Albert Cuypstraat 241

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Description:

Miles Tangos is visiting Amsterdam for the week of June 1st to the 8th. This is a rare opportunity to study with this *very* passionate American visiting Amsterdam on his European summer tour. One Day Only!!!

Workshops for Sat, June 2nd

Clean, Clear, Concise Closer Embrace – 1:00 to 3:00

The ‘Milonguero’ Turn! 3:30 to 5:30

Space is limited (seriously, there really isn’t a whole lot of space) to 12 couples maximum.

Fees: Workshops are € 18 pp per class of 2 hrs, pay at the door; both classes are € 32. Level: intermediate- advanced intermediate, 1-3 years of dance experience. Private lessons are $ 50 per hour. Limited slots available.

Miles teaches in English, and focuses on clearly defined technique, that is applied everywhere. And also firmly believes and practices in swapping the roles of the dance to greater inform both parties of their combined dancing!

Marijke has been teaching tango for 15 years. Her teaching was shaped by many Argentine milongueros and maestros, like Sebastian & Mariana, Chicho, Julio & Corina, to name just a few. She really likes to focus on clear structure, musicality and basic technique to give tools to, and enrich the ‘vocabulary’ of

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Let me set this up for you….

Husband and wife go to the milonga together, they dance the first tanda together, and then another, and then sit down and don’t dance again until 7 or 8 tandas later, again, with each other…this goes on for several hours. The night passes, at the end of the night, the last tanda they dance the Cumparsita together. He later confides to friends that he wanted to dance with X, Y, and Z partners. She, much later, confides to friends that she wanted to dance with A, B, C partners. Both felt that they couldn’t follow that desire because they felt obligated to dance with their romantic partner.

This happens a lot in tango based relationships, very rarely do they enjoy dancing together after a while, yet they feel obligated to dance with that person and that person alone because they’re committed to that person. At the same time there is this feeling of being tied down even more so with no way out, trapped. Running along side this is that you see all of their tango flaws which X, A, Y, B, Z, and C does not possess…but your romantic partner does have those flaws…in spades! You know what Irma Bombeck used to say, ‘The Grass is Always Greener on the Other Side of the Septic Tank!” Its amazing what projections we place on other people. My high school vice principle once said to me, “Don’t point the finger of blame at anyone else until you’ve pointed it at yourself first!”. He was right then, and he’s right now. I only mention this point in passing because its a contributing factor to killing the dancing relationship you have with your partner. Nobody likes to be second fiddle, period.

Today’s relationships are very Monogamous, but at the same time the very nature of tango is in fact quite the opposite, its ‘Polyamarous’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyamory) not polygamous which is not the same thing. A good reason why Polyamory actually works in tango is that the more partners you dance with, the more experienced you become. You’re able to hone your skillset, refine it, make it better (hopefully)…so it actually helps you to become a better dancer if you dance with different ‘multiple’ partners. At the same time, Monogamy doesn’t work in tango, for just the same reasons I pointed out. As you might imagine or have experienced first hand, at some point along the curve ‘jealousy’ rears its ugly head out of this dynamic. For a lot of people when they see their romantic partner dancing with someone else they feel a sense of insecurity and jealousy especially if their partner is having a great time with someone ELSE! You can easily understand how this may cause more strife than pleasure!

Is there a way around this slippery sloap ? Is there something that can be done ? A way that both parties can be in relationship and end up dancing with each other ?

Yes. There is one way that seems to work rather well….

Enter: The Dance Agreement!

So what is a Dance Agreement ? Its an agreement between dancing pairs that they have a set number of dances in an evening. Usually for a lot of romantic dancing pairs I know…they dance the first tanda together and the last tanda together. After that, all bets are off as it were! I know certain couples that have it by milonga tanda only, they must dance each milonga tanda with each other, and no one else. I know another that only dances the pugliese tandas with each other. They are free to dance with whomever they want EXCEPT in the cases of the agreement!

In the case of the more common agreement, there are usually some stipulations to guard against inciting insecurity and the resulting jealousy. Stipulations ? Usually there’s someone that 1 partner really loves dancing with, but the other partner sees that 3rd party as a threat to the security of their relationship, hence the ‘insecurity’. So we add a ‘rider’, a partial agreement to limit the number of tandas with X, or A.

Relationships are about compromise, and tango is no exception.

In an earlier life when I was going to weekly Freestyle Dance Events (dancefriday.com for example) and Contact Improv and dating in that world, I felt it was necessary that when I met someone new that was not part of the Freestyle Dance World and brought them to the dance that I explain the mores of the day, and the codes, and instilled the idea of the “dance agreement” so that they were prepared for what they were about to see and do. That it was ok, as far as I was concerned with things, that they dance with OTHER PEOPLE as often as they like, however, I get the last song of the night. That if they come with me, they leave with me. That was my way of seeing that we’re still on the same page. For the most part this worked out really well. I never felt threatened by any other men that danced with the women I was dating because for the most part I knew that she was leaving with me! I grew up a bit more after that and limited my ‘insecurity’ to just the last dance.

The solution of a ‘Dance Agreement’ is a good first step towards creating a healthy dance relationship, it is by no means the only one. Its just one that I’ve seen work time and time and time again. And remember, your milage may vary!

She walks into the room, kisses and hugs her friends on her way to putting down her shoe bag, and then finding her seat to put on her shoes. She’s looking quite lovely tonight. It seems like she’s kissing and hugging everyone in the room for cryin’ out loud. Finally she finds a half a chair at the crowded milonga tonight, and slips off her street shoes into what appear to be brand new Comme Il Fauts, all sparkly and shiny new, and just as she finishes her right shoe, she looks up and is immediately whisked away out of her chair. One tanda, two tandas, three tandas, she comes off the floor to get some water, and no sooner does her foot hit the carpet, when another lead takes her by the hand, and off they go, one tanda, two tandas, and off the floor to head for water, and a chair! She’s looking a little disheveled after that last leader. He was a bit rough on her, but she smiled through it, he had some nice qualities. She sits for the first time in 45 minutes, drinking her water, and finally catching up with a friend. Legs crossed, and eyeing the room, and avoiding it at the same time.

Gentlemen, how do you ask her for dance ?

Well to be honest with you there are many ways of asking a woman to dance as there are stars in the sky, and they all basically involve the same thing. But in tango there are some rules of the road as to how you do and don’t do that. Things to keep in mind. So before we get to the HOW part, there are a few things we have to review first, such as 9 don’ts and 5 do’s.

Nine Don’ts!

1.) Do not walk up to her and extend your hand and expect to get a dance!
2.) Do not stalk her around the room.
3.) Do not cross a dance floor to get to her.
4.) Do not walk up to her, stop 5 feet from her, and THEN Cabeceo her!
5.) Do not VERBALLY ask her for a dance (there are exceptions to this).
6.) Do not stand outside the ladies room and get her as she’s coming out. (can you say “awwwwkward!” ?)
7.) Do not sit 2 chairs away from her ‘eyeing’ her and expect her to dance with you. (“creeeeepy!” ewwww!)
8.) Do not come up BEHIND her and tap her on the shoulder.
9.) Do not sit down next to her and then out of the blue ask her to dance.

Five Do’s!

1.) Make certain that you are reasonably dry, and not dripping sweat.

Nobody really likes to bathe in sweat, so for this reason always, always have a change of shirt if you’re the profusely sweaty kind of man. Think of it this way, do you want to go home smelling of perfume ? Probably not. Well then she has absolutely ZERO desire to go home smelling like a gym locker! So keep the sweat to an absolute minimum.

2.) Have a pleasant ‘odor’ to you.

This doesn’t mean aftershave but some deodorant is a good choice. Preferably one that doesn’t REEK!

3.) Make certain you are well manicured.

This means that your nails are clipped, hands washed, or cleaned with soap BEFORE you dance with her!

4.) Have pleasant breath.

Two words for you: BREATH MINTS. Need I say more ?

5.) Get a towel or something to use as a handkerchief!

Place it in your suit coat jacket as you’re dancing, or in back right pocket, and at the end of each song, wipe the sweat from your hands, and from your neck and head. Keep your sweat to yourself…let’s not share it, shall we ?

Ok, so now that we’ve read you the riot act about what to do, and how not to engage her…can you ask her for a dance yet ? Well no, not quite.

