Ridiculous difficulties!

During my tango years I have become aware of the fact that we are transforming a simple process of dancing to something difficult!  We define the distances, the way we approach the dance partner and all the other small details presented.

Your can open a door but if you need to do it in the Finnish way - then the whole process will turn to  VERY complicated collection of steps which are nearly impossible to perform smoothly!

When watching this old video you could think about your tango history in a class!

    the rhythmically correct way, the critical left foot step, to change weight correctly

 some other similarities? 

There are English subtitles for you if your Finish language skills need some support

Shouldn't we start to reclaim the easy way to learn?

Eleonora Kalganova Women's Technique 5

When you see her dancing you will remember her!

The footwork is fantastic and I understand why after seeing her exercise. They differ from other videos because the movements are so small that you are actually able to apply this on your dance, and use on the pista!

Enjoy!





Here you have a walz from September this year!

At Bennie Bartels' Tango/Feldenkrais WS

According to the information we got before the workshop, Bennie Bartels has a background as a professional dancer and a Feldenkrais practitioner.

With his own words about the subject:

"My focus in my teaching has always been to come to a deeper and more meaningful understanding of this "exotic" dance, to hand people clear and simple tools and a body awareness, to enable dancers to do what they want.
Understanding how grounding, uprightness, tension, travel of force through the body, intention and organisation, to be light but substantial, touch and energy work, is essential to dance a satisfying, pleasuralbe and communicative tango.

Feldenkrais is a non-corrective, exploring and playful technique through awareness and sensing. It is not static or abstract but works with process, movement and function (direction).
It is the best technique I have found in all these years of exploring movement and dance, that gives a great and helpful insight in all these processes. At the same time preventing injury and keeping you fit and with energy for your daily life.

The moving, dynamic and grounding side of the tango, next to a meaningful connection and a two way communication to create the music of the dance, is what I find very important to make people learn and understood.

The combination Tango and Feldenkrais create a philosophy for me, of an approach and a way of learning in which each person creates his or her own individual and unique style and dance".

We had 10 + 1 hours of training during this weekend with 2 h Feldenkrais and the 8+1 hour tango related exercises and games. The group had different backgrounds but he managed to keep us together quite well during these hours.

When I compare his pick of the teaching items, the methods and the pedagogical take with my earlier experiences with different teachers he is doing extremely well, especially on the connection issues and integrating the movements. Some of the delicate insights of technique and the responsibility of process within a couple were also well addressed during the hours.

Bennie and two students working on an abrazo exercise.

Two of my favorite principles we were working with!

The elbow management: If we both are stabilizing the elbows slightly in front of us - not stiff but stable - the feeling of connection is more easily created.

The integrated movement: We had several exercises and games to create a movement which involved the whole body. Many times we are creating the movement by moving just an isolated part of the body - we move the feet and the leg is moving from our hips - but the rest of the body is still. If the leader is just moving his leg and his chest is still it is impossibly for the follower to know what is happening. With his long experience Bennie could find different ways to explain and get us on board.

My special gratitude goes to his work to give the followers tools to take the responsibility for their own position and situation!

Thanks to you Fotini for organizing this weekend and Bennie for the insights!

The earliest youtube videos I found were from 2008 so he has been active with tango - as a dancer and teacher - for a long time.

https://youtu.be/B8SYn2vTL4I
https://youtu.be/FfelhJ9BH2w
https://youtu.be/NCkEVoA3ITE

I just love these sidesteps!  I found this video on Bennies homepage too.
https://youtu.be/d8Si3MHaqk4

Bennies homepage: http://benniebartels.me/about/

Teachers or Youtube?

Today we are living in the expert world so we don't believe on our own ability to see, understand and apply our own ideas on our dance. We want quite exact guidance from a teacher and we want to get forward at racer speed. This gives us a very strong from outside to inside learning and we create a more homogeneous pista, less variation on a figure.

In the old world the dancers were watching the skilled local dancers and then tried to do something similar. The learning was from outside to inside but I think that the results were more or less individual.

There are also stories how a dancer wanted to go around and found a way to do so. All the results were different creating a jungle of movements and an utterly diversified pista.The learning was from inside to outside.

To learn from youtube is a kind of modern variation of this old type of learning!

Back to practica!

If you need to look down when processing a figure it is not mature for a milonga night.
When you test the maturity of a figure your should be able to do it with different partners, to different music, in different sizes and without thoughts about how you should place your feet or torso.

Otherwise work on it at the practica!

Relearn every five years!

Why should we accept the statement which is tumbling around and saying that you need to
GET tango RIGHT from the BEGINNING.

When I started to learn tango I had been walking for 45 years with different faults!

In the first wave I learned an open salong walk untill the Nuevo steps swept me away.

Today it is nearly and mostly milonguero but you never know when I jump to other steps!

You can just trust on your body  - it will relearn and develop to the direction you want!

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The hidden followers

There are teachers who create copies. You can recognize the movements and sometimes the similarities go down to clothes and hair cut. I feel sorry when seeing it.

Amanda and Adrian Costa are tango teachers who give their students the right to find their own expressions and steps. They train your technique, musicality and musical interpretation, but you choose your steps yourself.

You will have difficulties to spot their students based on the visual similarities.

I like that! I appreciate that a lot!

Please enjoy Adrian and Amanda @Tango South London!      

(the picture is not linked. use the one above, please)   

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmKGMRR5W1k

Theories for tango steps

There are very few theoreticians in tango but Mauricio Castro is one. I have been struggling through his books TANGO.Die Struktur des Tanzes I and volume II. Yes it would have been easier in English but those volumes were sold out at that time so I needed to activate my German, from early days in my life. (are available in English now)

It was a glad surprise to meet him at our local milonga at Pelé and chat for a while!

You can check his ideas in books at Amazon

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=mauricio%20castro

Game for better life!

Jane McGonigal's game SuperBetter and her TED talk emphasizes the idea of training your mental muscles to cope with the difficulties of your life.

Link to the video!    

There is a commercial verson of this game but I will test my own one!

The strengths to be trained:
Physical strength - I go up every hour
Mental strength - I stick to my small goals and let them grow on the way
Emotional strength - look and read about something which makes me feel good
Social strength - connect to someone

Activities:
Create an Avatar - it unlocks me from my everyday boundaries
Ask people play with me - It is easier than asking for help
Identify the bad guys - define what is driving me down
Fine my allies - they are coming in bigger numbers than I think
Define my goals - walk 10 m, if it is my maximum.  MY goals, just that!