Sex is Just a Crude Substitute for Tango - Page Title

Sex is Just a Crude Substitute for Tango or
Tango Collected A collection of comments about tango, for beginners By Bill Swan Copyright 2010 William M Swan Smashwords Edition. Not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without author's permission. You may quote from this text. Please cite the source: title and author. Table of Contents You can skip around in this book. I skipped around when I wrote it. And I
left some repetitions in, so you don't need to have read earlier sections.
So jump to any topic that interests you. In particular, discussions of
discrete tango movements will make more sense if you are just now working
on them. So skip and come back, whenever you feel like it. Apology Teasers Getting Started Haven't Tangoed Yet Beginning Tango Classes Beginning Leads Beginning Follows Intermediate Classes Teaching and Learning Teachers Teaching Teaching Men Teaching Women Learning with a Partner Tango Vocabulary Ballet for Tango Social Considerations What Women Wear What Men Wear Dances, practice, and classes Sex and Tango Couples Traditions at Milonga Dances Dancing the Floor The Tanda The Cortina Invitations to Dance Eye Contact Hugs, Embraces, and Kisses Fundamentals Posture Exercises The Embrace How Strong an Embrace? Lead Footwork The Axis of Power Over-done Social Worries Who asks you to Dance Saying No Hometown Partners Dating and Tango Tango Classes Obstructions and Bad Drivers Enrichments Protective Circle A Good Evening Magic Tangos Cinderella and the Magic Tango Clean Lead and Follow Musicality Soul Buenos Aires Alternative Music Alternative Partners Coaching the Fundamentals The Lean Balance Feet Right Arm Position Right Hand Elbows Height Timing Necking Automatic Steps Perspectives on Basic Moves Sidestep Walking The Cross Back Ochos Ocho Cortado All about the Embrace The Embrace: Standing Still The Embrace: Moving The Embrace: Leaning The Embrace: Gains and Losses Fixing the Embrace Advanced Round-up Exercise for Knees that Hurt More about Women's Shoes Always the Lead's Fault Decorating Frustration Tango Code of Honor Partnering Tips The End Apology Tango teachers loose track of what it is like to be a beginner. So as I
learned I wrote down what I needed to learn, beyond tango steps. This is
the result. Mostly, it is about the personal and social parts of learning
tango. And you can skip about in it; you needn't read straight through.
Some things advanced dancers will disagree with. Other things may be just
plain wrong. But your state of ignorance should be an improved state of
ignorance, after you have browsed through these comments. At least that is
my hope. You will have the rest of your life to correct. Learning tango
is never finished. Until you have been dead for three days.
Teasers Quotes from the various sections Getting Started Tango is rich in drama, poetry, and motion. But you already know this.
What you need to know to get started is how far off is being able to dance
real tango, and how do I get there?.......The rule is that divorce leads to
tango, not the other way around......Follows who give advice do not dance
nearly as often as follows who give sympathy. Teaching and Learning Tango is 50% musicality, 40% embrace, and 10% steps......Frustration comes
before learning, but lots of frustration does not come before lots of
learning......The embrace is just as much about you telling him what your
body is doing as it is about his telling your body what to do......Beware
the "secret" step. Many teachers, particularly Argentine leads, will have
a weight-change that is so natural to them that they fail to mention it
when explaining the step......It would be handy if teachers themselves used
these terms consistently from one end of the class to the other. But then,
if they were that consistent, would they really be good at something as
improvisational as tango?.....If you do not have the posture and styling of
tango to begin with, advanced moves won't be tango, no matter what music is
playing......Tango is just walking, with attitude. Social Considerations One of the advantages of tango is it gives women permission to dress
outrageously in a safe environment.......To summarize: Argentine-tango
women dress like tramps, nuevo-tango women dress like bums. Men don't
really dress at all.......Skill, as in all dance, is learned so you can
throw it away......I leave aside the question of whether casual sexual
intercourse can in any sense be viewed as an improvement in your sex
life......You still have to know how to deal with the cads and the princes,
