Re: [TANGO-L] Teachers and Community Development

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

Marisa Holmes wrote:

>My partner ... finally said that he was interested in
>learning to follow, but he had no interest whatsoever
>in taking a class with leaders who were brand new.

I have had a similar experience dancing the follower's part with beginning
leaders.  I felt absolutely brutalized and terrified.  Interestingly, I
have not had this experinece dancing the follower's part with women who
new leaders had previously learned the follower's part.  That may indicate
the wisdom of the traditional method of learning in which aspiring leaders
first learn the follower's part.

Andrew Allison wrote:
>Stephen's response to Luda missed two points

I cannot see the disagreement... except through the misinterpretation or
misrepresentation of my previous comments.

>[I]t's not the way that the instructor learns, but
>the way they teach that's important.

Agreed, but not all instructors develop their own pedagogy.  Many simply
repeat the pedagogy with which they learned, or they know the movements in
their bodies and have long since forgotten how they learned.

Let's identify the four levels of competence as
        1) Unconscious Incompetence
        2) Conscious Incompetence
        3) Conscious Competence
        4) Uncconscious Competence

Dancing and teaching well actually call for different states of
consciousness.  Dancing well and in the flow falls into the fourth
category--unconscious competence.  One forgets the mechanics at a
conscious level and simply dances.  Good teaching falls into the third
category--conscious competence.  It requires paying attention to the
mechanics.  I have seen many instructors teach one thing (that doesn't
work) and do another thing themselves (that does work).

(By the way, my previous comments were an observation/explanation about
how people teach rather than advocacy of how people should teach.)

>A clear lead is not a stiff lead.

Again agreed.  As I previously wrote: Leading the follower's movements
requires a clarity of intent and
willingness to be present within oneself and for another.  A wet noodle
cannot lead because it has no
intent.  Neither can a dry noodle because it also has no intent, it is
simply stiff.

With best regards,
Steve

Stephen Brown
Tango Argentino de Tejas
http://www.tejastango.com/

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