Why Advanced Dancers Say No to Beginners-and What to Do About It | Season 3, Episode 19

  Рет қаралды 2,280

IMSO Tango by Yelizaveta

IMSO Tango by Yelizaveta

Күн бұрын

Пікірлер: 27
@tannish22
@tannish22 9 күн бұрын
Thank you for the episode! It made me reflect on my tango journey a lot, as well as some recent things that I experienced. I started dancing almost 12 years ago, but almost haven't danced for the last 6 years. By this time I moved to a different country, and just last month I decided to finally give tango a try again and go to a local milonga. So apart from feeling almost like a beginner again (although getting too many compliments about how I dance), I was surprised about how many dancers didn't use cabeceo! I went to a few practicas afterwards, and every time the same thing happened - I would sit and just look at the dance floor, not make any eye contact, even take off my shoes, just to make it clear that I'm resting, and then suddenly someone would purposefully enter my view with an invitation, or even tap on my shoulder or ask somewhere from behind to go dancing. And those leaders are mostly those who've been dancing for many years. I don't get it. As an outsider I'm not sure if I should raise this question about etiquette in this particular tango community (which is pretty small), or just get used to how things work here. Anyway, this feels very uncomfortable and even wrong. When it comes to advice I would give my beginner-self, I'd certainly address the mindset. (Just a disclaimer, I was 17 when I started, and now I feel like I was waaay too young and mentally unprepared for what tango entails.) Apart from being too carried away by the whole feeling of tango and its unusualness, I wasn't very mindful of what I was doing, of what music I was hearing, of reasons why my body moved or didn't move a certain way. I went to classes and milongas, eventually danced a lot and pretty well, however, I feel like I had no idea what I was doing, I was just there, dancing, feeling, and often getting overwhelmed by the complexity of tango that I didn't know how to handle. I think that striving for a clear, calm and curios mind is the way - which wasn't the case for me at all when I was a beginner :)
@imsotango
@imsotango 3 күн бұрын
WOW thanks for sharing all of that! the cabeceo thing... very frustrating. I totally understand. The struggle is totally real. And it's typically at it's worst in small communities because it's easier to do something other than cabeceo. And if the prevailing culture of the community doesn't uphold that value, then people will gradually just lean towards what's more familiar and is easier to navigate (plus less rejection this way because a lot of people have a hard time saying no when the person is literally extending their hand and asking them). But cabeceo is still the traditional/preferred way to invite someone to dance at the milonga and you should totally ask for that. I have heard many followers say that they actually will tell the leader that they don't accept non-cabeceo invitations at the moment when they do it.
@craigcordon
@craigcordon 17 күн бұрын
Thank you for a thoughtful and thought provoking discussion. If I were to go back and change the attitude I had upon first learning tango, I would force myself to focus on the walk. Its ironic that tango is commonlly referred to as "A walking dance," yet I have never seen it stressed as an indispensable element by dance teachers. They teach it. Sure. But I've never heard a tango teacher say, "If you can't walk well, you won't dance tango well." Or, even better, "If you walk well, the rest of the dance will come a lot easier." It's impossible to have a good walk unless all the other fundamentals--posture, groundedness, axis, embrace, timing, rolling through the standing leg, etc--are in place. And its a lot easier (for a beginning lead) to shape a dance by just walking and throwing in simple walking changes of direction than to do it by leading front, back ochos, giros, etc. The simplicity allows the focus to be where it needs to be---on fundamentals. I believe I would have saved myself a lot of time and frustration had I known this earlier.
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
AH! Music to my ears! Thank you for sharing that. The walk is everything. Even now, with knowing as much vocab as I do, I have discipline my mind and force myself to just walk before getting into all the fireworks in the dance. Any time I can remember that, I always have a deeper experience with my partner.
@ChristophePeytier
@ChristophePeytier 13 күн бұрын
Madam, congratulations! I am "almost beginner" (3 years) but I come from 60 years of martial arts training, so I can recognize a true master. And I can tell: you have paid your dues. You have put the hours. You have been plancheando for weeks. You have used the soles of many pairs of shoes. So now you provide us with the essence of tango learning. Because there is only one measure of the essence of tango: The stars we see in the eyes of our pareja at the end of the tanda. 🙏
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
I’m grateful for your comment-thank you for being here!
@SeverSava
@SeverSava 17 күн бұрын
