Do you keep your posture? Or better said, to you think of posture as something that you hold/ keep or as something that you move through, something that changes?

As part of our Q&A section on Posture we are exploring the perspective of “holding a posture”. If you have any question/ thought, send it through at chrisa.assis@bautanz.com I would love to hear from you.

Until then though let’s see the question/ trouble/ thought of the week:

Q: When you keep your posture in one way, does it help or hinder your dance? Are there other ways to keep your posture that are more or less effective?” Overly keeping my posture hinders my movement.

A: Overall, and this is related to your questions regarding ochos and saccadas that have already reached me, posture is a moment by moment case. Meaning that we can’t have the same posture when we are walking, standing, pivoting etc. We can’t see posture in Tango as one thing that we set it and forget it because it is part of our movement.
An example from life would be expecting to have the same posture when we are standing and when we are running or when we are sitting. We are asking our body to take a specific action, for each action to be successful AND efficient the whole body will need to coordinate and participate. So to run we will incline a bit forward something we don’t need to do when standing, amongst other things. 

In Tango it is the same thing, especially when we are working with torsion. Torsion is one of the most dangerous actions we can ask our body to do. Our spine only allows it in specific areas and it is always coupled with side tilt; based on spine anatomy torsion and side tilt always go together. That means therefore that when we twist to get in an ocho, our shoulders would be uneven; one would be higher than the other. We can use muscle to hide the side tilt, so it is not obvious BUT it is still happening in the spine plus when you engage the muscle you won’t be able move easily in and out of the ochos. The latter you are already feeling most likely…

Additionally I would like to invite you to review our Tango Movement Lab video on posture during ochos 

And if you missed Friday so you are not sure which video sparked this Q&A, here it is:

Enjoy and join us for more by subscribing at our Bautanz community

Chrisa