I strongly suggest you actually LISTEN to the music that you are asking her to dance to BEFORE you ask her to dance. I mean that just because there is music playing, its actually rather helpful for you to have some understanding of what you’re listening to, and then ‘dancing’ to. Far too often men wander around the floor, no where close to the walking beat of the music. They think or believe that they need vocabulary to keep her entertained to ‘dance’ with her. This is NOT true. The thing you need to do, is walk her on the beat. Your mind in her feet. Which means that I don’t care what your feet are doing…what I care about is what her feet are doing, her feet are the metronome by which you dance. She’s the timekeeper her. She’s also the reflection of your ability to keep time. So for every beat in the music, her feet should be on the floor. It also helps if you can keep time in the music. If you think you can do that, I’ll bet you that you can’t. Far too often on a social dance floor I see, ‘wandering’ off the beat or something not even close to a beat. For help on finding the beat, see my previous article on how to hit the upbeat! It goes into finding the downbeat as well, which is what you want to walk on!

While its a little late to be thinking of private lessons at a milonga, but I do strongly suggest private lessons BEFORE you go out social dancing, and what you want to focus on is your embrace, posture, and walk. No, seriously. Not kidding about this one. Its not about the steps and the patterns, its just not. I know you think you can ‘dance’, I know you believe that you’ve taken a few classes with (fill in the blank), and they’ve pronounced you ‘passable’, or taught you some really cool and fancy moves that god him/herself would deem as ‘Yup! that’s pretty cool!”. The fact is, that your embrace is more than likely the source of half of your issues with followers. I am almost willing to bet its like a vice grip and that you just don’t realize it. I’ll go out on a limb here and even go so far as to say that perhaps you use your left arm as a metronome (bouncing up and down in time to the music), and/or on top of that, you’ve been told that you must have ‘resistance’ from her, she has to push into your hand, otherwise she’s just not doing it right. Am I Right ? There are some teachers that teach this, and there some are some of us that don’t. Some of us, actually engage in a conversation, and some of us, well…let’s just say its a monologue and leave it at that. Which is to say that most men, when they have the tables turned on them and their own embrace type and ‘style’ is mirrored back to them…they never want to do that again, ever. What we’re wanting is ‘intention’ based dancing. You think, she goes. Not…you PUSH or PULL and she goes! Imagine a ballon floating in front of you, now exhale…what happens to the ballon ? It floats away from you. Same thing here. You do not want to use your arms, or your hands, but rather your ‘core’ to SUGGEST movement. And speaking of core motions, this requires a ‘clean’ posture. That means being upright and not taking your chest away from your follower, among…..

“Ummm Miles ?”

Yes, is there a question ?

“Ummm, while I appreciate all this wonderful knowledge you’re spouting, but how on earth does this have anything to do with ASKING a WOMAN to DANCE ? I mean don’t get me wrong, Im sure this is all valid to someone, somewhere…and while you’re belaboring the point…ok I need to get some privates, I just don’t get why you’re going on and on and on about this noise! Look dude, how do I ask her to dance ?”.

(smile)

Well, ahem…ummmm, let’s see now. Do you own a house, or live under some kind of a roof ?

“Yes. I have an apartment in the city”.

Good. What would happen if say, tomorrow morning, you awoke to find that half of your building had crumbled away in the night, so that from your bedroom, what’s left of it, you can now see the apartments above and below you and you now have a lovely vista of the rest of your city ? Would that be good ?

“Well the view would be nice, especially since there’s the hottie in 9A…, but ummm no!”

There’s a reason your apartment building crumbled over night. And that’s because the guy who built your building, his ‘foundation’ was poorly constructed, so much so that it literally eroded and the building collapsed in around it! That building is your dance, and that foundation, is your embrace, your posture, and your walk! Get the them cleaned up, reinforced, and made clear, and your dance won’t collapse around you in the first 3 steps! Because that’s exactly what will happen, if you’re not careful, especially with a more advanced and talented follower!

Enough preaching, this article was supposed to be about HOW TO ASK HER FOR A DANCE. And it is. But first, its about creating the right conditions for you to actually be able to dance with her once you actually get the dance. What you’re doing is creating the right ground work so that you have a successful tanda BEFORE asking her to dance!

Now to the QUESTION: HOW ????

The right and proper way to ask her for a dance is to stand or sit approx. 30 to 40 ft from her, and make concerted, direct eye contact with her. Its her choice at that point to accept or deny your invitation. Give her lots of space my friend. This is elegance in practice. There is a code of operation here and you want use it. Now mind you, sometimes its a little dark in these rooms, and the milonga organizer just doesn’t set up the room in such a way that you can actually send a cabeceo and actually have it seen. In BsAs its a little challenging in some rooms…but it does work.

What we’re looking for is this:

Understand something else, that if she says “NO”, that does not mean that you get up from your chair, and walk over to her and perform one of the 9 don’ts. No, no, no! Bad form. You simply move onto the next follower that you want to dance with. “NO” means “NO”. It unfortunately means NOT EVER, IN THIS LIFETIME. DON’T EVEN THINK IT! Now to be fair, that’s not entirely true, “NO” sometimes means NOT RIGHT NOW. How do you know the difference ? You don’t! Again, her call my friend, not yours. You’ve made your interest known at this point….move on. She’ll either pick up the ball later, or not. However, don’t sit there and be all mister pouty face, that’s not going to get you anywhere! This also means don’t ask again that night, again, at all. That also means that you don’t eyeball her all night long either! Once and let it go. Got it ? Trust me, she got the message.

Ok, now for a few exceptions to the rules.

1.) There are women out there, that a.) can’t see that well 10 feet in front of them, (furthermore neither can you my friend!) and/or b.) Do NOT understand what cabeceo is and how it works. I’ve heard stories of women that go to BsAs and don’t get that men are literally throwing spears at them in terms of cabeceo, and are completely oblivious to the practice, and yet when you ask them later, they’re like “Huh ???? What ? Cappa-what ?”. I’ve seen it happen, been party to it, and not surprised by it, its just a lack of understanding of the codigos and in some cases socially deliberate to feign ignorance. How do you know the difference ? You don’t. You have to take people at the word until proven otherwise. Which is to say, if she declines your invitation, and then accepts someone else’s and then later on claims to be ignorant of the codigos…draw your own conclusions from there. To be fair there are some men who will not take ‘no’ as an answer, and will walk across the floor and extend their hands to her and get ‘the’ dance. Think nothing of it. Let’s just say that if you watch her face while she’s dancing with him, that should tell you everything you need to know about what she’s enduring at that juncture!

2.) If you know her FAIRLY well, are on better than speaking terms with her, and have hung out with her, then you can verbally ask her for a dance.

3.) If you’ve just been introduced to her, you can verbally ask her for a dance right then and there.

4.) If you’ve been seated at her table (Mostly for BsAs folks), you can ask her for a dance, and truth be told I believe you’re expected to dance at least ONE tanda with her, it would be rude not to do so. There are even exceptions to this ‘suggestion’.

5.) If you have a friend that knows her fairly well, you can ask for an introduction but that’s about it, and then employ rule #2.

Having said all of that….breathe, smile, cabeceo. See what happens!

[note: this is a companion piece to "Asking a Man To Dance"]

Secondly, I am at the same time speaking from a lot of personal experience on and off the floor.

Lastly, again, take this with a grain of salt, use to measure, your mileage may vary!

There are 4 steps to saying “ENOUGH”.  However, before we get there, there are some things that we have to do set this up, to qualify some terms and to make sure we’re talking about the same things.  This post is mainly for women, but the men should be reading this as well because if you’ve had this happen to you, then there are some things you need to know.   Not about why it happened, but to identify it in your mind as an “ooops” that’s a warning sign and you should probably get yourself into some private lessons!  To be clear leaders, when these things happen, and you go get yourself some private lessons the things you want to work on are Navigational Skills, SOFT Close Embrace, and Intention Based Dancing.  And the people you want to study with are generally the more respected FEMALE teachers in town.  You should not be working on anything more than your walk and your embrace.  If they’re teaching you steps and patterns, then get out fast.  This is not about vocabulary, steps, patterns, and figures.  This is a matter of slowing down, and hearing your partner, listening to what you have led, and engaging in a physical conversation with your follower.  Leaders, also take to heart, that ONE private lesson is NOT going to do it for you.  Set up a minimum of 3 lessons!

