Tango-L mailing list archive: Digest 16 Dec 1999 to 17 Dec 1999

The Tango-L mailing list archive

Digest from 16 Dec 1999 to 17 Dec 1999

Reply-To: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU> To: Recipients of TANGO-L digests <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU> Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 03:00:01 -0500 Sender: Discussion of Any Aspect of the Argentine Tango <TANGO-L @MITVMA.MIT.EDU> From: Automatic digest processor <LISTSERV @MITVMA.MIT.EDU> Subject: TANGO-L Digest - 16 Dec 1999 to 17 Dec 1999 (#1999-93)

There are 7 messages totalling 376 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. Learning Tango from Videos and Otherwise 2. learning tango from videos (4) 3. Learning from videos 4. Teaching and videos

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Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 10:31:49 -0600 From: Stephen P Brown <Stephen.P.Brown @DAL.FRB.ORG> Subject: Learning Tango from Videos and Otherwise Manuel Patino wrote: >Michael and Timothy are correct in that it is far more useful to learn to >lead and follow than to try to memorize any sequence of steps. ... >I've seen what happens to single people who try to learn in a similar >manner, by watching instructional videos and mimicking the movements of the >teachers without learning what really is taking place. ... >Things can work out a little better when a couple tries to learn from >videos. Since they work together they might actually learn to mimic the >couple of instructors so the sequence comes out looking OK (from the >outside). Of course, when they try to replicate their success with other >partners, they will generally have problems too. I too have reservations about the use of videos (commercial or otherwise) over live instruction. Few of the commercial videos that I am aware of really do a good job of explaining leading and following skills. Most teach the leaders and followers steps, and all but a few by Daniel Trenner reduce tango to sequences of steps. Consequently, I agree with Manuel that only students who learn to move well and to lead and follow can use videos to good advantage. But, I think these comments can just as easily be applied to group instruction with many professors. In most of the workshop classes I have taken, the emphasis has been on learning sequences of steps, rather than on moving well or leading and following skills. For most of these workshops, students who have learned to move well and to lead and follow can use the steps they learn in these workshops to great advantage. For those who do not move well or who cannot lead and follow, however, the result of either watching videos or taking classes that emphasize new sequences of steps is not so clear. I have often wondered why some people who have attended numerous tango weeks or taken organized tango tours to Buenos Aires do not seem to develop tango skills. I suspect it is because they never really learned to move well nor to lead and follow. --Steve de Tejas

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 12:19:08 EST From: Timothy Pogros <TimmyTango @AOL.COM> Subject: learning tango from videos I feel sorry for any organization who learn tango solely from video tapes. So much is missed due to the lack of time on the tape, the instructors only give you a synopsis of what is really there. They want you to buy the video tape, so they must give you an abundance of steps. EXCEPT I just got my video tapes of Carlos Copello and Alicia Monti and I must say these tape excel everyone else's. They show you a bunch of different steps, but then go into much detail the lead and follow to create those steps. Tape No. 3 shows many amalgamation of many steps put together, which I've seen no one else ever do. The best tape is No. 4 The Seduction. They talk right at you as if you were there in front of them teaching you the passion, the fire of the steps. Why it isn't just a bunch of steps put together that make the tango but the silent communication between two people that make the tango what it is I totally recommend to everyone to buy these tapes. Other wise bring the real thing to your community to teach instead of video tapes. Tim Pogros (TimmyTango)

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 13:47:02 -0500 From: Jorge Navarro <jorge @XMAIL.COM> Subject: Re: learning tango from videos Regarding Carlos and his tapes. To be safe, just buy the tapes. Or you may get to feel that "real thing" when Carlos screams in your face when you make a mistake. All this talk about movement vs. steps. You can't move around the floor without steps! And students, especially beginners, get bored or discouraged, when a teacher spends too much time on walking vs. fancy steps, ganchos, boleos, and adornos. It's mostly the advanced students who understand the imporatnce of proper walking and balance. So, it is a difficult issue to solve, especially for professional teachers who need new students to make a living, as opposed to amatures who teach for fun and for the love of the Tango. One other comment. For how many years was Trenner teaching until he met Tete, and learned from him? Tete has very few steps - he just walks to music, beautifully. And Trenner now says that he's been greatly influenced by Tete. It's like that saying: "The more you know the more you understand how little you know." Regards, Jorge. ===================== Sent by Xmail www.Xmail.com Get your free mail account at www.xmail.com

