Impressive

Some things I have learned from leading socially - From MsHedgeHog

Some things I have learned from leading socially Dec 23, 2017
A few things I have learned about dancing, by regularly dancing both roles socially for two or three years. My experiences may or may not be in common with anyone else.

There is a tremendous range between OK, good, and great followers, of which they are almost all totally unaware.

Leading poor followers is very difficult; it requires a range of skills, resilience, and physical training.

Leading OK followers is fun, especially if they are interested or enthusiastic and easy to be with.

Leading good followers is more fun, especially if, etc.

Leading great followers is amazing, and you don't feel like you have to do anything, and whatever you do do is totally effortless.

There are a lot more than those categories.

Don't bother raiding the cool guys' “harems”, they're disappointing, dance-wise.

In a good ronda, under good physical conditions, with good followers, leading is cognitively much less demanding than following. The difference is dramatic. Getting the basics to a good standard is quite a lot of work, but if you can do that and then stay within what you've mastered, good and great followers will dance with you, and it is effortless.

It is possible to flirt with the table of glamorous Dutch lesbians through the medium of another woman's body.

There exist men who are both hot and good followers. Hang on a minute –

The Bottomless Pit of a Tango Lead and the Path of EI2T2

Actually, I wish that I had come up with this concept, but since I'm not a follower, and not a lead who follows, that would be hard to do.

Irene over at Irene and Man Yung's Tango Blog came up with the concept of a lead that is full of holes - bottomless ones. Notice I didn't say "a lead who". Let's not make this personal. As a leader, I think I can say we have all been there - where the bottom drops out of our lead. A black hole of tango. Tango Not. A tango-naut thirty thousand feet deep in the blackness of the Mariana Trench. A tango knot, infinitely twisting in on itself, never to be untied.

I think what Irene and Man Yung are trying to say is that there is a difference between dancers who think they are "skilled", or worse "know" they are skilled (when they actually aren't) and those who are on the path of eternal improvement in their tango.

The ones who "think/know" they are skilled are the "Tango Dancers of High Repute" that Irene refers to. I would edit that to be "Tango Dancers of High Self-Repute".

Those on the EI2T2 Path (Eternal Improvement In Their Tango) (grin), recognize that sometimes their lead sucks - "a great big sucking noise" in the words of the infamous Ross Perot. Makes me wonder if Mr. Perot has, or will ever dance tango...? What a visual! But I digress.

Those on the path recognize the voids, the holes, the nothingness in their lead. They are painfully aware of those moments - generally few, but profoundly deafening and reverberating in the mind of said leader. Those on the path seek to fill those holes, and fill the deafening void with something. "Something". Perhaps even silence.

Fill a void with silence!? Wow. Now there's a concept. Filling the void of a lead with silence. Dancing the silence as el maestro Gavito said. I think that was him. I love it when a blog comes together.

Dance the silence. Master the nothingness in your lead. It's called "The Pause".

That's my two cents. Even if those two cents are down over there at the end of this other path of digression.

And dont' forget to check out Irene & Man Yung's post on "SKILL".

Thanks to Elizabeth and Mari both for saying something about this Irene and Man Yung post in their own blogs. It's funny and pertinent and poignant enough to spread the word and spread the post.

Skill and nothingness. Skill v. nothingness? Hmm. I love it when my brain ponders. When it comes to "skill", personally, I think I'd rather master the nothingness in my lead. With a five gallon bucket full of silence. The "less is more" minimalist approach.

When a man "out embellishes" a woman

First, thanks to TangoPilgrim for finding this one. There are a few things I like about this performance/demo. Like Pilgrim, I like the vals - Se Fue by Lucio Demare. I like that it is being danced in Sunderland - there's something cool/funky about dancing tango in a basketball gymnasium. I like that there are no baggy pants being worn in the video. I like (to think) that there are very likely no baggy pants in the entire building. I like that the style is salon/close embrace mas o menos. I like the dance, just dial down the jazz, if you ask me.

What I don't like is that he is "out embellishing" his follower. I read this tonight - something Daniel Trenner said - "The man's job is to let the woman dance."

Let's not forget this fellers. It's not about us or our steps or our figures or our patterns or our moves or even our lead.

It's about the woman - dancing her and letting her dance.

She's there, in your arms, to dance and have fun and feel beautiful.

Make it so.

BE the tango you wish to see in the world.

There is a beautiful woman in that video...you may have missed her...

The Lead :: Tango Quotes, Tango Sayings

From Steve Brown (Dallas) on Tango-L, on a woman telling him about her dance with Pablo Veron....

"It's not so much that he led me, but more like he willed my movements..."