So without further adieu….

Ladies, if you’ve had a leader who uses his right arm as:

1.) a vice grip around your back, literally squeezing the life out of you. (this would be TOOO MUCH compression)
2.) a python eating its last meal.
3.) a paddle to tell you which way to go.
4.) as a way to stop your motion and contain you with strength, yet asks you to counter that motion.

or, sadly…

5.) as a way to inappropriately touch your breasts, deliberately.

Ladies, if you’ve had a leader who uses his left as:

1.) a way to keep time to the music…its a metronome!
2.) a way to steer you, pushes you with his left.
3.) a method of ‘engaging’ you…better known as the fallacy of ‘resistance’.  (there is a good form of engagement, and that’s not what I’m on about)
4.) a method of gripping your right hand like he would grabbing a slippery fish and holding on to it.
5.) steel pole bent at an angle just for show.

Ladies, if you’ve had a leader that walks with you so that:

1.) every step he’s driving your feet into the ground.
2.) each motion is a new sensation of pain.
3.) an envisioning of visiting your chiropractor the following morning.
4.) he uses the same vocabulary over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over….again.
5.) he has a fetish with (fill in the blank) vocabulary.

Ladies, if you have a leader that seems or is:

1.) unsafe to dance with.
2.) looks painful to dance with.
3.) you hear other women complaining about his lead.
4.) grinding his hips into you in an inappropriate manner continuously.  (let me address this a little more clearly so that the men don’t come after me with hunting knives. Look, men are men, and they can generally keep their peni in their pants, however, sometimes their bodies do get the better of them and well they go a little off the deep end.  It is NOT intentional in 99% of cases. But we do get over it quickly and move on to other things.  Its that 1% of the time where you have to be aware of and careful with…because this is a creepy mother***** and he’s got one thing on his mind, and its you in a compromising position, its THAT guy I am talking about here.  He’s got a history of grinding up on women, and you’ve talked about it with your girlfriends, he’s got an eye for the younger ladies in the room and you all know it.  That’s the guy I’m talking about!)

Or any of these above in concert with multiple items….minus hygiene issues, then here is what I want you to do.

Step One: “Something Can Be Done About This ?”.

This first step is a physical readjustment of your embrace away from his body, disengaging the embrace in a grandios manner, moving you away from his embrace.  When this happens, I like to take my left arm away from his body and raise it up over my head and behind my body, and then SLOWLY (this is the important part) place it back where it was.  You’re doing this to make it so obvious to him that he can’t possibly mistake it for anything else.  Its best if you don’t employ this method in time to the music, if done outside of the timing of the music it forces him to a.) stumble a bit, and bit really pay attention to what the hell he’s actually leading!  Another idea along the same lines is to wriggle your body a bit and to disengage from the embrace and move your body away from him.   Now for any experienced leader, this should be enough to get the hint that something isn’t quite right and he may wish to readjust and make things softer for you.  However he’s not going to know that because of the codigos of the dance.  So you’re telling him in no uncertain terms, “DUDE!  THAT ****ING HURTS!  STOP DOING THAT!”.  But you’re doing it in such a way that its kinesthetic, not verbal.  Do this THREE times in the span of a minute, and then if he doesn’t get it….we move to STEP TWO!

Step Two: Raising Your ‘Voice’.

There is nothing wrong with using your voice in the middle of a dance, if his embrace or what he’s doing is causing you pain.  However, due to the codigos of the dance, there are certain things you should not do.  1.) yell in his ear. or 2.) speak loud enough so that other couples can hear you.  Here is what you might want to say, “Ummm dear, I do enjoy dancing with you, but your _________ is causing me a bit of pain”.  In an ideal world you’d want to say that to him, however, we have to tell a tiny little white lie here and modify that statement a bit.  ”Ummm dear I love dancing with you but I have a ________ (sunburn, bone spur, broken rib that you just caused…etc) and I’d really appreciate it if you go easy on me right now, thanks lamb chop!”.  Done this way, it doesn’t invite conversation, and gets him to realize that he needs to be a lot more gentle with you!  Done the first way, unmodified, it will incite conversation and we don’t want that.  You do not discuss vocabulary, you do not criticize his dancing, and you do not discuss particulars.  You make it vague enough that he loosens up and it stays that way.  You may have to remind him of this with an occasional ‘ouch’, grimace, or wriggle here and there.  If this fails…. we move on to STEP THREE.

Step Three: One, Two, Three.

This is where we employ steps 1 and 2 at the same time.  Pretty simple.  Right ?  Only this time, we do actually raise our voice as a reminder and using shorter language.  ”Dude! That ****ing hurts, please stop doing that!”, or “OW! Jesus H. Christ are you a ****ing idiot, I said I had a sunburn!” I know that’s what you want to say, but again, unfortunately, you can’t.  We don’t use that language, but you are allowed to put your suggestion succinctly and clearly so that he gets the message and at the same time you’re dropping the embrace entirely.  Once dancing starts again AND if he continues AND this message has clearly failed…we move to STEP FOUR.

Step Four: The ‘Nuclear‘ Option!

Before we employ this 4th step.  Be aware that you can opt out and wait until the END of the current song to say “Thank you”, and then walk off the floor in the middle of a tanda.  You’d be saving his face, and yours.  It happens, sometimes there’s just a tango mismatch.  There is no rule that says that you have to dance an entire tanda with someone, but its generally done that when you accept a dance from a leader you’re accepting for 3 songs by the same orchestra or for however long the tanda is going to be.  So saying “thank you” at any of the breaks between songs with an “excuse me” in there some where will generally do for most socially acceptable leaders.  It saves face and makes it possible to live and dance again with others in a small community.

This 4th option, however, is a last resort.  I mean this.  Its an absolute LAST OPTION, you use this option VERY SPARINGLY,  (note the bold and the italics for emphasis here) and only under the direst of circumstances.  Let me define DIRE here, so that we’re clear: Dire would mean -> so much physical pain that your veins are going to burst from the physical compression; so much spinal or skeletal pain that you can not stand it one more second. Do not use this option simply because you don’t like his breath or the way he smells.  That’s not acceptable here.  No, this option is used to save your back, bones, and body for later and only under physical duress that you can not endure any longer!  Look, there are some leaders out there that just can’t quite take a hint, and you’ve just given them 3 of them, which they’re clearly NOT hearing.  So this last option is for them, which is why its called The ‘Nuclear‘ Option, because once done, its effect is akin to a nuclear bomb going off in a confined space.

Let me stress again, this is a final option and once done can not be undone with an apology.  You’re going to do something so technically vile that it will send a message throughout the entire room, and everyone will see it and talk about it.  Furthermore this option has the added bonus of being very shameful to the recipient.  So again, you use this option VERY VERY VERY sparingly.  I mention this option here because I have had this done to me early on and in my case, it had a very beneficial effect.  But that’s for another time.

In short here is what you do: Drop the embrace, turn on your heel, and walk off the dance floor in the MIDDLE of the song!  Do not engage in conversation, do not invite a discussion, Do not pass go, Do Not Collect 200.00 dollars (although you should for the chiropractic bill you’re going to get), just TURN and WALK OFF THE FLOOR!  Then: Go to your seat and take off your shoes OR more effectively go to the bathroom and hide out for a bit.  Then go back out to your seat or go find a girlfriend to chat with.   One last caveat about this option, you may engage in a conversation with this leader OFF the dance floor, outside, away from the milonga, after the milonga is over, but never ON A SOCIAL DANCE FLOOR…EVER!

Leaders Note:  if you’ve had this happen to you, you have my deepest sympathies really you do.  However, she’s just given you a wonderful gift, and you have to look at it like that.  Its going to be a huge ‘ouch’, but its a gift wrapped in a “holy shit that ****ing hurts!”.  Nobody likes to be left at the alter and that’s exactly what she’s done to you.  So you’re going to feel shunned and hurt.  Dude.  Get over it.  This is an indicator that you need help and she’s just told you in no uncertain terms that you need to go check your shit.  Got it ?  She’s not crazy, she’s not a bitch, she’s not evil.  She’s telling you that your embrace is painful or you are causing her pain.  Get it ?  Now go follow my advice from above!

Follower’s Note: Be kind.  People are going to talk.  And here is how you respond to them when they ask questions, “He was holding me a little too tightly, that’s all, I just needed some air.”  And leave it at that.

