthen and stretch the leg as the
foot meets the floor, and let the hip relax a little,
in effect pressing into the floor without raising the
upper body when the foot lands. This causes a very
light bump that your partner can feel through the
chest. (Osvaldo Natucci has actually rolled up his
pants leg to show me how his leg stretches and
straightens when his foot lands). The chest and
ribcage are up, up forward and light, like an eagle
the entire time. If that young guy made this up
himself I think he's really smart. He thought a lot
about it and he's a great teacher. Natucci also drew
me a picture of footprints, with a dark area showing
me exactly where the pressure should be when the foot
hits the floor. (End Quote)
With kind regards
Bob Ramsey-Turner
bob.ramsey-turner@quicksilver.net.nz
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 13:04:26 +0900
From: astrid <astrid@RUBY.PLALA.OR.JP>
Subject: Re: Drill for Oil
Bob asks:
> Early February Rick McGarrey posted his BA diary, I quote two items from
it,
> below. Since then I have been trying to understand the what he was saying
> and trying to put it into practise, sad to say without success.
> Can anyone amplify what Rick was saying?
>
"Uno...Gato!", he
> started the step, "Dos! Garza!". I finally figured
> out he meant stork, or crane... "Todo pesado, un
> pie!". "Tres...ELEFANTO!!". The foot comes
> down. "Cuatro, (raising and lifting his torso)
> Aguila! Aguila!".
>
Obviously, if you cannot learn tango from a video, you can learn it from
reading email even less, I suppose. Trying to put into practise what Rick is
saying without having someone show you directly and correct your mistakes is
not likely to work.
Ezequiel Farfaro spent six months trying to teach me this walk, and he did
it in stages. After six months, we had reached the 3rd stage of walking, I
believe, which, when I asked, was still not the real thing. I don't know how
many stages were still to follow after that in learning "how to walk",
because unfortunately he went back to Buenos Aires .
Six months later I changed from that studio to another, where they taught me
a different way to walk, from scratch, which took another three months at
least just to get the basics right.
In all my experience, the moment that was like enlightenment for me, was
seeing Carlos Gavito doing the walk.
He arrived three minutes late for our class, entered the room and simply
started walking across the floor, telling us to do it with him. After one,
two steps it was like "Wow ! So THAT'S what they all mean !"
The rest of the class consisted of mindboggling steps to be memorised and
practising ochos while standing at an angle of 45 degrees or so at the side
bar (they borrowed a room from a ballet school) and trying not to put weight
on it, and dancing in the lean, which for most of the attendants seemed
hopelessly difficult (we are in Japan), but that walk, man, those five
minutes were brilliant.
Astrid
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 17:18:57 -0600
From: "Frank G. Williams" <frankw@MAIL.AHC.UMN.EDU>
Subject: Re: Drill for Oil
Astrid and friends,
astrid wrote:
> He (Gavito) arrived three minutes late for our class, entered the room and
> simply started walking across the floor, telling us to do it with him. After
> one, two steps it was like "Wow ! So THAT'S what they all mean !"
...
> but that walk, man, those five minutes were brilliant.
Nice. I also enjoyed the quote from Rick McGarrey's BA diary.
My $0.02:
I certainly agree with the term "brilliant". Obviously, he's
not the only brilliant tango dancer. And as a student of tango
who has luckily had instruction with him and other brilliant dancers,
I have come to the conclusion that there does not exist
"THE tango walk'. The better the dancer the more their walk
varies - to follow or highlight the music or the partner's step
and even to set apart and highlight their own 'essential tango
walk'. Also, there are significant differences between and among
wonderful dancers, not to mention individual differences in their
perception of what exactly IS the essential tango walk and how to
teach it.
It seems we learn in stages by increasingly approaching what we
consider ideal. If you are like me, when you get your 'essential
tango walk' to the point that you and your partners are comfortable,
two things will happen. 1) You realize that there are situations
(like particular orchestrations, etc.) where that walk is mostly
useless, and 2) you realize that you're only on a plateau and that
you can (well, MUST) still improve immensely. Welcome to tango!
Expect cognitive dissonance and try to understand the situation in
which each different 'essential element' seems so right.