the gold-diggers and the princesses, just like in normal life. Traditions at Milonga Dances Come early before the floor fills up. Sit out the crowd in the middle
hours, and stay late for the open floor and better dancers in the wee
hours.....If you do not make a few mistakes here, you are not taking enough
chances and dancing too much within yourselves. You must adventure,
together.......The dance part of my brain is widely separated from the
talking part of my brain. So much so that often I struggle to awake the
verbal skill to speak at the end of a particularly sweet dance.......At
some point you will be told that the only acceptable invitation to Tango is
by the "cabeceo," also referred to as "the look.".....At the other extreme,
I have ended up dancing the bartender, as she came out from behind the bar
when I looked at her to get a glass of wine......Kisses in the dance world
mean those cheek-to-cheek things where the kiss itself is a little noise
made softly by the ear.....As near as I can tell, you kiss women of Latin,
Southern, or Eastern European backgrounds as soon as you know them
moderately well or if you are introduced by someone you know well; you kiss
really good dancers, because they are honorary Argentines; but you don't
bother trying with Nordics or WASPS as it only embarrasses them and they
get flustered. Fundamentals Alignment is position. Posture is position plus attitude......In some
sense there are no lead "steps." Just steps for the follow. There are
only lead positions......Tango is improvisation, and improv makes mistakes.
Mistakes that work are creative. Mistakes that don't work just
are.....Skill is about the basics. So is joy. Over-done Social Worries Reconsider where you hang out between tandas. And maybe wear a brighter
color. Showing up is half the battle.......It takes a lot of confidence to
lead, and a confident lead is a smoother and more musical lead......It is
easy, comfortable, and social to dance only the ones you know. But it is a
mistake-both a social mistake and a mistake in how to live......Working at
the male level requires that invitations be clear, simple, direct, and of
sufficient duration to register and get a response.......You want your
social leads to be a clear, comforting, and considerate as your tango
leads. And for follows, as receptive, responsive, and respectable as your
tango follow......Tango teaches you to pay attention to your partner, to be
sensitive to moods, to express yourself with touch, to cooperate and
support-in short a host of things that make you a better partner, should
you ever be foolish enough to give up tango and take up dating
instead.....To hold a beloved partner in your arms, to have good music, and
to have no safe space to dance in; it is almost the definition of
misery......He is abjectly at fault. Once is a mistake. It might be
forgiven. Twice is a character flaw. Enrichments Sex can be embarrassing. Tango's sensuality is enthralling......Tango is
about unrequited love. Love that is fully and regularly requited does not
have the same edge......The final secret to being thought to be a "clear
lead" is following the step that the follow took, not the one you tried to
lead......Movement on the music is marching. Movement to the music is
dancing......As near as I can tell, they are faking it......But if you are
not paying attention to your partner, and this goes for the women as well
as the men, you are just dancing. You are not doing tango. Coaching the Fundamentals If you touch her ass, it is either a rare mistake, or you need to take up
some less gentlemanly form of dance, at some other venue......Mock-violent
movements are part of tango, the extreme version being the old "apache"
dancing. ("Apache" means "passionate." As far as we know the indigenous
tribes of the American Southwest did not dance tango. Or if they did, they
did it gently.)......Tango is not danced by force of arms. It is
cooperation, not coercion. Perspectives on Basic Moves If you think about this too much, you will get all tippy and wonder how you
can ever walk at all, without falling over.......Basically, the cross is a
kiss. It can be a punctuation mark. Or it can be sex. Decide which you
want. But at least be able to choose.......When you have gotten past the
monkey-jump, and then past the John-Wayne, and you have a dignified step-
and-collect, you can begin to do a real back ocho. All about the Embrace You take up tango because of the flashy moves and passionate styling of
show tango. You keep tango for a lifetime because of the small, sweet
details of the close embrace......There will come a time in your tango
career when at the end of a song or a tanda, you hold the embrace unmov