10 years after this was originally posted I learned this lesson:
Dance is play. Have fun.
ego rub #1
The sign over the garbage can at the entrance reads:
“DEPOSIT EGO HERE.”
Missed that.
When will introductory classes stop feeling like introductory classes?
How many years will I be dancing before I can walk away with the smug feeling that I have learned this already?
How many miles do I have to walk before I can even walk properly, in a tango sense?
When do I advance beyond beginner?
Answer: Probably never.
It’s not my fault. If teachers would just focus on teaching step sequences, eventually, with the prerequisite amount of stumbling and dyslexia and stepping on toes and various other clutz maneuvers, I would master a few. Then I could snicker and say with attitude, “Pfff. I already know that.”
But they don’t. Good teachers don’t, and for better or worse, I have stumbled upon a good teacher.
Good teachers focus on issues far more basic and complex.
They distill dance moves down to core physiology: how the body works, how I am in my body, why I move the way I do, where my power is centered, how to stay in one’s axis, etc., etc., etc.
Does it ever end?
ego rub # 2
I bump into another naive and egoistic notion.
I assume that because I have been in my body longer than anyone else (sixty plus years!), I should know just about all there is to know about it, such as how to walk or move a certain way. I should certainly know more about it than the instructor who is much younger than I and has just met me.
Apparently not. The real hit on my ego is not that I have barely achieved a beginner’s proficiency in tango but that I don’t know how to move my own body.
When the teacher says “torso torque”, I suddenly become frozen at the hips. When he says corkscrew , I jerk and twist convulsively like I am getting stomach cramps.
Options
- I can exit now with my decimated dignity, go the gym and practice up on those lateral stomach crunches.
- I could follow my first inclination when corkscrew is mentioned, go home, open a bottle of wine and flop on the couch.
- Approach this experiment with curiosity and a sense of adventure. I could revert to my pre-egoic kindergarten mindset when discovering basic physiology was a lot of fun. A little messy maybe, but then someone else usually cleaned up.
Fast forward to 2025. …
Learning to play, finally.
No more torso torques and bosflex workouts. I work my body knows, what comes instinctively, what I have been doing all my life. Substitute corkscrews with contra-body motion – something we have all been doing ever since we learned to walk.
We wouldn’t be able to walk properly without it. Otherwise we would be doing the penguin waddle or the cowpoke shuffle. This forms the care of most of Tango. You can’t dance without it.
Trust me, you know this. Problem is, your brain doesn’t know that your body knows this and attempts to complicate things and make them unnecessarily difficult.
Play the games below from my Tango Flo exercises below and follow on YouTube. Your Tango will come so much easier. And your ego won’t get rubbed raw in the process.
Game #1: Rag doll shuffle.
Remember that Raggedy Ann doll you or your sister played with, all loose limbs, shaking all about? That’s where you want to start. Shake the sillies out. Put on some loosy goosey music. Play with movement and motion. Find out how you body wants to move naturally. Detect where the tension and resistance are and work them out gently. Pull your shoulders back and then drop them.
Fit in a cross-crawl or contra-body motion, Upper torso turns contrary to, lower torso. Opposite shoulder turns toward the extended leg.,(called cross-crawl in gym class). tapping the opposite leg with your hand, left hand to right leg, right hand to left leg.
Game #2: Slinky Slide.
Remember the Slinky, that metal coil that you watched for hours as it flopped down the steps, coiling and releasing? That’s the motion you are looking for – pulling your body together like a tightening spring and then pow, release.
Put on some funky music, find a mirror and then get to it. Step sideways, set your standing leg and then – wait for it – coil! Snap your thighs, knees and heels in together.
Then back in the other direction. Trace the ball of the big toe very lightly over the floor as you collect your heels together.
Game #3: Power Skate.
For those of you growing up in the frozen Canadian North, skating came shortly after you learned to walk. Certainly long before learning to ride a bicycle.
What does this have to do with dancing?
Skating is probably the most sophisticated balance exercise you are likely ever to do. But the same motions can be approximated on the practice dance floor.
Give it a go. Do the same sequence as with the Slinky Slide but this time push into the floor with your standing leg and glide with your free or dancing leg. Imagine yourself skating down the ice, pushing, gliding. Can anything be more fun?
OK. Three core exercises. Lots of fun. Check out my Tango Flo videos that will be posted on my YouTube channel. Alot easier to understand with the visual.
Could you please include a link to your YouTube channel?
Thanks.