4414  Leading with the hands.

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 11:36:15 EDT
From: Crrtango@aol.com
Subject: [Tango-L] Leading with the hands.

If you have to push signals on your partners back then you have not learned
to lead yet. This subject has come up before on the list and I thought it was a
joke. It ranks up there with the one about leading with your head that
someone actually wrote a few years ago. I am surprised to see that people still
believe this. Unless there is some irony intended and I missed it, one never leads
with the hand and certainly not with the fingers pushing buttons!?!
Whoever taught that doesn't know how to lead and probably doesn't even know
how to dance very well at all. Famous or not!
The fundamentals of tango are very simple and straight forward but very
difficult to master. There are no shortcuts to leading. You can only master them by
practice.
No wonder the peripatetic Argentine tango teachers love us. We'll believe
anything - and even pay
for it.
Come on, guys (or anyone else learning to lead)! I know the power and control
that you love to have by leading is intoxicating, but you still have to work
for it (with your upper body, not your hands.) Your partner does not have a
control panel built into her back.

Who is teaching this stuff?

Cheers,
Charles

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 12:27:46 -0400
From: "TangoDC.com" <spatz@tangoDC.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Leading with the hands.
To: tango-L@mit.edu

I think there's a little confusion here, based on varying levels of
expertise.

First, it's important to learn how to lead properly-- i.e., through the
torso instead of the arms. Arm-leading is generally, for new dancers, bad.

However: after one has developed this skill sufficiently, one can then
reintegrate the arms a bit, to modify the shape of the embrace-- e.g.,
to allow for over-rotations Led by the torso. Ideally, this would be
introduced by a teacher, in a private lesson, so that the idea isn't
misunderstood.

I think the leader's right hand and arm (as well as the rear right
shoulder, where the follower may have contact) can likewise be developed
further as subtlety, nuance, and post-basic movements open up for the
dancers.

I speak here of open-embrace tango, but the same pattern applies to
everything.

So, I agree with those who slam the idea of hand-leading-- when it comes
to those just learning the dance, students in their first two years or
so (depending on their rate of progress). I've followed men who led me
with their fingers, and it was odd. But by the same token, it's
important to realize that movements considered "incorrect" at one stage
of learning can, at another, become quite valid. The "finger lead" got
me to move in the right direction, after all, odd or not.

This is precisely why tango teachers contradict each other and
themselves. I do it openly, and explain to my students that the tango is
a dance of *layered* ideas and techniques, a complexity. After a certain
point, these things shift from the realm of technique to the realm of
taste and artistry. There is well more than one way to lead an ocho--
let alone to follow an ocho lead-- and the dancer with a larger
skill-set has options. Lead and follow is all communication, and
interpretation. With beginning and intermediate students, we just
enforce a rule, and tell them to communicate within a narrow range. I do
this in the hope that they'll learn it as a foundation, so they can
later explore variations without acquiring bad technique and bad habits.
Other teachers may do it out of dogma, I don't know. But I try to keep
in mind that I'm teaching an art, which-- like all arts-- has both rules
and rule-breaking, a figure-ground relationship even on the level of
technique.

Jake Spatz
Washington, DC


Crrtango@aol.com wrote:

> If you have to push signals on your partners back then you have not learned
> to lead yet. This subject has come up before on the list and I thought it was a
> joke. It ranks up there with the one about leading with your head that
> someone actually wrote a few years ago. I am surprised to see that people still
> believe this. Unless there is some irony intended and I missed it, one never leads
> with the hand and certainly not with the fingers pushing buttons!?!
> Whoever taught that doesn't know how to lead and probably doesn't even know
> how to dance very well at all. Famous or not!
> The fundamentals of tango are very simple and straight forward but very
> difficult to master. There are no shortcuts to leading. You can only master them by
> practice.
> No wonder the peripatetic Argentine tango teachers love us. We'll believe
> anything - and even pay
> for it.
> Come on, guys (or anyone else learning to lead)! I know the power and control
> that you love to have by leading is intoxicating, but you still have to work
> for it (with your upper body, not your hands.) Your partner does not have a
> control panel built into her back.
>
> Who is teaching this stuff?
>
> Cheers,
> Charles
>
>
>

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 14:24:40 -0400
From: "Caroline Polack" <runcarolinerun@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Leading with the hands.

"Who's teaching this stuff?"

My thoughts exactly - I follow the shoulders, simple as that. Once you
understand that each partner's shoulder need to face each other, everything
follows after that. BUT, I have become aware of when the hand on my back
changes positions - if it moves to the side of my back, they are giving me a
bit of space to do the ochos or whatnot and thus, prepares me and when the
hand moves closer to the other side of my back, obviously, close embrace. I
can tell you that many women do not like being manhandled or forced forwards
by the hand on the back, it makes us go a bit off balance. Just move the
shoulders, we will follow.

Caroline

Date: Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:43:58 +0100 (BST)
From: Andrew RYSER SZYMA?SKI <arrabaltango@yahoo.co.uk>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Leading with the hands.


--- Caroline Polack <runcarolinerun@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> "Who's teaching this stuff?"

It's the way the tango is traditionally taught. It is
curious to note that most of those who teach this way
don't necessarily apply it in practice on the dance
floor. They are just not aware that they find it
easier to use their centre of gravity [what is known
as "leading with the body"], and continue to teach the
way they were taught ages ago, uncritically, without
listening to their body.
I insist that my students don't use their right hand
at all when doing the man's part. As a consequence
they learn to lead much faster than I originally did.

>

I can tell you that many women do not like being

> manhandled or forced forwards
> by the hand on the back, it makes us go a bit off
> balance.

I would tend to agree, but seeing what happens on the
dance floor and what a lot of women are quite happy to
put up with, it is difficult not to conclude that
there must be an element of masochism in them.

Cheers,

Andy.


Andrew W. RYSER SZYMA?SKI,
23b All Saints Road,
London, W11 1HE,
07944 128 739.