The Last Word.

Look these are ideas for you to use, guidelines.  I have a strong preference that you not use them with my name attached, “Well Miles Tangos said that I should….”.  No, take ownership and tailor them to your situation, and make them your own.  And again, use your utmost angelic judgement here, because as some of us know…dancing in a small town has its detracting factors, a small pool of available dancers, poor navigation skills, creepy guys that can’t or won’t take a hint…the list is long.  But for all of those things…small towns also have something over larger cities, and that is a sense of belonging to a community, a group of people that enjoy and love the dance as much as you do.  So keep that in mind, but above all else, you must take care of your body!

Let’s get a few things out of the way, almost immediately….

1.) There is nothing wrong with asking a man to dance, in the United States. Everywhere else, it’s a little different. However, ladies you must understand that doing so anywhere will not get you the desired results that you’re looking for. The reason is because so many of the leaders adhere to one of several codigos (codes of the dance). So for that reason, TRY NOT TO VERBALLY ASK A MAN TO DANCE (there is an exception to this rule)! Otherwise, I swear to sunny jesus, you’re going to sit all night long. You will be punished, and you will not dance again. I am not kidding. There are some men that take it upon themselves to be somewhat catty about your dancing future. At the same time, there are some men that actually appreciate a women when she asks, however those are few and far between. So if in doubt, just don’t! Again there is an exception! Me, personally I like it when a woman asks me, so go right ahead…however be prepared to be rejected, if I’m tired or not feelin’ the love right then.

2.) A woman’s role in the dance has traditionally been to be the ‘follower’, and while I detest the use of this word…’Submissive’.  In any other dance, especially in the United States, she’s trained to be an active participant–this is not so in tango. It wasn’t until very recently, and we’re talking up until about 20 years ago and even that’s a stretch, that the dance has started to relax some of its codigos, but this one, unfortunately or fortunately (depending on your point of view) is not going away any time soon.

3.) Understand that while you are asking someone to dance, or wanting to dance with someone, they are NOT obligated to accept your dance. As a matter of fact, the better the lead, the less inclined he is to dance with you. And while you may not understand this now, you will later. The fact is that tango requires that the dancing pair be very skilled in a variety of areas, not the least of which is body kinesthetics, the vocabulary of the dance, the vocabulary of a particular style or ‘flavor’ of the dance, the music!!!!, and a host of other factors like for example, a deftness of touch that far exceeds what you believe possible, a level of kinesthetic movement that is far more subtle than you will ever experience in any other dance, and a level of technique and attention to detail that is absolutely insane on the surface. Having said that…the truth is that you are painful to dance with right now. It doesn’t matter how pretty you are, and/or what you are wearing, and those nice ‘tango’ shoes that you just bought are virtually worthless! This is not to put you in your place, or to make you feel bad about yourself, or to elevate the leaders in the room to god like status, their egos are big enough as it is. Most followers, unless they’ve led, will not understand what it takes to lead, conversely most leaders do not understand what it means to follow. I do. I am socially trained to dance both parts, and do quite frequently! I’ll give you an example of what I mean by ‘painful’:

Look, I am not a small man, but as a leader I know what it feels like to dance with a follower who is ‘heavy’ and I don’t mean her weight, although that is a factor sometimes. By ‘heavy’ I mean that she is literally leaning on me, and supporting herself with her arms hanging on me, instead of either a shared axis where we support each other (apillado), or on her own over her own pads of her own feet (vertical)! Also by ‘heavy’, I mean that she is either lifting up her feet as she walks backwards, and/or having me literally push her around. As a leader, I know what it means to dance with a follower who has not mastered her walk, where she wobbles, is highly unstable because she’s wearing heels and she hasn’t learned how to walk in yet. As a leader, I know what it feels like to have a follower who literally thumps when she walks, and uses me to hold her up! As a leader, I know what it means to have a follower literally hang on my left arm, and to use my right shoulder and neck in some cases, as a hitching post. As a follower, I know all of those things. I have learned to negate them, I have learned to negate my mass, I have learned how to walk and to walk well, I have learned how not to impinge on his lead in any way, shape or form. I frequently have leaders tell me that they are surprised that a.) I follow, b.) that I follow well, and c.) that I don’t feel like I look! I have worked very hard on creating this level of deftness in my following abilities, and that’s only because I know all too well what it feels like to be on the other side of that, and I don’t ever want to feel like that. To dance with a follower who does all of those things I describe, that is ‘painful’. I want my leader to feel as though it is effortless to dance with me! And that is what it should feel like when he dances with YOU. If that’s not happening, then you need some private lessons, not group classes, to fix the issue!

Because of this way of dancing, dancing with you is not exactly an easy task. As a matter of historical fact, its actually a chore. There’s a reason that some followers get all the dances in the room, and it sometimes has nothing to do with the way she looks, it has everything to do with HOW SHE FEELS to dance with! So if you’re sitting at a milonga and you’re wondering why Mary SoAndSo is getting all the dances, ask a few leaders why they enjoy dancing with her. It may be how she dresses, but I am willing to bet it’s because of how she feels, how she commits to the embrace and is VERY attentive! Don’t blame her, don’t shame her, applaud her for doing her homework!!!

Having said that, now on to HOW TO ASK A MAN TO DANCE and GET IT!

I advocate a 3 pronged “C” approach to the seemingly sticky wicket of ‘asking a man to dance’. There are codigos to consider here, and they’re all quite acceptable, and within the boundaries of the dance.

1.) Cabeceo. This is a socially acceptable way for a woman to ask a man to dance and no one need know that you’re doing it! If you don’t know what it is, in short, a Cabeceo is making direct and clear line of sight eye contact with an intended dancing partner while they are NOT dancing, and once contact is established, you indicate with a nod of your head or your eyebrows that you would like to dance with that person (note: walking up to someone and nodding your head, indicating you’d like a dance, is considered poor taste, this is better known as the “Stalker Cabeceo”).

2.) Conversate. Walk around a bit, at a milonga. Put your shoes on and walk around and engage people in conversation, not just the men…but the women too. However if you spot a leader that you’d like a dance with, engage him in a conversation. Here’s the trick, near the end of the conversation, employ the following line any way you’d like to word it: “At some point when you’re free LATER, I’d like to dance the LAST SONG of a tanda with you if you’re free!”. What you’re doing is indicating that you’re open to a dance with him LATER! Secondly, you’re also putting the onerous task of deciding WHEN that dance happens clearly in his lap. Notice you used the word “Later”, not “Tonight”. Later could mean a few weeks from now. The important part is that he’s clearly deciding IF and WHEN that dance happens, not YOU. And lastly note that its the LAST song of a tanda…not a full tanda! Why the last song ? Because if he doesn’t like dancing with you, he’s not obligated to go any further. But more than likely he will! Also note the last word, “FREE”. What you are doing is making it very clear that you are a last resort, when he thinks of it. Now here’s the hard part. Finish the conversation AND WALK AWAY! Do not look back, do not go bother him again. Move on to other people. Talk it up, girl.

3.) Circulate. That means to place yourself where EVERY leader can see you, typically on the corners of the room and change placements once every 30 minutes. Do not hide, do not sit slumped or hunched over–sit upright in the damned chair, legs crossed (show’m if you’ve got’m), head up, and SMILING! No one wants to dance with a FROWN. When you do get up and move, be VERY obvious about it. That means that as you are changing your placement and going to a new spot, smile, make eye contact with everyone as you do…don’t just look at the ground. This is work, girl, and it takes active work to do it well.

Now it goes without saying but I feel I must; you must do ALL of these things to have the desired affect you want…which is to dance consecutively all night long, preferably with the guys you want to dance with and not with the men that you don’t want to do dance with. However, doing this once and then stopping is not going to have the desired effect. It is cumulative! It also goes without saying that it helps to dress the part, meaning put on that slinky dress you’ve been dying to wear–you know the one that is skin tight in all the right areas…men do like curves…sadly, its a sad truism. But it does work to a limited degree, but not with the better dancers in the room, they really don’t care what you’re wearing, they only care about one thing: DANCING WELL!!!

