My Relationship With The Floor • Becoming a Better Leader

It is my experience that I am always learning something new with every dance, every partner, every song and every class or lesson in Argentine Tango. 

I had the good fortune to join a group lesson at the University of Florida in Gainesville a few Sundays ago. My instructor Irene danced lead and taught both lead and follow. 

I have been taking classes in leading for at least a year, perhaps more, and dancing as a follower for several years at most all of the milongas I attend. 

I have heard it said that it takes a year to learn to follow and three to learn to lead.  I agree! Perfecting style, adornos, technique, grace and posture are my tangible joys on the journey that is Argentine Tango. 

As is often the case when I am learning, words get in the way. I have listened to every teacher attentively, and when listening to lessons on leading I have heard again and again that the energy of leading is sent from the sternum. 

I have heard that the upper body of the leader, the shoulders of the leader and the chest of the leader are what a follower senses and follows in a tango.  

When leading I also followed that lesson, however I was blessed with a gentle critique after two hours of dancing lead in Gainesville. The instructor asked if she might offer me a suggestion. I gladly accepted. 

She was a very skillful and subtle leader…. I watched to see just how she invited her partner to certain moves, but could not quite see how she actually lead the step. 

I have had this same difficulty when watching Maestros of the dance. They seem to be able to lead (invite) their partner to take eloquent and sometimes complex steps without any real movement of their torsos at all.

I have puzzled over videos, playing them again and again, but I could not see what actually was not there. 

To my critique: The instructor suggested that I was leading with my torso. I agreed. She then pointed out that I would be a more effective leader if I were more grounded. She suggested that I use the floor, the energy from the floor to lead.   

I realized I was not grounded as a leader. I understood at once. My relationship with the floor had been first learned as a follower. 

After the first year of learning to dance in heels, finding the right heel height and perfecting my axis as a follower, I had accidentally become light. 

I had been focusing on responding to my leader, yet I was not “in the floor."  I am sure that in Salon embrace it was hard for many leaders to know just where I was in the dance.

As a leader, I find it very easy to dance with a partner who commits to each step. When I feel her land, I am more confident that I am able to lead the next step successfully because I know where she is! 

Now I will learn to lead from the ground up. 

Returning from Gainesville I opened the floor here in my town, Jacksonville, Florida and was able to practice my new awareness, my new lead with a true dancer. 

She is very well trained in other traditions and very comfortable dancing with me as we both discover what is really at the heart of Argentine Tango. 

I told her about my trip, my awakenings, and my new “style” of leading. I was glad to receive her feedback on my new use of the floor. 

So we danced.  The first part of the first dance I lead as I had in the past. Then I shifted to my first real effort in leading from the floor. 

I could sense a difference right away. I was more confident. I was able to lead using less upper body motion. I was able to clearly send her backward by pressing against the floor, somehow gaining strength or gentle power to clearly lead her back step. 

I felt far more connected to her than I had in previous dances. (There is not too much of me to follow. I am 5’ 2” and at my right weight tip the scales at 120 pounds.) 

She reported that she felt my lead clearly. We danced the hour away, and indeed after one Tango she said “That was fun.” As a leader, if I can create a dance with her (or him) that they really enjoy dancing, I feel successful. 

Sending my energy from the floor through the center of the chest before I even take a step sends my partner in the proper direction and empowers me to hear her. 

This style of leading, which my instructor told me was a reflection of the style of the people who dance Tango in Argentina, will take time to perfect of course. 

However in practicing leading at home…… I am a new woman. 

I was also very glad to watch another woman teach Argentine Tango. Each instructor has their own style or process. She had a full floor of eager young students! 

Here in Jacksonville a full floor is four! A good floor is two. I am coming to understand that not everyone wants a challenge. 

I understand that some people are reluctant to make a mistake in public. Some new dancers think so much about what they are doing that they think themselves right out of the moment and so miss the connection that makes for the magic. 

I have fallen in love with the experience...... bumbling moments and all (rest assured I bumble still) and will continue to hold space for all who want an hour of Tango here. 

Abrazos

Learning to Lead Argentine Tango • The journey continues!

I was able to travel to the University of Florida for their free Argentine Tango classes this Sunday. The beginners lesson was from 6:15 - 7:15 and the Intermediate class was from 7:15 - 8:15. It was well attended based on my experience. I suppose there were at least 20 students and an almost equal number of leaders & followers. 

I will always take a beginners class as there is always a new insight, a new way of understanding the dance, another teachers skill and formatting help me share the dance as well.  There are always new dancers to partner, and in so a new world of understanding with every dance in every class.

I enjoy dancing with beginners (I still consider myself to be one.) If I am able to lead a dancer who has had only two weeks of class successfully through a song, then I feel as if I really am improving as a leader.
Same gender dancing seems effortless on a college campus and I am very grateful for that. In my town there is still some resistance same gender dancing, but if you love the dance, the gender of your partner is not an issue. 
If you are in Jacksonville, Florida and would like to come out workshop with us, you are invited. We dance every Tuesday evening from 8:00 to 9:00 PM at 5049 Normandy Blvd in the 32205 zip code. 

