My Tango Diaries

(Grisha performing at Esquina Tango, Austin, TX) Lessons with Gregory "Grisha" Nisnevich are always fun and very rewarding. My partner and I shared an hour lesson to work on basic technique, but also to learn some more versatile options for milonga and for some Biagi pieces. If you've got musicality stuff to work on, Grisha's a wonderful resource. Not surprising, my right hip still locks through side steps and some turns, but not as much - and I can get it out more smoothly now. In fact Grisha worked with both my partner and me on releasing the tension in our hips to keep from locking them. My balance is still an issue, though. For short movements, a few steps, maybe a molinete, not so much a problem. When Grisha led a couple molinetes in a longer sequence, however, I was not so consistent. At the end he'd lightly let go of me, and I'd tilt forward slightly before regaining my balance. (I was also "drifting" away from him in turns.) My balance is be...

It's all in the hips . . . Well, all in my *right* hip - the trouble, that is. I suffered a labral tear in dance class many, many years ago and even though my hip rolled back into place fairly quickly, the damage stuck around for quite awhile. Since I started tango, I've had to learn how to dance on a hip that doesn't pivot right and locks whenever I place my balance over it. When I started doing the physical therapy exercises I remembered from way-back-when, I thought the locking was mostly a case of "guarding behavior' - favoring and protecting the hip that was injured. But as I've tried to work on it, it isn't a matter of just loosening up, or not actively locking the hip - it's a matter of relearning how to move on that hip. Right now I can't do the exercise in tango-blog.com's side step exercise (see video) without my right hip locking. I can unlock it/loosen it when I notice it, but it takes time and attention. When dancing, I've mostl...

Part I - A Very Long Diversion into the Embrace.. The tango embrace is my greatest source of pleasure from this dance. It is also my greatest frustration. Every leader is different, and so is every teacher. My most negative experience in a tango workshop was being told in front of an entire class that my embrace was (in much harsher terms than this) unacceptable . Even as I was being corrected and told to keep my hand on the leader's right shoulder blade, I felt like the corrected embrace was not very comfortable for me, especially as my partner at the time was shorter than I was. But I did what I was told. In that embrace I had the option of my elbow jutting out (creating a gap between the bend of my elbow and my leader's shoulder) or pulling my elbow in and down, thereby restricting the movement of my leader's right arm. I kept as light as I could, so that I wouldn't weigh his arm down, but I still felt a little more disconnected and like I was constantly lagging behi...