Hi Yelizaveta! Nice little topic you tackeled on. Not controversial at all 🤭 I am a beginner. Had my first class in 2010. Studied for 4 years, only group classes, as finances were the most difficult aspect to improve on my tango technique 😅. I was soooooooo bored and annoyed with myself and on my lack of tango dancing vocabulary as at some point I withdrew from the community and really quick after I had to move out from Romania, to the UK, in 2014. It took me 10 years to get back to tango. This time I promissed myself I will start dancing milongas only if I can have steady private sessions (weekly ideally). Apparently I can so I'm back, but still not dancing at milongas. Only watching, eventhough there are people that encourage me to go out there and dance. The pressure is more than I am willing to handle so I still don't dance at milongas, but only maybe once in a while with someone that really puts a lot of effort into encouraging me to start dancing. Since I came back to tango 5 months ago and started taking private sessions, my posture, the quality of embrace, pivoting, leading technique and vocabulary have improved. In order to overcome my personal psychological/emotional limitations I work in my therapy on them, I started reading research papers on temperament and personality of tango dancers and surveying leaders and followers as well on different aspects of the tango dancing experience. They all feel that help me quite a bit. To answer to your question in the end of the video, I believe embodied musicality would be the element I wish I gave more time in the beginning. Love your channel! 🎉❤
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
WOW! I'm so inspired by your share! Thank you. So happy you are back in tango and not giving up. The psychological challenges are so REAL so I commend you for working through them. It's worth the effort. And most likely you are ready for the milonga (from my perspective), but only YOU can make that decision and when you do, it's a very powerful step that will lead to more confidence in the longterm. Thanks for sharing!
@SeverSava
@SeverSava 13 күн бұрын
@@imsotango I tried again last night to dance at a milonga. I still revert to the square way to often... My "vocabulary" is quite primitive still when faced with the Milonga's Hunger Games living inside my mind :D I can barely bring in a couple of pivots and work in the same time on the embrace and connection. It will be a very slow journey and I need a lot of patience and self-care. I am actively looking out to find a partner to practice on weekly basis. Hopefully that will happen at some point. Thanks for your reply!
@dmitrykozlov5658
@dmitrykozlov5658 16 күн бұрын
You are amazing storyteller! Every time I listen to your podcasts I admire, but this one is brilliant, every beginner tango dancer should listen to it. And as a leader I agree with your experience about pain after dancing with some followers, but is most important thing for me too to say NO next time.
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
Thank you so much! Really appreciate your kind words and so glad that this resonated. Saying no is SO important! And it's easier to say no to someone you have never danced with vs someone you danced with once and now they might have an expectation to dance with you again. That's when it's really tricky to navigate.
@georgesoong4149
@georgesoong4149 19 күн бұрын
I started dancing the following role because I was wondering how close I could become an ideal follower in my mind in two months. At this time, I had been taking weekly private lessons for two years. My teacher laughed during our first class saying that I was a better follower than leader😂. Up to this day, as I often dance the following role in a class she gives, and as I am also taking “lady’s technique” classes, the most important thing I would say is that the follower must learn to feel the leader’s ground! You have to feel his whole body, not just focus on the contact points, which is what most followers stop at. What I would look for in a leader is not clear because normally I do not get invitations from leaders. Occasionally a guy might ask me to dance just to get an idea where I am at now if I have danced with him in a class. At one Milonga, my teacher led me in a tanda, and we actually got a round of applause😂. For me as a follower, I am prepared to take on any challenge just because I view is as a training process. So most likely, I can dance with any leader and still have fun in the music regardless. But it does not stop here. My teacher told me that she once dance with a leader that said “I feel so inspired dancing with you” whereas the fact was she was actually reverse suggesting through the dance😂. In one lesson, we actually tried exchanging roles without changing embrace where I was dancing the following role, even now, when we dance occasionally at milongas, she will do similar in the following role, and I am always on alert when this happens, and need to stay connected with the music even so.
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
that's so great that you are getting so much experience in the opposite role! I have often felt that the best leaders are the ones who can follow. Thanks for the great insights!
@georgesoong4149
@georgesoong4149 19 күн бұрын
