627  Teaching Patterns

Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 10:50:30 -0400
From: Charles Roques <Crrtango@AOL.COM>
Subject: Teaching Patterns

Greetings,
This is addressed more to the leaders still baffled and challenged by the crowded floor than the more advanced dancers, but "advanced" can be a very relative term.
One can avoid getting locked into a pattern of steps instead of learning to dance by concentrating on the refinement of technique and quality of the steps no matter how few you know. Steps that are executed well can be stopped and started at any point as long as it is on the beat and will never seem awkward or wrong. That skill is facilitated of course by also listening to the music. For the most part, with some exceptions of course, all of your steps will fall on a beat or half beat. Don't ignore the music. Leaders, no matter how fancy the step is you will just look bad and feel bad to your partner if you are not on the music and she is.
Many new steps and patterns can arise from collision avoidance and being interrupted while in the middle of a step. Most good dancers on a crowded floor do no more than avoid collisions but it is never noticed because their technique is so clean and they do it on the beat.

The solution to this is an old argument for which the students are as much at fault as the teachers. Practice your basic step until it is perfect, over and over and over. Everyone learns too many steps too soon and no one practices enough but everyone complains about the quality of teaching. Yes there are many lousy teachers around who should be taking classes not teaching them but learning to dance is about practicing and becoming proficient with what you ALREADY know . At some point in the learning process no matter what the subject, a student takes over from the teacher. Learning is as much about knowing how to learn as it is about the quality of the teaching.
Dancing is a motor skill, not an intellectual pursuit. When you are practicing leave all the emotional and romantic notions about tango at home. As teachers we can only offer you the patterns and technique and suggestions on how to improve. If you don't practice outside of class, not only with partners but by yourself as well, you are wasting a lot of money and time and have no one to blame but yourself.

But it also takes time. Be patient.
Cheers,
Charles Roques