Re: [TANGO-L] Community growth...Teacher Challenge

[Bruce Stephens <bruce @CENDERIS.DEMON.CO.UK>]

Robert Dodier <robert_dodier @YAHOO.COM> writes:

> About getting more people into the tango
> community, Tom Stermitz wrote, in part:
>
>> For example, you have could have better outreach or
>> higher retention.
>
> I'm really in agreement with everything Tom wrote.  In particular, I
> agree that the key is getting people to stick with tango, rather
> than just getting more people to try it.
>
> One thing I'd like to add is that whether people stick with it has a
> lot to do with the other students, even more than the
> teachers. Tango has to take a long time to learn, I think, but if
> you enjoy working with the other students then that makes the long
> haul much more bearable.

And it's more than the students, as you say: it's the community in
general.

I suspect London (and doubtless other places) could do with more
classes emphasizing basic social behaviour (i.e., it's bad manners to
kick people), and stressing the techniques required to achieve that.

One such technique is walking.  I rarely see beginner classes any
more, but the last one I saw (the first class) involved teaching the
salida, and the salida with a couple of ochos.

Nothing wrong with learning those, of course, but what men really need
at the beginning is to know that they can get around the room by just
walking, and (even more importantly) that many women would much prefer
to just walk around the room to the music with a man who can do that
confidently.  (Indeed, nobody's ever mentioned how nice my salida is,
but I regularly receive comments about how nice and unusual it is just
to walk.  If only I'd known and really believed that when I first
started tango!)

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