732  How to attract new men to tango

Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 03:26:47 -0700
From: Tom English <tom@TANGONOW.COM>
Subject: How to attract new men to tango

Yes, I cut-n-paste this from Astrid's comments on another
thread. I thought a new thread was in order. For all of
you women who sit there and watch and for all of you men
who have friends who sit there and watch, try to be
constructive here and answer some of these questions.


I (we) would like to know what people's experiences are:

What kind of classes and milonga attract more men than
others ?

What made the men start tango ?

How were you talked into it, or, what was
your incentive ?

Where should we advertise or market for men?

Should we take the tango to the men by, for example,
holding a class in the gym or at Home Depot?
And what made you stay ?
Or how did the women get a man to come along ?
It is not as simple as grabbing the next guy and
say:"Let's go to my tango
class !" The answer is usually:"Tango ? Interesting. But
me, dance ? Oh, no
!!" The only successful attempts at roping in men I have
made, was to invite
someone I met at a milonga, who wanted to change his
teacher, or was looking
for an extra day of dancing. Or someone who was already
dancing salsa or
something.




On Mon, 9 Sep 2002 18:23:07 +0900
astrid <astrid@RUBY.PLALA.OR.JP> wrote:

> Tom English pointed out:
> > Georgia desires for more men to be at the dances.
> >
> > You have all turned it into a debate about women
> dancing
> > with women. Shouldn't that be on a different thread? >
> But, I've made
> alot of friends and I see them sitting
> > there for most of the evening! That makes me want to
> solve
> > the problem!!!!!!! Again, let me close my eyes and
> look at
> > some of those women and picture their reaction if I
> tell
> > them to go and dance with other women.
>
> I have been following this discussion, and Tom is right-
> where are the ideas
> how to rope in, shanghai etc. etc. more men ??
>
> Brian Taylor wrote:
> "Tango attracts men that look for
> challenge and perfection. Those men are not going to give
> up because they
> find the dance to be difficult."
>
> This may be true for the men who eventually become good
> dancers, but in my
> experience, those types are a rare and precious breed. In
> my experience the
> majority is there for the "spread of spiced meats", and
> many of them tend to
> give up once they find out that more is required of them
> than to simply
> strut around with a choosey look on their face, no, that
> it can actually be
> rather embarrassing and painful when they find out that
> they don't really
> know how to handle all that meat in an artful way, and
> are actually making
> themselves and her look bad.
> Yes, it takes a certain type to survive the hardness of
> the first months and
> stick with it.
> There have been discussions about the fact, that some
> teachers attract men,
> while others don't. Be it, because they teach how to move
> and navigate on
> the dance floor, instead of only showing one complicated
> step after another,
> be it simply, because they are cheap (that seems to be
> one of the incentives
> in Tokyo, where 18$ a class is consifered "cheap")
>
> I would like to know what people's experiences are:
> what kind of classes and milonga attract more men than
> others ?
> What made the men start tango ? How were you talked into
> it, or, what was
> your incentive ? And what made you stay ?
> Or how did the women get a man to come along ?
> It is not as simple as grabbing the next guy and
> say:"Let's go to my tango
> class !" The answer is usually:"Tango ? Interesting. But
> me, dance ? Oh, no
> !!" The only successful attempts at roping in men I have
> made, was to invite
> someone I met at a milonga, who wanted to change his
> teacher, or was looking
> for an extra day of dancing. Or someone who was already
> dancing salsa or
> something.
>
> To me, dancing with other women is no attractive
> solution. I am there for
> the dance, and part of the dance is to move in blissful
> unison with a man.
> Dancing with a woman does not "do it" for me. Yes, I have
> danced with a few
> women, and there was actually one, with who I found that
> quite enjoyable
> rather than a necessary evil, and once she saved me from
> the blues at some
> boring milonga, but I observed that even though she was a
> much better dancer
> than many other women and most of the men even, the men
> would hardly dance
> with her anymore, because she was leading women a lot.
> Someone even asked me
> the whispered question:"Is she a Lez ? And is her friend,
> too, who came with
> her ?" So, she learned to lead, to get more dances, and
> ended up having to
> lead almost all of the time. Tokyo may be oldfashioned in
> that way, I don't
> know, if that works better elsewhere.
>
> But, to get to what Elemer wrote:
> "The other problem is that they invite to dance the good
> dancers that we
> like for dancing."...
>
> For the good dancers, if they prefer to dance with a
> woman rather than with
> you, that is a statement you should think about ! Not
> that we want to loose
> yet another man, but...
>
> Waiting for constructive ideas.
>
> Astrid

--
Tom English, Founder
TangoNow!
Boston's very own Argentine Tango
www.tangonow.com
tom@tangonow.com
617-783-5478