It also goes without saying that this is ONLY 1 approach to getting the dances that you want. You must, must, must, IMPROVE YOUR DANCING TECHNIQUE RELIGIOUSLY. And going to group classes once a week is all fine and good, however, that’s not going to improve your abilities. What will improve them ? Private lessons on YOUR WALK and YOUR EMBRACE! LOTS and LOTS and LOTS of PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE…AND MORE PRACTICE! I am NOT kidding. Every day. Not kidding. You must improve beyond just getting around the floor and not looking like an idiot! If you’re there to socially chat up your friends that’s one thing, and you should NOT expect to get the dances you’re wanting and this guide is nearly useless to you. However, if you are actively improving your dance, by practicing, taking lessons religiously, and traveling to OTHER CITIES to dance with OTHER PEOPLE on a regular basis, this is one of the only ways that your skills will leap frog over everyone else in the room! If you don’t practice, then you shouldn’t complain that you’re not getting the dances you want. If you don’t put in the time to improve, then you shouldn’t complain that soandso isn’t dancing with you. There’s a reason soandso isn’t dancing with you, its mostly and probably because you feel like a ton of bricks to dance with, and/or are highly unstable. As a side note, when I mirror back to my students what they feel like when they dance with me, their understanding of what they need to be doing goes right through the roof. My job as a teacher is show them wrong, and then show them how to improve it so that its ‘right’.

On the flip side, while the above may sound crass, and hard, and cold, the fact is that he’s no better, dear. He pushes, pulls, pokes, prods, can’t walk without wobbling, is unstable himself, teaches on a social dance floor, is sweaty, stinky, and more than likely has a vice grip of death for an embrace! Oh and my personal favorite, blames the follower for all of his screw ups, and what’s worse is that you’re complacent in his blame!

Also to be fair, even with private lessons, and getting your skill on right, does NOT mean that you’re going to get the dances you seek. The simple fact is that you may have eroded your community trust level and will have to work very hard to undo the damage. It takes time and patience to do that! So for those women, this is not a 3 pronged approach but a 4 pronged approach. Which includes a strict regime of working on your technique…religiously and then going out and proving it!

Lastly, there is a cumulative effect here, you must do all 3 of these things with 10 or 15 guys in a night, and you’ll almost NEVER sit at a milonga again! It takes time and concerted effort to do what I am suggesting, however, I’ve done this myself when I was out following socially ONLY, and I know many men and women use it, even on me, and it works. It takes time and dedication to get this to work, but it does work.

Now for a few addendum to this guide.

a.) Once you have the dance, and you’re enjoying dancing with someone, you can always ask for another WHILE YOU ARE ON THE FLOOR! Again, it’s his choice. There’s nothing wrong with this, anywhere in the world.

b.) If you know a leader, really, really, really well, you’ve dance with him a 100+ times or there abouts, there is nothing wrong with asking him outright. Again his choice. Familiarity has its perks.

c.) Regardless if he is busy or not, respect his space and his time.

That my dear ladies is HOW YOU ASK A MAN TO DANCE!

Good luck!

PS: There are some women that will radically agree with what I’ve written here, there are some who will vehemently disagree, and most, if not 90% of the men I know that dance socially as a leader only, will praise me for being so blunt and right on the money. One thing is clear, this is a hot topic, even in today’s world. I’d like to be clear on something else here, this topic is open for review at all times…its an ever changing perspective. Nothing in tango is a hard and fast rule…because tomorrow that rule may changed based on current conditions!

1.) I am *NOT* speaking as a teacher of the form, but 1 dancer to another. Those from other dancing disciplines may not fully understand the world of argentine tango, its only after a long while of studying the form (over the last 5 years, daily) from multiple perspectives of the form that I have the luxury to speak in the following fashion. For those just learning the dance, don’t be put off by what follows, these are all the things you don’t want to do, think of it as a do and don’t list that’s very said with a lot of vim and verve!

2.) I *AM* the sole of all my tango wisdom, which is to say that I know what I know.  I am not looking to change the world or to make your world any safer, because I realize I can’t do that.  I also realize that I am one man, and I can’t change anything.  But I do know a few things about what I have learned, and experienced, and its from that perspective that I am coming from.

3.) This is going to sound arrogant.  Too bad, get over it.  I make no apologies for my view point, none whatsoever.  I refuse to counter on this one, and I refuse, I absolutely, steadfastly, blatantly REFUSE to back down.

4.) I honestly don’t care one iota what you think or believe about this topic, and if you want to comment, you can comment to yourself, because to be honest with you I’m not spending another minute of what’s left of my life in pain.  If you want to, that’s up to you, but for me, my back, my arms, and my chiropractic bill…and the money in my pocket, again…I know what I like, and I know what I don’t like.

and lastly…

5.) Just because of the date, and you know where I am geographically, DO NOT make the assumption that I am speaking about any one person in particular.

That said:

TANGO PAIN.

My definition of pain over the years that I’ve been dancing tango has changed, but not by much, and actually its gotten more and more refined as time has gone by.

Let me back up a bit and tell you a story.  I was in a series of private lessons with XXXXXXXXXX (and no I’m not telling you who it was) a few years ago, and the lessons were on “Leader Technique”.  Which was designed and disguised deliberately as a way to get my mind and body around the fact that some people are different in tango and that that difference is a good thing.  We went over several things that I had experienced in dancing with certain people in the San Francisco that I had termed as ‘bad’, or ‘painful’.  My teacher explained to me that I was being an arrogant SOB, without saying the SOB part, in a very, very, charming way that my teacher had.  During these private lessons, we would go over how to handle those situations that came up.  One day it was heavy, slow followers.  Another it was the ‘Steel Cord’ embrace.  And still another it was, ‘COMPRESSION!’.  And on and on until I had exhausted my topics.  Throughout all of it, we ended up in the same place every time with three simple things:  1.) Breathe! 2.) Smile!  3.) Light and Soft Miles…Light and Soft.

My teacher would, rightfully, tell me that I was arrogant to think that I know better…because I had been dancing a short amount of time, and that my experience would change as time would go by.  It did.  I changed.  I became more accepting that some people’s ideas of a pleasurable experience via tango was well…painful to me but pleasurable to them.  As time went by, not only did I become more accepting, I started to teach what I knew to be true, and how to help others deal with what I came to call Tango Pain.

So what is it ?  In short, Tango Pain, is what happens ot the human body, and nervous system when it is subjected to an embrace (physical, mental, or emotional) based on Physical Compression, Heft, Severe Weight, Shear Laziness, Lack of Presence, and lastly … Ignorance!

“People will drink the sand because they don’t know any better” – Anon.

I say this all the time to my students and anyone that will listen especially when I point out the fact that their embrace is painful and hurtful to me as a dancer.  I have been unfriended on facebook because of how I present this factoid, I have made certain enemies in the tango world simply because of how I have told someone that in my experience and my way of dancing, their way of dancing was painful for me.

What is painful to me ?

1.) Carrying a 125,30,35,40,45,50,60,70,80,90+ pd weight around in my arms!

2.) An embrace that compresses the hell out of my spine.

3.) The ‘Tango’ Arm around my neck, and literally hanging off me.

4.) A ‘steel cord’ follower right arm into my palm, hand, and arm.

5.) A vice grip around my body, like a python swallowing its dinner.

6.) A follower left arm compressing my left arm, as a lead, with either the forearm, hand, or both!

7.) A hand that squeezes so tightly that my connecting hand loses feeling.

8.) A leader that pushes me.

9.) A follower that will not move her body on her own!

10.) A leader that pushes me everywhere no matter if I move on my own.

11.) A leader that doesn’t create the space for me, so I have to do the job myself.

12.) A follower that refuses to extend her own damned legs and I have to move her in time to the beat.

13.) A leader who can not:

a.) follow the line of dance.
b.) find the primary beat in the piece of music and walk on it.
c.) find ANY syncopation in the music he’s hearing or thinks he’s hearing.

14.) A leader who talks to me while I am dancing with him.

15.) A follower who wants to engage in inane conversation while Im dancing with her.

16.) A leader who corrects me WHILE I’m dancing with him.

17.) A follower who corrects me WHILE I’m dancing with her, and she doesn’t lead…at all!

18.) A beginner tango dancer who shares their viewpoint of arrogance.  (we’ve all done this)

19.) An advanced dancer who’s an arrogant SOB and literally being disdainful of me.

20.) Watching Bad Show Tango Tango or watching the Fishnets and Fedora crowd at a milonga acting out some tango fantasy that has absolutely NOTHING to do with Tango.

