My Tango Diaries

Second class of Javier Rochwarger's Workshops at Esquina Tango, Austin     (Background: I've had classes/lessons with Javier Rochwarger for the last 3 years. He makes his annual visit to Esquina Tango here in Austin every Spring. You can read about two of my previous experiences here: Spring, 2011 and here: Summer, 2012 . ) Group Classes One of the reasons Javier is so popular is that everything he teaches in group classes is taught in the context of the social dance. The movements and the technique are intended for dancing on a populated floor, and respecting the line of dance. He talks about listening to the structure of the music and understanding movement in terms of the music's grammar. His classes have always been filled with beautiful and immediately applicable skills on the milonga floor. Javier's focus is on the quality of the embrace and of the dancer's movement - not so much on sequences, though he does use them. When he uses a sequ...

(I am not using the name of the teacher in this post, even though my follow-up posts will identify him, because it doesn't really matter who the teacher is for this subject - and I don't want to get distracted in defending or attacking his style of dancing/teaching etc.) The continuing adventures of a slow learner . . .   It is deeply disheartening to have my yearly private lesson with a teacher I've studied with the last 3 years, and be corrected for the same mistakes I've been making for the same . three . years. The first year, he was very understanding. I was still pretty new - only dancing a year. The next year he pushed a little harder and I made excuses. I said I would practice - I would work on it. This year was intensely frustrating. These were things I should have resolved by now - fundamental issues with my embrace, control of my axis, how I change weight. The foundation of tango. Instead of becoming defensive in the lesson...

Move along, nothing to see here . . . .     I had a 'talking to' no less than 3 times weekend before last - all by dancers I deeply respect and admire. They were each very helpful, well-reasoned arguments against what I had "taken to doing lately with a particular leader." When it happened, I knew I'd hear about it.  Mouths turned down at the corners, eyebrows knitted and furrowed, a couple of quiet comments were made. On the milonga floor, my leader was breaking the rules, and I was not only letting him, but worse, I was also grinning madly in response. It was a threefold milonga scandal: 1. My leader and I changed the embrace from a traditional abrazo, to what would look like an odd practice embrace - his arms over my shoulders and my arms around his ribcage (he's quite a bit taller than I am). It looked like I'd given him a big hug and we just started moving. I'll get to the reason for this in a moment - for now, just know ...