Category Archives: Argentine tango technique

Advanced dancer, Argentine tango, Argentine tango technique, body awareness, Dance, Emboying the rules, improvise, mindfulness, Musicality, online tango practice, progress in dance, rhythm, tango movement lab, Tango practice

How does this song go? Singing through movement

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Singing through movement, has been my latest attempt to explain what “just dance” really means.
It is funny but so many people say just dance but they don’t really know what that means or they can’t even execute themselves.

“Just Dance” Vs…

Usually if you ask someone to explain “just dance” they will start using other equally ambiguous advise, such as without thinking, or like no one is watching, or forget about the rules.

Why is this ambiguous advise?
Well in Tango, but this applies to other dances as well, especially when you are starting out, you need to think. Tango is a fully improvisational dance. That means you are on your own putting one and two together, while connecting with your partner and with the music.

Secondly, it is in a social environment, people who are not dancing, are watching. It doesn’t mean that they are being judgemental, at least not all of them (haha), but they are watching.

Thirdly, every class is on the rules. Technique rules, musicality rules, even rules on how you improvise and put sequences together. So it is very hard to forget them and just dance.

What I mean to say is that we might be fully understanding the meaning of all of these words but we have no plan on how to implement the advise. Which leads to a lot of confusion and frustration on and off the dance floor.

…”Sing through movement”

I am sure you have been in a situation where you are talking about a song you like but suddenly you can’t really remember anything about it. You can’t remember the title, the singer, the orchestra, the lyrics, nothing but only the rhythm. So if you tried to describe it to a friend you would probably say: “You know, it is the one that goes like na, na-na-na, na…”

haha
Well, singing with movement is exactly that. You do the “na, na-na-na, na” only not with sound but with movement. You are using your body to represent the music, as if you were another instrument of the orchestra. In the beginning of your practice, the movement can be small maybe a gentle shift of weight from one foot to the other but truly committed to delivering the music.

Then as you start making steps, stick with this concept. Instead of trying to come up with steps to match the music, practice letting the music move you in the room. We are not looking for elaborate footwork, in fact you can restrict yourself to walking only. The goal is to keep this quality, singing through movement. Making your whole body sing the song and not just your feet trying to execute steps.

Enjoy,

Chrisa

P.S: Here is a practice on musicality if you want to continue working on it.

Advanced dancer, Argentine tango, Argentine tango technique, body awareness, body mechanics, Dance, Emboying the rules, mindfulness, online tango practice, Tango practice, Tips on tango technique for leaders and followers

Defining the comfort zone

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If you are in any movement practice I am sure you have heard your teachers encourage you to move past your comfort zone; meaning to challenge yourselves. But how do you know you are in the zone to begin with? How do you know the limits of your comfort? And most importantly what does it take for you to acknowledge discomfort?

Finding the balance between comfort and discomfort

How would you know comfort if you don’t experience discomfort? Also, consider this, how would you begin to define discomfort if discomfort was part of the comfort zone?

If you defining comfort as in not painful, it means that pain is your only indication of discomfort. Discomfort then is part of your comfort zone because you can’t hear all the other signals of discomfort the body is giving you until you reach pain.

Similarly if you think of comfort as easy, as time that there is no challenge, you have made discomfort part of the comfort zone plus you are eliminating the possibility of learning and progressing while not being physically challenged.

Signs of discomfort can be as subtle as inhibited breathing, when you feel as if you are holding your breath. How many times have you been in that situation? I am sure, plenty. Have you ever considered this discomforting? Most likely not.

Picking up all the signals will allow you to be more aware of the boundary between comfort and discomfort. Defining the boundary will then allow you to push past it when you feel ready, when you are comfortable to do so.
Lastly, it will allow you to be more empathetic with other people, more understanding of their situation as you will have a deeper understanding of the different shades of discomfort and how they can appear in the body.

An excellent video that speaks more about this yin-yang relationship and our movement practice, is this video of Ido Portal speaking on mindfulness. It is short but very much to the point and has inspired me to look for balance in my practice and in my approach to movement.

Enjoy,

Chrisa

P.S: Looking for balance? Try out our latest workshop!

Advanced dancer, Argentine tango, Argentine tango technique, Art, be yourself, Dance, Emboying the rules, Milonga, mindfulness, Musicality, online tango practice, progress in dance, social dancing, social skills, Tango practice, Traditional Tango

Tango a way to tell our story..!