Now I realize that the verbiage is circumspect, that its prone to interpretation, and that it subjective.  That said, there are some truisms in those 20 things that are painful to me:

Moving Someone Else: Instead of them taking the intention and going where the intention asked them to go, they react with a sluggishness akin to a old horse or a donkey.  Yes, what I am on about is a bit like reading someone’s mind, because it means that you may be accused (as a follower) of taking over the lead, when in fact (as a follower) you’re literally just doing what was asked of you!  Realistically this way of dancing, of Intention Based Dancing, can be done, and I do it all the time, there’s so much more in being subtle than in being loud.  Think of it this way, when we start out dancing, we SCREAM ‘OCHO, OCHO, OCHO’ at who were dancing with…and later on, it becomes a whisper, and then much later on, a suggestion, and still much further on, a thought.  Along another line of reality, truthfully there’s only so many things that you can do with tango…its a limited subset of motions and options, so its really not that hard to move your body and literally place it where it needs to be.  And if you get it wrong…not to worry, there’s another chance to screw it up over and over and over again, until you don’t screw it up any more.  It takes time and patience to literally LISTEN to what is going on.  It requires a skill level and literally retuning your nervous system to a whole different way of listening as a leader and a follower to MOVE!  So…take the intention and run with it!

Compression: I tell my students this all the time, that there is no good compression in the tango world.  That’s not true.  There is a good form of compression but its so under used and misunderstood that its almost not worth describing.  But I’ll give it a go.  Compression can be used to literally pull your partner into you but without sacrificing movement and motion, or suppressing anything in the dance.  And you actually want to pull your partner into you, and them you.  However, far too often compression isn’t compression as I’ve just described its use, its actually laziness because someone hasn’t refined their listening skills, in either a leader or a follower.  As a leader this is known as the VICE GRIP, as a follower its known as THE HANGER ON.  In either case, both are not preferred.  Let’s get this straight kiddies so that you hear it: YOU DO NOT NEED TENSION AND FORCE…EVER!

Talking: Shut the **** up!  Look if you can sing, sing in my ear, sing to me.  I like that.  Everything else…its a social dance, and the last thing I need to hear in my ear as we dance together is your profound prose on the state of X, Y, and Z.  In other words, we have the music, the dance floor, and us….otherwise SHUT THE **** UP and DANCE.  If its a practica, and you’ve asked me for feedback and vice versa…that’s one thing, but its a milonga, and I am there to dance.  I don’t care if you’re a super star dancer/teacher and you’ve got this burning desire to tell me all the things I’m doing wrong, SHUT THE **** UP!  Got it ?

Pushing & Pulling: Dude.  Let’s try this one more time.  If you need to push to accomplish your goals, that’s force, and you’ve learned the wrongs thing from the wrong person because that teacher has reached the wrong conclusions about what they’ve witnessed and been taught.  I am telling you in no uncertain terms, the use of force in tango is not an option…ever.  I refuse to dance with anyone that needs me to push them around the damned floor for any reason and vice versa.

Lighter, Softer: EVERYWHERE!

Lastly, while this may sound like whining, as a teacher, who has helped craft some really wonderful dancers who have gone out into the tango world and people have marveled at their abilities for such a short time in dancing, I can safely say this:  I am an arrogant prick about certain things, and tango pain is one of them.  I refuse to have a bad tango experience any more.  I refuse to dance with people who think the above is fun.  I refuse to teach, ever, that the use of force under any circumstances is ok…its not.  EVER!  and lastly, I refuse to put up with followers that refuse to take responsibility for their side of the embrace…and leaders who use force.  Trust me I realize that means Im only dancing with 5% of the room, and you know what, that’s fine with me.  Because you know what, the next morning when I wake up, I will not be in pain, I will not be making a visit to the chiropractor!

I’m done now and what’s worse I’ve probably pissed off a whole bunch of people because I wasn’t gentle or nice, or kind in how I presented how I feel about the dance, and more over I wasn’t apologetic about it.  Get over it.  I have.  Moving on to other things that are far more important….

Let’s get to it, shall we ?

Waiting implies a control dynamic, a master/slave relationship, being told what to do, and when to do it.

Listening implies a conversation, a condition of questioning and looking for improvement, opening a dialogue.

Listening is what we want to have happen on both sides of the equation. Mind you, it doesn’t always happen that way, but its nice when it does happen. To be fair ‘Listening’ does not imply that the dance will in fact be any less physical, but it does imply at the very least that there will in fact be a conversation of sorts. And that is a starting point. Mind you Im not just talking about this from a following perspective, but from a leading perspective as well.

What’s the difference between ‘WAITING‘ and ‘LISTENING‘ ?

The difference between the two of them is like night and day, dark and light, on and off. They are complete polar opposites, and why should you care ? Because the whole point of this distinction is to literally change the way you think about…well…everything. You may think these are just words, when in fact, they go a little deeper than you might imagine. Ok, a LOT deeper than you can possibly imagine. As you’ll see, but first a few definitives:

Waiting is: You are being TOLD what to do, when to do it, and literally how to do it. You have been taught, assuming you didn’t start with me, to WAIT for the lead. This is akin to being told as a child to go clean up your room, wash the dishes, or “Do what you were told to do, and don’t ask questions! Just DO WHAT YOU ARE TOLD TO DO when you are told to do it”. Waiting is essentially a control dynamic that disinfranchises the follower, and literally cuts her off from any level of creativity of her own. From a leading perspective, it doesn’t allow for any level of true interaction from the relationship, and thereby cuts off options and opportunities that may occur from the follower’s side of the equation that you hadn’t anticipated, saw, or could handle, thereby cutting off any chance of her actually making you look about 1000 times better (or worse) than you do right now!

Listening is: A CONVERSATION. It is a constant series of questions of WHERE would you like to go ? How can I lead you better ? How can I follow you better ? How can I improve my technique here ? What can do to add to the fabric of the conversation ? How can I help ? Mind you this is the IDEAL conversation, which is what we are always striving for. However it, again, doesn’t always work out that way, but its what we’re striving for…always, or should be in my opinion.

A Little Background

We use ‘words’ to describe things. ‘DUHHH Miles, that’s called LANGUAGE!’. Well yes it is and thank you so much for pointing that out to me! Now as I was saying….That’s the beauty and one the major failings of spoken and written language. Such precision and clarity of thought on one level, and soooo limiting on so many other levels. In short, the words that you use to describe something is what it is defined as, or what you describe a thing as, is what it becomes! How you call a thing is what it grows into. Think about it, remember a story that you’ve been relating to someone else, and how in the re-telling of the adventure you had with X, Y, and Z that the story either grows or diminishes in the retelling (see memory -> http://www.radiolab.org/2007/jun/07/) ? That’s the beauty of language, memory, and the fusion of the two for information storage. But its also its failing at the same time. Because that, description, is literally cemented into the fabric of our universe!

There are many examples of this in religion, word magic, many spiritual practices, and even modern physics. Modern physics ? Quantum Dynamics actually. The year is 1935, and I’m referring to a long running conversation that Erwin Shroedinger was having with his good friend Albert Einstein on the very nature of the universe itself. Shroedinger devised, as a result of these conversations and letters with Einstien (who vehemently disagreed with Shroedinger’s conclusions by the way), an experiment that tests the fabric of reality and how we perceive it. Actually theexperiment was devised as a way to resolve a question of an interpretation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_interpretation) concerning a paper that Einstein had written with Podolsky and Rosen that talked about the states of particles that are in state of ‘flux’, and that as the particles are observed or measured, the state of the particles literally collapses thereby changing what is being observed or measured, and the important part, AS its being observed or measured. So that as a direct result of this ‘experience’ of the measurement or observation you can never know what a particle’s true state is because you are observing or measuring it.

While that’s all fine and good, how does this relate, and what the f*ck does it mean ? I’m getting there. Bear with me on this one, there’s a pay off. Shroedinger devised a ‘thought’ experiment to illustrate that quantum mechanics and the math around it is about as clear as mud! But the implications from the experiment also point to some rather unsavory and unpredictabilities in modern quantum dynamics and the implications are very fantastical at worst, and literally damaging to the understanding of the foundation and nature of all Cosmology as we know it today!

The experiment was originally referred to as Shroedinger’s Cat. However, its modern interpretation is using a mouse.