Hoping your context is always clear,
Frank - Minneapolis
--
Frank G. Williams, Ph.D. University of Minnesota
frankw@mail.ahc.umn.edu Dept. of Neuroscience
(612) 625-6441 (office) 321 Church Street SE
(612) 624-4436 (lab) Minneapolis, MN 55455
(612) 281-3860 (cellular/home)
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 09:49:32 +1000
From: John Lowry <john@LOWRYHART.COM.AU>
Subject: Re: Drill for Oil
Frank wrote:
I have come to the conclusion that there does not exist
"THE tango walk'. The better the dancer the more their walk
varies - to follow or highlight the music or the partner's step
and even to set apart and highlight their own 'essential tango
walk'. Also, there are significant differences between and among
wonderful dancers, not to mention individual differences in their
perception of what exactly IS the essential tango walk and how to
teach it.
That's right Frank. As most people know, once you are expert at anything
you can "break the rules" Otherwise there would be no innovation in the
world. But just like everything else, it is important to thoroughly learn
and understand the fundamentals, usually in a classic form, before
attempting to do your own thing.
El Abrazo.
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 18:00:42 -0700
From: Rick McGarrey <rickmcg@FLASH.NET>
Subject: Drill for Oil
It's very interesting that there are so many ways to walk tango. At one end of the spectrum there is a smooth cat-like walk, often done in open embrace. =
Pablo Pugliese walks this way, and in his videos he explains that you should bend your knee as soon as your foot touches the floor. This absorbs energy, =
and results in a gliding style with a steady forward motion of the body. Another way to walk is to emphasize the beat of the music by sort of stabbing =
the foot into the floor with each step. Imagine that there is a very poisonous scorpion on the floor a foot or two in front of you. You would probably want =
to step forward quickly and hard, straightening the leg with a sharp grinding motion to send it to oblivion. Here in Tucson we can actually use this walk to =
rid our floors of unwanted scorpions, as well as dance tango.
The "Tango and Chaos in Buenos Aires" diaries (which are still posted at
https://home.earthlink.net/~rmcgarreysprint014/
were tapped out mostly late at night on a slow cranky computer formatted in Spanish. They were then quickly posted to entertain my local egroup, without a =
lot of thought or checking, and they certainly were not meant to be technically polished instructional articles. And before the knives come out, I should say =
that I'm neither an instructor nor a tango expert, so I'm not surprised that someone found them confusing, and maybe even misleading. Especially since I =
left out a key part! I should quit now, but being unqualified to discuss something has never stopped me before, so here goes:
In BA I noticed a way of moving that I came to think of as a sort of downtown, late-night porteno style. It's very rhythmical, and is usually danced in the =
aggressive chest forward apilado style, using a 'heavy' step. This step was described to me in several ways, unfortunately including the phrase 'drilling =
for oil'. Astrid is exactly right- words are inadequate, especially when translated from Castellano, and I never really began to feel it until I danced =
with people (both as leader and follower) who did it. This style also includes another important part. The milonguero instructors say 'talon a talon', or =
'heel to heel'. They are talking about the point where the heels pass each other, and I think they are aware of it in two ways. The first is to make it =
occur on the half beat. If the hard stabbing step is 'boom' on the beat, then the heel to heel pass is a 'click', exactly at the half beat. When I do this, =
it really seems to put me on the music. In addition, the milongueros often use this 'talon a talon' position for a slight hesitation, before they accelerate =
forward to step hard into the floor. When this is combined with a good chest forward connection, the result is a characteristic movement that is noticeable =
all the way across the large rooms in BA. The couple's bodies tend to surge forward through each beat of the music. Of course, this isn't done =
mechanically, and is used or not used according to musical feeling. But when both partners are aware of this position, and are able to do different things =
with it, like weight changes, hesitations, and direction changes, it can add a lot.
Bob, I feel bad that you spent time working on something that I didn't explain well in the first place. I don't know if any of this stuff is taught outside =
BA, or even makes sense, but I made a video for my own use that contrasts Eduardo Aguirre's style with Pablo Pugliese's smooth gliding step, that may =
help some. If you want, email me and I'll send you a copy.
By the way, I'm planning to add another page to the "Tango & Chaos" site that will include some of the things I learned from Ricardo Vidort about tango in =
the old days, and some things Maria Nieves told my friend Malena about tango. Also a story about ghosts in Recoleta cemetery, music and passion, and eye =
contact. When it's up, I'll post a notice.
