5387  thinking or dancing?

Date: Sun, 23 Dec 2007 13:00:46 -0800 (PST)
From: "Trini y Sean (PATangoS)" <patangos@yahoo.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] thinking or dancing?


--- Carol Shepherd <arborlaw@comcast.net> wrote:

Let me acknowledge that it's HARDER for leads to
collaborate. They already have to think ahead and have a
plan what to do, ...
________

Sean again,

I agree with almost everything that you have posted on that
other thread Carol, except the part above. In order to
dance, men (and women) must be in the moment. There is no
possibility of past or future, only the continuous now.

If a man is thinking, then he is not listening, not to the
music, not to his partner, and not to the rest of the
dancers.

Plans are fantasies about what might happen if one could
control the universe. But a dancer has no control over the
other dancers, his partner, or even his own reaction to the
music. The dance is a spontaneous response to these
stimuli. If he has a plan, then he will try to live that
fantasy, rather than expressing the reality of the moment.

I think that is why good dancers don't care much about the
style wars. Most likely, other dancers will interfere with
whatever plans you might have. But it is much less likely
that they will interfere with your dancing.

Sean


PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society
Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburgh?s most popular social dance!
https://patangos.home.comcast.net/




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Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 17:17:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Tango For Her <tangopeer@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] thinking or dancing?

As long as that poor man is stuck in patterns, then, he MUST resolve that pattern! It's on his mind and he is going to think, think, think.

Students could keep their eyes open for teachers who tend to focus on body mechanics rather than patterns. As long as you are taught patterns, you will be doing patterns.

Those who teach body mechanics relate the fundamental awareness that there are only three steps (side, back, front) and they can be done at ANY time in the dance. In focussing on this, they are free to incorporate alot of teaching on the correct way to line up your body for the next step and other things like that.

Mind you, these Body Mechanics do use patterns to teach. The thing to look for is if they keep deviating off the pattern to show that, at any step, you can change what you are doing. At those points they will work, more, on your body alignment.

When you get to this point, there is almost no thinking out there on the dance floor.

Sometimes, I will think to fit a special version of a shared pivot into the dance, for example. When I do that, I am aware that I am not focussing on my follower for many steps before that. The dance really does drop off a notch. The woman is the center of the world and the pattern is somewhere else. And, if my mind is on the pattern, it isn't at the center of the world ... with my partner.

Disclaimer:

We're all teaching body mechanics to some extent. I just refer to those who want to make the class about body technique more than patterns as Body Mechanics. The center of the teaching universe for me.

I realize that the larger classes teach complex patterns to keep people interested. That is a different topic.