Tangodurians

Chalk up another Tango memory for the ages. Dancing. In the Rain. On Pavement. And a Speedbump. With a Crowd. The rain was the best part even though we all looked like drowned rats by the end with broken ankles and destroyed shoes, but wow. Gave life to the saying "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain." Been immersing myself in the Sg scene since I'm down and I must say that it's different and much as I'm missing home, so am I missing the KL scene with my wonderful female followers and crazy banter and milongas with S. Sigh. Truly home. But it's refreshing not quite knowing anyone and being surprised in this dance again. That has been nice. That and the mamak sessions post Tango where I pay 2.6x more the price of KL and have seemingly MSG-less maggi mee goreng (NOOOO). Healthier I guess and a lot orangier for some strange reason! I like this plateau I'm on. Granted my feet still aren'...

Tangoblitz wrapping up this weekend with Alejandra Hobart and Adrian Veredice, good sessions, always refreshing to see the level that professionals get up to. Notes, notes, notes! Parallel vs Cross Systems The L shaped lead-linear - Leader leads on dual track system (to the left and to the right of him) -Follower crosses across this track using a back step, side step and a cross over front ocho-forming L shapes zig-zagging back and forth -Leader strides forward on the beat while follower is on a 1+, 2 beat-option to twist the hip into a front boleo for the follower, leader must change weight with every 1-2 step -Leader starts on right foot and follower on left foot   which is the foot further away-Mirror start=parallel system-sacada happens to the cross over track (guy left, girl right) -Variation is to have leader start on left foot and follower on left foot-non-mirror=cross system-sacada happens on the parallel track (guy right, girl right) The L shaped lead-circu...

I remember reading about the stages of Tango Understanding we go through-(see http://www.tejastango.com/effortless_mastery.html) 1) Unconscious incompetence 2) Conscious incompetence 3) Conscious competence 4) Unconscious competence These definitions definitely hit the spot for describing how tango progresses. Point is this-the more I slip into the leader role the more I realise I have absolutely no idea how to recreate whatever moves I did at whatever point in time. No choreography because half the time I have no inkling of what made me do a move in the first place...except the music. It's all down to the music. So beautiful it hurts! :') Blitzing this weekend! WOOHOO.

Been putting on the hat of a leader over this past week and enjoying it even more. Yeah I have no idea how to do giros or sacadas, and don't talk about ganchos either, but what I've figured is that as long as musicality is there, as long as connection exists, both parties enjoy it. This has made me wonder about something though-I always thought that leaders were having all the fun at the start-in the sense that the steps that are taken in this dance are dependent on the leaders to have trained and learnt them-as a follower you can follow even if you don't know much about what you are doing, as long as the leader does. All the classes then seem to be about the leader's steps. But then I've also come to realise that, as a leader, you are expected to craft the dance to understand the steps through the viewpoint of the lady, and maybe this is where many teachers don't emphasize enough. That every step you take, you have to realise what signals you are giving ou...