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 13:19:59 -0600 From: Stephen P Brown <Stephen.P.Brown @DAL.FRB.ORG> Subject: Re: learning tango from videos Jorge Navarro wrote: >All this talk about movement vs. steps. You can't move around the floor without >steps! And students, especially beginners, get bored or discouraged, when a >teacher spends too much time on walking vs. fancy steps, ganchos, boleos, and >adornos. It's mostly the advanced students who understand the importance of >proper walking and balance. Jorge's remarks are well taken, but it raises the question as to why some remain permanent beginners and others advance even as they are taking the same classes or watching the same videos. I suspect that those who remain permanent beginners continue to see tango as sequences of steps to be memorized, and have neither learned to move well nor to lead and follow. >So, it is a difficult issue to solve, especially for professional teachers who >need new students to make a living, as opposed to amateurs who teach for fun >and for the love of the Tango. Absolutely! Teaching the inner craft of tango and attracting beginners is very difficult. Many teachers solve this problem by offering classes at different levels. Nonetheless, many dancers have taken numerous classes and progressed in their own minds without ever having learned the basic skills of movement or lead and follow. Believing the dance to be constructed of sequences of steps, these dancers are likely to learn as little from most "advanced" classes as they would from a video. --Steve de Tejas

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 17:32:01 -0000 From: white95r <white95r @HOTMAIL.COM> Subject: Re: learning tango from videos Jorge makes very good points. Of course one needs steps to move around the floor. I was using the term "steps" to describe a series of feet movements done in a certain sequence. It is somewhat simpler to mimic these movements by watching a tape without learning how to dance. The problem of students becoming bored or discouraged with walking and moving properly is very real. For one thing, walking per se is not as much "fun" as trying to do sequences of steps (however poorly). Also, it is frustrating because walking properly and moving the body properly is difficult and it's hard to hear all the corrections while doing something "so simple". Also, it is not only the teacher who depends on students for his income who must be careful. Any teacher of tango who alienates or frustrates or bore their students is not doing himself of tango any good. One always walks the fine line between correcting too much or too little or making them do "boring" technique drills. It is ironic that it is the most advanced students are usually the ones willing to work on their walking and body movements, while the more inexperienced ones are usually more interested in performing more elaborate or fancy moves. Manuel

Original Message ----- From: Jorge Navarro <jorge @XMAIL.COM> Sent: Thursday, December 16, 1999 6:47 PM Subject: Re: learning tango from videos > Regarding Carlos and his tapes. To be safe, just buy the tapes. Or you may get to feel that "real thing" when Carlos screams in your face when you make a mistake. > > All this talk about movement vs. steps. You can't move around the floor without steps! And students, especially beginners, get bored or discouraged, when a teacher spends too much time on walking vs. fancy steps, ganchos, boleos, and adornos. It's mostly the advanced students who understand the imporatnce of proper walking and balance. > So, it is a difficult issue to solve, especially for professional teachers who need new students to make a living, as opposed to amatures who teach for fun and for the love of the Tango. > > One other comment. For how many years was Trenner teaching until he met Tete, and learned from him? Tete has very few steps - he just walks to music, beautifully. And Trenner now says that he's been greatly influenced by Tete. > > It's like that saying: "The more you know the more you understand how little you know." > > Regards, > Jorge.

Date: Fri, 17 Dec 1999 01:05:38 EST From: "Laurie Moseley (at home)" <LGMoseley @AOL.COM> Subject: Learning from videos I agree with almost everything so far said in this discussion. However, there are a couple of points that I'd like to add: Nothing is better than tuition from a good teacher, preferably an experienced one. That applies to both videos and tuition from less good teachers, however well-known they may be. The good teacher will explain position, relative body positions, weight, lead, alternatives, and the crucial features of any individual step (and I do not mean sequence of steps). They will usually also give you useful exercises. However, such paragons of pedagogy are pretty rare. With more run-of-the-mill teachers, one often gets very little from the direct instruction (especially when it is done via translation). What one does get is to see the experienced dancer's way of moving. One has to watch carefully and take notes at the time. Now, that is usually invaluable. In such cases, a video may well actually be better (although there is a problem of how a relative beginner can tell a good video from a bad one). You can play short sections of it over and over again. So, with many teachers a video is preferable. However, to get the true benefit, you have to know what you are looking for. I watched videos for two years without getting maximum benefit from them. In recent years, I have looked at old videos which I thought that I knew, only to find new things in them. Perhaps an example will suffice. I used to find turning movements on one leg (Enrosqus, Lapiz, etc) very difficult, and rarely used them in general dancing. Then I went to a couple of sessions given by the Cieris, spotted what Rodolfo was doing, and then went back to my videos to see if what I thought I had seen was common. It was. Most good dancers start such movements with a slow but considerable turn of the body (between 90 and 180 degrees). This builds up torque. Only when the body has turned do they really rise up on the ball of the foot, and then the foot turns. That one observation (and I hope that it is clear despite my simplicity of description) turned a difficult movement into a much easier one. In my own teaching, I now use this way of explaining such movements. In the teaching which I have received over the past 5 years, no one has ever explained it to me in such terms. There is a difference between doing something well and knowing what you are doing. So, my conclusions are: 1. A good teacher is best 2. The difference between a less good teacher and a video lies mainly in what you bring to the watching process Abrazos Laurie (Laurence)