I do not know the name of the instructor who offered the class this week, but I have had a lesson or two from her before. She has always provided me a valuable insights.

I like her style of teaching very much. She is straight forward and teaches the principle of movement, then we practise that principle with a partner. Next there is a rotation of partners, a new principle and more practise. 

I am now studying to lead. I have trained four years to follow. I did bring my “girl shoes” just in case there was a shortage of followers. However, no. Leaders were needed and all the students there were very gracious about having a dance with me. 

I was very glad at class end that the instructor offered me an observation. (Had I any sense I would have asked for more observations, and perhaps a Tango!!!)  

Her suggestion was that my lead not as grounded as it could be. She notice that I seemed to lead from the upper body (true) and that if I were more “into the floor” she felt that I would do much better. 

We had a short chat about grounding. She shared her observations of Argentina, people, culture and Tango to put her comments in perspective. I really look forward to applying them on Tuesday when we have our next practica. 

I believe that this grounding, the developing my relationship to the floor, of being more present, more mindfully connected to the floor as the foundation of movement, I will be able to transfer more energy to my partner and in so doing provide a more clear lead to take perhaps a back step. 

I was also happy to get another perspective on unwinding or “uncrossing” a partner from the crossed position. I asked a question about that process as a follower. When led to the cross I do not automatically transfer my weight from by right to my left foot. I wait for the lead to that transition and the follow the next invitation. 

There are some “spicy” steps that can happen in the crossed position as well as many options for the leader to invite the follower to make some dazzlingly easy patterns.  Yes, I leaned many a tip! I won’t bother to post them all. However as a leader I came to realize that following through - all the way through - after leading a step is very important. 

This concludes my Argentine Tango blog for today.

See you on the dance floor? 

“But You Have Boobs!” • The Joys of Dancing Argentine Tango

I have noticed that in some slices of American culture, dancing with your gender is not easily accepted, and in some towns it is just NOT Ok.  

As a female lead I most recently heard a follower (a woman) exclaim in amazement at my embrace: “But you have boobs!” I tried to avoid what could have been an awkward moment by commenting “Yes, I do. They have been there for quite some time.” 

I used that awkward moment to talk about the comfort levels of embrace in learning Argentine Tango. There are options to allow everyone to learn to be comfortable being held. So many of us are no longer used to simple human embrace.

In Argentine Tango we may use the Practice Hold (in which dancers connect by embracing at the forearms only),  the Salon Style Hold which is an open embrace that can be as open as is necessary for people to get used to being held, and the Milonguera Style Embrace which is very, very close indeed. 

Sometimes in the course of one song a couple may find they need to use all those different embraces to express the music. This demand for fluidity of movement is not for the timid, but for the joyful (and those who are willing to be open to “failure to perform perfectly”). 

We practice to be better dancers. We workshop not only to learn movement combinations, improve our balance, or techniques, we work to build muscle memory which is vital to this improvisational dance. 

We also come to develop a relationship with the music of Argentine Tango.  In so doing, many of us come to a deeper understanding of ourselves on many levels. 

In the “city” where I hold space weekly for Argentine Tango it is not at all uncommon for there to be one man or sometimes two men in a class of four or six women. 

Sometimes there are only women who come to learn Argentine Tango. No matter. I feel sure if we keep dancing, at some point, men will come to learn as well. 

The glorious good news about this dance is that the gender of your partner is not what is important. The connection with your partner is the vital essence.

In Argentine Tango there is the role of leader, and the role of follower. The language of the dance does not say there are men dancers and women dancers. 

There are many videos you can watch where men dance with men and women with women because those two people have come together to celebrate the dance, the joy, the energetic connection that is part of the movments and steps, the invitations and hesitations that make this one dance so remarkable. 

I realize that for many the idea of dancing with someone of your same sex will be unacceptable. If you are a man who wants to learn Argentine Tango in Jacksonville, Florida, rest assured, you will most likely find many female followers.

If you are a woman and you want to dance Argentine Tango in Jacksonville, Florida, then relax and learn with all of us. Practicing together will make us excellent dancers when we go to milongas. We will be familiar with the way leaders invite us to join them and we will be balanced and centered as we do. 

It may be a road trip to one of the lovely dances an hour or so south of town that will allow us to experience the “three minute romance” that is possible in the arms of a gentleman leader. 

The more we practice, the better partners we will be. Good dancers find that other Argentine Tango dancers will invite us onto the floor. It remains my pleasure to accept the invitation to dance from a leader of either gender. 

(In truth, one of the most amazing dances I have had to date was in the arms of a strong and brilliantly musical lead who took my breath away. She remains an inspiration to this day.) 

Wishing you Tango.