Imagine the following:

You are walking down a hallway. You come to a door. You open the door. You turn on the light. You step into the room. You close the door behind you. In front of you is a table. You walk to the table and on the table is a box. The box has a sign on it that says, “open me”. You open it. And inside the box is a mouse under glass, a device under the glass with the mouse with timer attached to it and a wire running from the device outside the glass to a button. There is a note next to button. The note reads: This is a radioactive isotope. The isotope has a half life of 1 half hour. The isotope is very deadly to the mouse, but not to you. Please press the button, and that will release the timer and in turn the radioactive isotope. And then return 1 hour from now.” Being a diligent part of the experiment, you push the button. You close the lid of the box. You turn and walk to the door, you open the door, you turn off the light, you walk out of the room and as you do, you close the door and walk down the hallway. 1 hour and 1 minute later you return. You walk down the same hallway. You come to the same door. You open the door. You turn on the light. You step into the room. You close the door behind you. You walk to the table and the box. Before you open the box, you ask yourself one question. “Is the mouse Dead or Alive ?”.

The Interesting Part!

Logically, rationally, reasonably you would think that the mouse is dead. And we know this because the note inside the box said, “The isotope is very deadly to the mouse.”, And you would be wrong in thinking that! (there’s a reason for this, go with me on this one) Well then, you’d logically discern that if the mouse isn’t dead, then it must be alive…obviously, right ? And again, you’d be WRONG! Wait, how can the mouse not be dead and NOT be alive. It has to be ONE or the OTHER, right ? And this is the point of the thought experiment right here. Let’s back up a moment though, there’s something we’ve forgotton about, which is relevant to our predicament as tango dancers.

Ask yourself the following question: What color was the door to the room ? Further more what was the door made of ? Further still, can you describe the handle on the door for me ? How about this one: When you walked into the room, can you describe the table that the box is sitting on ? How about what kind of light is there in the room ?

Why ask these questions ? Again, go with me on this one. There’s a pay off. Seriously, stop here and ask yourself the questions, don’t keep reading…I’ll listen for you when you’re ready.

Ready ?

When I asked you to imagine the door, and now I’m asking you to describe the door to me, did I tell you what kind of door it was in the description above ? No, I didn’t. Your mind filled in the details of the door, the handle, what it was made of, what it felt like, and so on. The same thing is true of the table and the box. Your mind filled in from the word constructs that I gave you, a description of what the room was like. Now because of that description you’ve given that room certain properties. Non-linear properties that are bound to our world. The properties are what we’re after here, specfically, we all literally subscribe to a local shared reality. Constructs that mean something. Words that mean something. It gives our world depth, shape, mass, structure…etc. Meaning that when I say “TABLE”, we can all agree on what the function of a table is. However, what the table looks like, and what condition it is in space, and time, and what it is literally interacting with is a whole different ball of wax! Meaning that your TABLE and my TABLE are two different things entirely, and literally. You get to decide what that table looks like, but to a point how it operates in the world. Just like in the matrix we heard Morpheus say to Neo that “Some rules can be bent, Others can be broken”, well the same is true here. We decide how this reality functions to a certain degree. And that’s because this is a SHARED reality. Meaning that we all have to agree to those rules of reality. On some level we are conscious of those rules and on some level we are not. There’s also a tango analogy here which I’ll get into in a moment….

Now, back to the experiment, and the mouse, so what happened to the mouse ? The mouse exists in a state of POSSIBILITIES of what might happen. That’s because the moment at which we observe the mouse, or actually even conceive and understand what we’re looking at, the very fabric of the mouse’s disposition may change: It may be dead. It may be alive. It may have chewed its way of the box. It may have been wounded by the isotope but not killed and is in state of death or in a state of healing. The timer never went off. The isotope was mislabeled, and the one that was used wasn’t deadly at all. The mouse has a super-metabolism that prevents the effects of the isotope from harming it. The electrical components of the device failed due to proximity of the radioactivity and the isotope was never released. The isotope was inert by the time you got to it. The mouse was already dead from not eating anything until you decided to open the box again. Any of a thousand things could have happened. Any or all of these things could have happened, thereby affecting the outcome of the mouse’s disposition in the hour that has transpired. In layman’s terms, something could have gone wrong with reality!

The part of the experiment that we’re interested in is the part where just before you open the box…the first time! The first time ? Yes, the first time. Because in that moment you observed, and understood what was in the box, you literally decided how this physical reality is going to play out! Go back and re-read what I wrote, you’ll see that there’s a lot of room for interpretation of what could happen.

Ok, so that’s physics, how does that relate to TANGO Miles ????

It relates because of how you describe your experience of the dance, the word constructs that you use to describe it, is what it becomes. And in doing so you can either give over your power, or not. By describing something as “WAITING”, you are literally deciding to define your following or leading experience as a power dynamic not a conversation.

Capice ?

Now one more thing. The tango analogy I spoke of above refers to that because of local shared reality, there are limits to what you can and can’t do. Well the same thing is true in tango. Which is to say, for example, how you start the move and how you end the move is implied, how you excute it is up to you. Furthermore, or further still, still another constraint wouild be the musical constraints: If its not in the music, then its not on the floor! Which is to say, again, in the matrix, “there are rules that can be bent….and there are rules that can be broken”. There are limits to the lead/follow dynamic. Certain constraints that we imply within the construct of the dance. Those limitations, would in this case be musical in nature. Still another limitation is that we exist in a certain structure of movement and opportunities within the dance. And because of that, there are only a limited sub-set of options and opportunities that we can draw on. Which is a long winded way of saying that there are only 7 basic movements that we can play with, and because of that there only so many outcomes! However, within that structure there is seemingly almost infinite possibilities! Welcome to tango.

First let’s get on the same page as to what I’m yapping about: look at 1:42 to 1:51.

That’s Chicho at the beginning of his huge popularity with one of his earlier partners, the fabulous and outstanding, Eugenia Parilla. What you’re looking for is this: After Chicho comes out of the hanging colgada at 1:42, he deliberately takes a double step, and that double step puts him in the right position for hitting the upbeat or in this case, the accent beats for the next 9 seconds. That, my friends, is hitting the upbeat. And while Chicho makes this look incredible simple. It is anything but that. The reason he makes this look really simple is one word: PRACTICE. Like all things, you must practice, practice, practice it in order to get it.

Ok, so now that we have an understanding of what you’re wanting to do. The question will arise, WHY would you want to do this ? Because to be honest with you, when done improperly or without regard, you’re going to look VERY foolish and your leader or follower is going to scratch their mental tango heads and wonder if you’ve lost your frakkin tango minds. The choice that Chicho makes here is an offset beat to accent the melody that’s playing in the music that he couldn’t do any other way except to go counter beat!

So that’s the why, now we get to the more interesting part, HOW!

Let’s begin our illumination here:

First find a flat surface, and place your hand flat, fingers together, palm down on the surface.

Now let’s load up a familiar piece of music that I’ve used before to illustrate my point, Aretha Franklin’s “Rock Steady”. Look at 1:17 to 1:30. Note that she’s clapping ON the beat ?

Start the song from the beginning and find that same beat again, and this time, what I want you to do is pay attention to something that’s happening all by itself…without you doing anything at all. With your hand flat on the table Tap out the beat with the palm of the hand. As you’re tapping out the beat, note that your hand goes UP and then DOWN on the beat ? Notice that in the tapping you have to take your hand off the table, or go UP, and then down. That UP part is the UP beat that we’re wanting!

Now that we’ve identified the UP Beat. Now we actually want to hit it. This is a 3 step process to getting you into the upbeat and its VERY similar to what Chico does in the video above. Try it first with this sample piece of music where its so clearly defined what the beat is!

Step 1.) Find the Beat.

Step 2.) Double Time IT! What you’re going to do is instead of going up to lift your hand off the table, your going to double tap twice. That second tap, is NOW the upbeat!

Step 3.) Hold this upbeat steadily throughout the rest of the song.

This method takes time, patience, and at first a lot of mental energy to NOT tap on the downbeat or the 1. The first few times you do it, its gonna really throw you for a loop and seem like a daunting task. The reason for this is simple, because of the need for the mind to conform to order, and the beat is ORDER, the UPBEAT or OFF beat is CHAOS, the seemingly opposite of order. I have found that this method will get your mind around the process….and that’s the starting point, getting your mind around the process of learning the upbeat!

