452 woman dancing with a beginner
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 13:45:08 +0900
From: astrid <astrid@RUBY.PLALA.OR.JP>
Subject: Re: woman dancing with a beginner
Briefly raising an eyelid during my promised hybernation...
The beginner leaders get
> >overwhelmed trying to lead an entire tanda ...
I dunno. As far as I can see, most beginners will dance one tango, leading
the salida repeatedly, a few mechanical ochos, and the occasional parada
that usually comes at the wrong moment, like during a valse, or other time,
when the music is gently flowing along without interruption. Then they will
dance the second tango, leading the salida repeatedly, a few mechanical...
and so on. Until either the woman is so bored that she cannot stand it any
longer, so she pretends to be tired, or he has grown so tense that he has
given her a backache and she has to excuse herself. Sorry, guys, but that is
the reality. Unless it is one of those rare cases, where the guy is
exhibiting clear signs of musicality, expressed in very simple steps still,
or is very eager to learn, or is athletic or experienced in martial arts or
some other dance like salsa and therefore already has good posture. In that
case she might stay a little longer, and help develop his potential.
>
> Having the opportunity to dance with someone with experience is an
excellent way of helping someone improve their dancing. This is true for
both women and men, but it is more so for the beginning men, and I am
speaking from my own experience.
This logic "screams to heaven" (can't translate this German idiom any
better). So from your own experience as a man you know how much a woman gets
out of dancing with an experienced dancer, who also happens to be the leader
of the dance in most cases, in comparison to you when you were a beginner
dancing with a follower? May I ask how you came to know that ?
>
As experienced dancers, the ladies can help with "giving in to the embrace"
(both open and close), making sure both partners are comfortable. This will
help put the man more at ease.
She can make the man comfortable to a certain extent, but this comfort does
not necessarily extend to herself.
>Rather, I am thinking about giving non-verbal feedback to the leader, like
slowing down the pace, dancing to the music, etc. Any experiences or
opinions?
Look up my postings about dancing on the beat no matter what (for which I
got flamed, by the way). The interesting thing is, that e.g. Jorge Torres
says she should dance all the mistakes he leads, otherwise he won't learn.
With Jorge around this works sometimes, but without him there to explain it,
more often than not the woman gets blamed for being such a bad dancer by the
guy, who will then, in the worst scenario, offer to teach her.
Sigh
Astrid
>
Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2002 08:30:33 -0600
From: Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown@DAL.FRB.ORG>
Subject: Recruiting/Encouraging beginners (was: woman dancing with a beginner)
About dancing with beginners Astrid wrote:
>She can make the man comfortable to a certain extent, but this comfort
does
>not necessarily extend to herself.
Astrid's comments point out that one of the great difficulties with
recruiting and encouraging people to learn tango is that no one wants to
dance with beginners. My own observations are that not even beginners want
to dance with other beginners . This creates a huge hump that anyone new
to tango must overcome before they are able to dance. In addition,
beginners can be easily intimidated by the complexity of the way tango is
frequently danced.
Instructors can do much to encourage beginners to reach past the hump, such
as teach skills that are immediately useful... such as walking and
navigating to the beat. (I have seen several visiting instructors drive
students from the community by teaching very demanding elements to students
who have not yet developed skills. To pick on an old horse..., it also
seems that starting the teaching with the eight-count basic with an initial
back step to DiSarli immediately creates a dancer who cannot navigate and
is easily frustrated...) Other dancers can also help by being friendly.
But ultimately, I think it is up to the potential beginner to determine
whether learning a dance that has a relatively high admission is
worthwhile.
--Steve de Tejas