Personally, when I look for follower, I look for the dancing spirit in their eyes. So the cebeceo is very important. A relaxed confident person that looks like she can handle anything, her eyes will shoe it, and if she has a dancing spirit, you can see that additional spark in their eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul is an old Chinese saying. If the follower has these qualities, even beginners that are just starting out in their first week are easy to dance with. The problem occurs when they take classes which focus on form and function, there bodies get into a certain habit and not connecting with the quality of the music or connection and communication with the leader. One follower whom stands out just finished the elementary level in a classroom where I usually practice was particularly relaxed. During their final class Milonga, I danced with her and she follower so well that I just lifted her and swung her legs onto my lap naturally just because I felt I could with her, and also could match it with the music. But must beginners are worrying whether they are doing it right or not, which is quite annoying. The next thing I would look for is sincerity in the embrace. The first time I danced the close embrace at a Milonga, a follower gave me an embrace the felt so sincere, I was urged internally to return the sincerity and tried my best to make the experience comfortable without trying to do much; when the last tanda came, she rejected another dancer to dance with me. But since then, when we later met, she did not feel that confident anymore for some reason, which comes to the first thing I look for. The third thing I look for is connection with the music and the partner. I met an older upperclassman from my college years at a Milonga with his partner, nobody danced with them because it was their first time at this Milonga, so my upperclassman asked me to dance with her. I discovered she was connecting to the music and partner different from other dancers while not having attended many classes, we had fun! The second time we attended this Milonga, someone whom I see often had invited her to dance, after the dance, I was curious what she felt about this leader, her expression was “he was gentle, but I like dancing with you more”. The fourth is relaxation. Not to confuse with being a flop, but connecting to the floor in a relaxed manner, this allows me to at least feel her ground. Tension at any point breaks the connection. The most tension I have ever felt from a follower was during a class of “connection”, I could feel on followers tension 5 feet away and increasing as she came closer, it was VERY uncomfortable!
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
Great insights! Thanks for sharing!
@0114mercury
@0114mercury 7 күн бұрын
In my opinion there are two big reasons: 1) It's more pleasant and enjoyable to dance with an advanced dancer, you feel the quality in their moves. Many people go to the milonga to enjoy and have pleasure, so they prefer not to dance with bad dancers. 2) A matter of image, especially for leaders. You look better and more confident when leading an advanced follower. Those who care about their image might choose not to dance with someone who's not good (until they become very very advanced leaders, then they'll look good dancing with anyone).
@florianbauch3581
@florianbauch3581 19 күн бұрын
Hi, I very much share your view on embrace/presence which probably does not get the attention it deserves in a beginner class. A total turn off for me when scanning the floor is a person that constantly talks during the tanda. Not only this person distracts him/herself resulting in inferior dancing but also distracts the partner who now has to give reasonable responses over and above good dancing.
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
I know what you mean, I haven't seen it much, thankfully. But I definitely steer clear of dancers who talk while dancing
@kellydoyle7833
@kellydoyle7833 18 күн бұрын
Very nice primer of social tango. Could call it Social Tango 101-601. Everything you described is happening simultaneously at the monthly milonga(s) I attend.😮 😅 😢 😂 😊 ....among 30- 50 people!
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
Your feedback means the world-thank you for watching!
@cbrace
@cbrace 18 күн бұрын
Getting a few private lessons with a good pro is such a good investment, especially when it comes to getting the posture and embrace correct.
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
YES! That's the key, you can pick up a lot from group classes and even online, like learning new sequences and musicality. But when it comes to the tactile feeling of tango embrace and the posture needed for close embrace, the BEST way to get that in your body is to just feel it with someone. Thanks for your inghts!
@brickrobbins6464
@brickrobbins6464 19 күн бұрын
I don't like to think of dancers the way you classified them as "first type" and "second type" of beginner. I prefer to classify them as "beginner" and "bad dancer." Beginners can, and usually do get better (if they don't leave tango because how unfriendly we are) but It takes many years to become a bad dancer. I have never seen a bad dancer improve once they have achieved their state of badness, because along with the badness comes Dunning and Kruger, and they don't know they are bad... They believe they are not dancing because they are old, or fat, or not good looking, or the lights are too low, or other leaders are blocking their cabeceos, or they are not part of the in clique, or whatever.
@KailinHsiung
@KailinHsiung 17 күн бұрын
Practice makes permanent, not perfect 🤷
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
haha I see your point :)
18 күн бұрын
Down to 35 minutes - GREAT!
@imsotango
@imsotango 13 күн бұрын
Glad you liked this one! The length of my episodes naturally varies depending on the topic, and some are shorter than others. For future episodes that might be longer, I’ve started including chapters to make it easier to navigate to the sections you’re most interested in. Thanks for watching!
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