Ok, if you’ve gotten *THAT* far. Now we try this with a piece of tango music! Start with something VERY VERY simple and very rhythmical. Juan D’Arienzo’s “Pensalo Bien”

I’m not asking you to watch the video, I just wanted you to hear the same version of music that I’m hearing when I’m talking about this stuff.

Take a break, walk around a bit with this stuff in your head. Because the last step in this process is to walk with your partner on the off beat CONSISTENTLY!

Musicality. What is it ? Why use it ? Where can you find examples of it ? and more over…who the hell cares about it ?

In short, ‘Musicality’ as I define it is ‘Being Musical’….hmmm, that’s not much help to say that someone is ‘Being Musical’. If we dig a little deeper we see that the words are at issue here, the descriptors used to create understanding. Let’s try this again. You can be black, or white, or brown. You can be a republican or a democrat. You can be human. You can be a man or a woman. However, you can’t BE music! Its physically impossible. So what can you be as it relates to music ? You can be inside the music. You be next to the music. You can be in front of the music. You can be with the music. But can you BE musical ? No. Unfortunately you can’t. You can PLAY with the music, you can dance to the music, you can hear the music, you can understand the music, you can write the music…etc. But you can not be musical. Its, again, physically impossible! So why the distinction with the words. It is because I think one of the fundamental problems with teaching musicality today, as it relates to Argentine Tango, is how you describe ‘Musicality’ to start with. Which is why there are so many misunderstandings about it to begin with. I mean, by example, that if you ask 10 people to define musicality, you’ll get 10 different answers that have nothing to do with music at all but in fact have to do with steps to the beat. As a side note: How do I know this is true ? Because I run a private tango teaching group, just for teachers and this topic came up rather recently, and out of 30+ responses to the question, nearly every one of them had nothing to do with the question and had everything to do with when and where to step and on what beat.

So what IS musicality ? Musicality is better defined as having the ability to hear the music and to discern the beat, the rhythm, the musical pauses, the musical phrases, and the overall mood and emoted feeling of the composition, and then to place those discernments within the structure of the motions we would associate with tango.

This article is about those discernments, and 5 types of them.

1.) On the Beat.
2.) Note for Note.
3.) Musical Pauses.
4.) Musical Phrases.
5.) Musical Sequences (which are not the same as a phrase).

What do these mean ?

1.) ‘On the Beat’ means, that your follower is always on the strong beat, usually on the 1 in a 4 count (Tango), or a 1 in a 3 count (Vals), 1 in a 2 count (Milonga).

2.) ‘Note for Note’ means that when you are dancing you are trying to step every single note in the structure in the song. Generally this is not desirable dancing, its running around a lot and very very frenetic energy. However, there is a way to dance to hitting several seemingly fast notes, and this is called ‘Patter’.

3.) ‘Musical Pauses’ means that at the end of a 8 count (usually, but not always) there is a pause in the progression of notes. Dancing to the musical pauses is in its simplest form, walking on the beat and coming to a pause at the end of an 8 count, and here’s the kicker…continuing on. Its like when you’re driving down the street and you come to a flashing yellow light, you slow down a bit, to pause for oncoming traffic and then continue on…

4.) ‘Musical Phrases’, means that there a sequences of musical pauses that will in fact ‘repeat’. In tango music we have a structure that is akin to a conversation. That conversation goes like this -> Greeting, Introduction, Conversation, Closure. Typically a Musical Phrase fits within one of these 4 structures, that essentially is a sentence within the structure of either the greeting, introduction, etc….yes ? Dancing to the musical phrase is a good way to add accent to your dance. So you are structuring your vocabulary choices in time to the music, building or degrading (deliberately) to the rise in fall of the phrasing of the music.

5.) ‘Musical Sequences’, are whole sections of musical phrases strung together. When dancing to Musical Sequences you are thinking about the long term and not the note for note described above, but instead thinking of how you’d like to structure your vocabulary choices to fit the entire sequence of music that you’re hearing. For example, instead of hitting every single musical pause that happens in 4 musical phrases (or depending on the orchestra, 3 pauses per phrase), you would hit the first one of each phrase, and the very last one of sequence, but NOT the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th of each. Why ? Because its repetitive, and breaks the book ended structure you’re trying to create.

So with that said, I will tell you this much. Dancing to the #1 is a lot easier than dancing to #5. But in order to do that, you must hear the beat, and to be honest with you most people do not in fact hear the beat. They hear the rhythm, and think that’s the beat OR they dance to the upbeat and not the down Or they walk all over the beat, never hitting it. Truth be told, I was an offender of the last one for years. It took a concerted effort of developing my listening skills to actually hear what I was dancing to, and then to put that on the floor. Which strange as it may sounds, is easier than it sounds like. What I mean by that is that hearing the beat is one thing, placing your partner on that beat is a whole different animal!

Ok, so now that I’ve defined 5 types of musicality….now what ? Big deal. Who the hell cares, right ? Well actually you should. Whether you are a lead or a follower. I’m sorry…what Miles ? A follower ? (typically the follower is a ‘she’ so pardon the pronoun usage). She doesn’t need to know the music…she just has to follow. And there my friends you would be wrong. I strongly believe that it is the role of the follower to be cogniscent and aware of what she’s being led to and on what beat and why! So forgive me for saying this, SHE needs to be a tad more active in her following abilities than in years past…not unless you like dragging around a 120+ pd weight in your arms!

So why should you care about these definitions ? The simplest reason is that I am hoping that it will spark some level of interest in what you are doing and more over WHY. That interest should, I am hoping, to get you to listen to the music, and re-examine why you’re doing X, Y, and Z over and over and over again, and instead, make different choices. Vastly different choices. My grandest wish is that you start to re-listen to your favorite musical choices, and wonder…why do I do that to this piece of music but not another. Or you start to listen to other composers, and wonder how best to dance to X, Y, and Z. Another wish, although I know its a pipe dream at best, is that you take these ideas that I’ve presented herein and expand on them, change them, explore them, and then challenge me with them!

However before we get into the nitty gritty of what Disassociation is and isn’t, we need to clear up something that is very similar and has a very familiar feel and that you may confuse with Disassociation: Opposition. Far too often in classes, workshops, and even in technique conversations in the last few years I have been party to, I keep hearing these two words bandied about as if they are interchangeble. They are not. Opposition, or as its sometimes referred to “Contra Body” is not the same thing. The reason for this is very simple. Opposition is a natural act, Disassociation is not, as shown here:

In short ‘Opposition’ as it relates to Argentine Tango is a natural act. We, as human beings, over the last few million years have evolved to utilize this ‘skill’ in order to walk upright in way that allows to balance ourselves over two legs.

Disassociation on the other hand is an unnatural act. It is most definitely engaged and most definitely the foundation of everything circular in the dance. One might even say that Disassociation as defined, would be an isolation technique, and that would be correct. While disassociation is an isolation technique, on the surface, there is great deal more going on there beneath! Something of note here, the ‘engaged’ I mention here are the core obliques that are being activated and required to work, they are not used to doing this kind of work of literally ‘spiraling’ or rotating around your spinal column. So at first we do use a level of over engagement to get ourselves moving to accomplish the goal of disassociation, but over time…it lessens and so we end up with:

I display both here so that you see the difference, because the question comes up a lot, as to what the difference between them is and why to use one and when to you would use the other. I believe it is very important to differentiate between them, because there’s what you do, and then there’s what you call it!

So what is “Applied Disassociation” ? Applied Disassociation takes Disassociation into new places. Its the ‘application’ of disassociation in a tango sense. In other words, what you can do with Disassociation, which is why its called ‘APPLIED’ Disassociation. What’s shown in the video below is just one idea, or one application:

There are others, such as this one:

and this one:

To be fair, Homer Ladas talks about ‘Spiral’ energy in his classes, which he is employing here in this video, along with a concept which he calls, ‘engagement’. ‘Engagement’ can be a feature of Applied Disassociation but they’re not the same thing. ‘Engagement’ is an entirely different technique, and its best to ask Homer for his complete definition of ‘Engagement’. I would not want to speak for the man as that would disrespectful of him.

Lastly, I have created a whole series of tango ‘boot camp’ videos, which focuses on foundational techniques discussed herein. If you are interested in seeing more of these, please contact me directly as they are not for public distribution.