Date: Thu, 16 Dec 1999 15:08:51 EST From: Charles Roques <Crrtango @AOL.COM> Subject: Teaching and videos What little I have seen of Carlos and Alicia's video seems excellent no doubt due in part to the quality of their dancing. But the real problem of learning by video is the lack of a trained eye to make adjustments to one's posture or stance or lead or just about anything for that matter. It would be the same as an instructor doing a step over and over the same way but without ever making any corrections to you no matter how badly you copied him or her. I have taught many students who cannot master certain moves no matter how detailed I explain them without me pointing out where they are misstepping or holding their arms wrongly or not standing upright or a myriad other faults. Don't kid yourself, you need that always, especially if you are starting out. Some things are even taught incorrectly at first in order to illustrate a point and later adjusted, the most common being the very exaggerated right/left rotation of the upper torso of the man in order to lead a woman to cross. You will never turn that radically in order to indicate a lead but it is necessary at the beginning to make a point to beginners. As the leader becomes more advanced he learns that the rotation is so slight as to be almost undetectable but by that time hopefully the follower is sensitive and picks up on the subtle indication. Do any videos allow for that? An advanced student could perhaps pick up valuable steps but even then they couldn't be sure that something is not missing. But a beginner should never use a video for learning unless you want to become a bad tango dancer. The same goes for a beginning couple which could be even worse because you would find ways to adjust for each other (incorrectly) until you could more or less do a facsimile of the step. I have seen several awful looking tango couples who have somehow figured out how to do a bunch of sloppy, ugly figures in synch with each other. Taping yourself can be revealing and helpful if you are more advanced but always show your entire body. Suppose you place your feet in the correct position but the camera pans up to show your head bent over "looking for money on the floor" which causes your back to move out of correct position to allow for moving away from your partner so you don't bump heads and which causes your 15lb head to be out of center which causes your pivot to spiral out of axis which causes you to grip your partner harder so you don't lose your balance which causes her or him to lose their balance etc.....are you following me here? The problem with teaching is that we have to gear our instruction to an average student. We can't spend too much time with the slowest nor move at the rate of the fastest. At some point it becomes the students responsibility to accept the necessary discipline to become a good dancer but there is always one important thing that can never be stressed enough. Practice everything you know, always, over and over. If you must use a video wait until you have danced for a while and choose one because of the quality of the dancers in it. Select one that will deal with fundamentals and important issues such as posture, stance, walking, balance, correct placement of feet. Avoid the "101 ways to do ganchos and boleos" tapes, many of which are incorrect and based on stage performance anyway. If you are beginning keep in mind a few things: -Don't take several classes at once. Do them one at a time in a progression. You can't accelerate this process except by practicing more -more of what you already know. -Don't learn from videos. In fact, avoid them so you won't be tempted. They are seductive. -Leave your ego at home. Everything that you may already know is unrelated to this. -Take workshops from visiting artists. But always take the basic class no matter how advanced you think you are. There are many others but another very important one is: Don't read too many e-mails about how to dance tango. Take a class from a real person and and practice. Cheers, Charles Roques Making a video of oneself dancing can be very revealing if you are more advanced but you have to show the entire body or you are seeing nothing. Suppose the feet are perfectly placed but the camera pans up to your head tilted over "looking for money on the floor", which causes you to move your partner away so you don't bump heads and which causes your weight to be off-center because your head weighs 15 lbs and causes your pivot to spiral out of axis which causes you to grab harder to your parter so as to not lose your balance which etc. etc. and all along you are saying to yourself "Gee, I know my feet were in the right place. Why can't I do this?" As to teaching there is a reality that all of us teachers have to deal with. If tango were really taught with the goal of making everyone accomplished dancers it would take so long that dance schools would go out of business, at least here in the USA. Buenos Aires is probably another story. If I could I would teach walking for the first five or six (or more) classes. Teaching 20 or 30 or more people means I cannot gear my instruction to the slowest nor to the quickest learners nor can I devote the personal attention to each student. I have to find a happy medium that makes the students feel they are learning something new each class but also gives them the necessary technical skills (which also comes from repetition) to master the movements. At some point, as in all learning, the responsibility falls on the student to accept the needed discipline. It is great to have a good teacher but it is also important to know how to learn. A few points are good to keep in mind for beginners. -Don't use videos. If you are advanced use with caution and pick videos by great dancers that deal with posture and walking and balance and proper technique. Avoid the tapes that show you 101 ways to do ganchos and boleos. -Don't be impatient. Master what you know no matter how simple it may seem before you move on to other steps. Not just familiar with it, master it. -Don't double up on your classes. It won't make you better. Take them linearly, one at a time in a progression. Repeat a class if you don't feel confident. Yes, repeat it. Only time and practice will make your dancing good. -Leave your ego home. -Practice, practice, practice

End of TANGO-L Digest - 16 Dec 1999 to 17 Dec 1999 (#1999-93) *************************************************************