Developing Effortless Mastery in Tango

[Stephen Brown <Stephen.P.Brown @DAL.FRB.ORG>]

Four stages of learning have been identified:
1)  Unconscious incompetence
2)  Conscious incompetence
3)  Conscious competence
4)  Unconscious competence

Edgar Degas said, "Only when he no longer knows what he is doing does the
painter do good things."  I think the same holds for tango.  Only when the
dancer reaches a stage of unconcious competence is the dancer touching the
possibilities in tango...

Many years ago, Eckhart Haerter claimed that those performing tango only
realize about 75 percent of their capabilities.  One might associate such a
performance with conscious competence.

But I would like to generalize by proposing that learning tango is a
spiral; one progresses from the first stage of learning to the fourth over
and over again.  The unconscious competence at the previous level of
achievement is the unconscious incompetence at the next level of
achievement.

What does that mean for tango students and teachers?

In teaching, an instructor first lifts the student from unconscious
incompetence to conscious incompetence.  This process creates a tension
between the level of dancing the student can accomplish and the level the
student can see.  Learning is the process of resolving this tension by
improving the level of accomplishment.  (Sometimes the student may get the
feeling that their dancing is deteriorating because their consciousness of
dancing is expanding faster than they are learning...)  If the student is
unable sustain the tension necessary to promote learning, however, the
student is likely to slip backward into unconscious incompetence (which is
the previous level of unconscious competence).

Some teachers also help their students move from conscious incompetence to
conscious competence, but it is up to the student to make the transition to
the next level of unconscious competence.  Practice is often the key to
creating new competencies, by moving from conscious incompetence to
conscious competence and then to the next level of unconscious competence.

Remember it is only when we are no longer know what we are doing that we
are dancing well...  This is the point at which we have effortless mastery.

Instructors can also be quite destructive to developing effortless mastery
in their students by acting like a critic that constantly pulls the person
into conscious competence or incompetence...

Students typically quit formal learning whenever the instructor cannot
create a new tension or creates a tension that is greater than the student
wants to sustain.  This can happen at any level of accomplishment.

Teachers who emphasize figures in their classes rarely create a high level
of tension in their students because what they teach does not threaten as
greatly what the students have previously learned.  In addition, they may
not have to work very hard to get the students to move from conscious
incompetence to conscious competence.  As such this form of instruction may
not offer very much to the highly motivated dancers.

Those instructors who emphasize technique, however, are constantly pulling
their students forward by revealing the next level of refinement in
technique...  Students must accept a great level of tension, and the
instructor may be called upon to work very hard to help guide the student
from conscious incompetence to conscious competence.  (Sometimes technique
instructors get frustrated at their students' progress.)

In the end, however, I think it is up to the individual dancer to find the
unconscious competence that will give them effortless mastery...

With best regards,
Steve (de Tejas)

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