Mar

Ouch!

Posted by Tina

Dear anonymous leader,

Please do not lead forward ochos by digging your elbow into my side. It feels crappy and makes my knees hurt.

Thank you.

Published in Tango

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13 users responded in this post

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TP said in March 28th, 2008 at 6:05 am

And how the hell you got to dance with him? How are you, my dear friend?

David said in March 28th, 2008 at 11:41 am

You should have said “Ouch” as he was leading them!

miss tango said in March 28th, 2008 at 1:39 pm

You should have asked him who taught him that particular technique.

yvrtango said in March 28th, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Comment allez vous mademoiselle? When I was starting two years ago, in tango classes up here in the NW they actually teach using your elbow and forearm to lead whether milongero or nuevo. Three months after that I met my close embrace teachers. They corrected me saying women don’t like to be lead using your forearm and elbow. They are right because my women friends told me they really don’t. My teachers told me you just got taught by a bad teacher which continually teaching these stuff. Who knows they just spent six months in Buenos Aires, presto coming back to the US they call themselves teachers. My close embrace teachers taught me to lead a forward and backward ocho is use my chest; the forearm is just a guide. They drill me by dancing in two sessions without my arm just the chest leading to remove that habit including the palm that kept digging at the back of the follower just to lead a figure. Leads and follows won’t feel these mistakes until you dance it in the floor. I have also to admit I really don’t like when the follow will launch her gancho unlead, quite honestly we both don’t look good on the floor doing that. Enganches(leg wraps) I will lead instead of ganchos. About your “hips” article I like that a lot, my teacher does that too – she looks smoking hot coming from my right side doing the ocho cortado.

n a n c y said in March 28th, 2008 at 5:57 pm

I hope you ‘thank you-d’ him after the first song. A little reminder than not all Argentines are wonderful dancers.

Off to Atlanta for some wonderful dancing and a southern Spring.

Will be in BsAs in four weeks. Maybe we will meet.

La Tanguera said in March 28th, 2008 at 8:58 pm

I think that would deserve a Thank You.

Alex said in March 28th, 2008 at 10:31 pm

I don’t comprehend how he got his elbow near you…???

tinatangos said in March 29th, 2008 at 4:28 pm

Nancy - he actually wasn’t Argentine… But man that elbow hurt!

Alex - no idea, no idea…

b said in March 29th, 2008 at 5:21 pm

I can’t vizualize it either. He let go of your back, rotated his right arm outwards or upwards, and then pushed his elbow in at you with his loose right hand floating in the air somewhere next to you?

Alex said in March 29th, 2008 at 9:17 pm

@yvrtango…Palm, forearm, elbow to lead?….What the fuck? Am I in a tango blog? I think I got mis-directed somewhere along the way….what dance is this? I have, in three years of dancing tango, absolutely never heard of this, and try as I might, cannot imagine it being done….???

Miss Tina…forgive my vent/rant in your comments section…but you get my drift…

yvrtango said in March 30th, 2008 at 9:50 am

Alex, I need to retract my first sentence by replacing almost all in the NW tango which I am part of it. Base on experience there are many bad teachers who cannot see this cheap tricks. Of course, there are exceptions; if you are fortunate to be Eva and Patricio students then they are very keen on these details. Today I went at Alicia Pons workshops for two hours leading/following technique. Alicia asked the leaders what do they don’t like with the followers, leaders respond they are heavy when dancing even though they weigh 95 lbs, they cannot maintain their own axis which the leader get drag, etc. So Alicia tackles those issues with the followers taking the class. Then she asks the followers the kind of leader they want – musicality, connection, not leading with your arm came up, etc. Alicia work on that with the leaders, she saw one leader using the forearm to bring her follower from an ocho cortado. She corrected that; the leader humbly accepted her teachings. I am writing this because I can visualize what happened to Tina with leading forward ochos with an elbow. I won’t even bother telling you the stories of forearm, palm, etc. I won’t even begin to tell you how my follower got elbowed on the head because a leader from outside lane jumps to the second lane(where we are dancing) at the festivals down in Portland. I will close this paragraph what Susanna Miller said – “be sensitive leaders.”

SaraEllen said in March 31st, 2008 at 7:51 pm

I totally agree. I hate being strong-armed around. It is insulting and embarrassing.

I don’t care what type of dancing you’re doing–Tango, or swing, or ballet–and I’ve trained and performed in all of them for years so I can say this–dancing does not happen from the limbs, it happens from the center. The limbs are only there to support. Style and expression in the limbs come from correct technique, which is proper posture and use of the core muscles, muscles that most Americans (and unfortunately, most dancers) allow to remain unconscious and disconnected from the mind-body dance process….

Form follows function. I see too many dancers going for some form or style and can only get there artificially and awkwardly, because the whole time they’re thinking “the leg goes here” or “I want her to do this, so I will move my arm that way.” People, people….it comes from the body whether you’re in open embrace, close embrace, or standing at the barre.

Now, I love to watch styles I admire, and play with them in my own dancing, mimicking until I feel how they got there from the center. Sometimes we have to do a little outside-in before it comes from the inside-out. But too many dancers stop there…and wind up as parodies of each other….and when they are at their peak of clownishness….that is when they begin to TEACH.

La Nuit Blanche said in April 4th, 2008 at 5:09 pm

i’ve experienced this here in new york. it is possible, and it is very present, and it hurts A LOT. usually, i just yelp aloud from pain, i can’t help it. that usually makes it stop. which makes the dancing stop too, lol.