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Though this is mainly a Tango and movement practice focused website, today I want to share with you a short personal story.
So after my practice the other day, I was preparing this video for Pro Dancer shoes. At the time I didn’t think much of it. It in the beginning just yet another video only focused on the feet. But things were not as straight forward as I had initially thought.
Let me tell you… It took me 20mins to finish! And it involved a lot of starting and stoping and a bit of frustration of course.

Tango can be frustrating some times..!

Some time had to go by, for me to realize the reason I was getting frustrated. I was focusing so so much on the shoes than on the dance itself.

Let me just show the 1st attempt that I think it is acceptable and so I can actually share it with you. It is not the 1st attempt of that day, it is the 1st acceptable attempt.

The intent was to show case the shoes. The problem is that focusing on that thought I wasn’t really paying attention to anything else. The result is having a feeling of disconnect to the music and my feelings of the dance.

As you can understand, even in this acceptable version frustration is still there and for good reason!

So what did I do?

Well the obvious..! I thought: “ok, forget about the shoes and JUST dance!” 
There was a moment that I actually thought, I am making no progress so there is not much point to this. I should instead simply dance and if something worth sharing comes out of it, then all the better!

Of course, things started getting better, and I actually really enjoyed myself plus the video is pretty good I think. At least it does the job and most importantly I was happier doing it.

Of course this is Tango related but not because it is about a Tango video

So why am I telling you this?

Let’s take shoes out of the story and pick something else. What do you feel uncomfortable with in your dance? The beat, the sequences, the posture, if your partner is going to get bored…? Whatever it is, think about how that issue affects your time in the milonga. Think how it grabs all your focus, and doesn’t let you see anything else. It actually spoils your night!

The thing is, that whatever the issue is, it can’t be solved in the milonga and the more you focus on that you are missing out on everything else!

Especially, for milongas, focus on having a good time! Allow yourself to enjoy your dances, to embrace your partners and get lost in the music! I am sure you have missed that as much as I have.
There is no point missing out for something you can’t possibly do anything about at that moment plus in many cases if you go with flow things get actually a lot better!

Tango a way to tell your story

So to transition to our drills and tips, even these very tips and drills, remember they are here to help and not to become trapping elements for you to stress over when you are dancing in milonga.
Practice, devote time in your practice but also enjoy the fruits of this practice!

Lastly, after sharing all this wisdom.. (haha) only keep the advise if it helps you and if not put it to the side and find what works for you! 😉

Let me know your thoughts in the comments or better yet subscribe to our community and continue the conversation there!

Enjoy,

Chrisa

Argentine tango, Argentine tango technique, body awareness, body mechanics, Dance, Emboying the rules, mindfulness, online tango practice, tango movement lab, Tango practice, Tango walks, Tips on tango technique for leaders and followers

Our Feet, Tango, Injuries and… the Weather!

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See that title..? haha
From feet to Tango, to injuries and all the way to weather… Things that might appear unrelated, sometimes interestingly enough they do connect in this vast network we call the human body. 

Our body responds to everything, in some way… it might be an obvious response or it might be a very subtle one. Leading and following in Tango is actually based on responding…not only from the follower but also from the leader.

Injuries and how to prevent them

After sharing the video above, that was on feet as the foundation of our walk, I received a set of interesting questions/ thoughts. They were around ankle stability and injury and how we can prevent them or be able to live with and dance through them.

To prevent them we need to increase our knowledge and awareness of the human body, so we can make healthier movement choices. Tango allows us to explore that because it is based on walking. Discovering how we were built to walk will help our Tango but will also give us the tools we need to prevent injury, to the extent possible of course.

Accidents do happen though… so what do we do then..?

How can we get to a point where we feel safe and secure in our bodies after being injured? 
Injury may actually be a second chance to learn more about our body. If you need a brace for example learn what it does, and which part of your ankle is it supporting/ replacing. Then explore that area with tenderness and care. You will see that slowly your mind will start creating a map of that joint area. The injury tore the map to pieces and now carefully with massage and subtle movement you can put the pieces of the map together. 
Will that bring the joint back to its initial state?
Well, that depends on the injury of course, it may or it may not. But what it will certainly do is give you the awareness you need to move on that foot; for example give you a clear picture of the range of motion around all axes or of the necessary alignment. You can then make better choices as you are moving/ dancing.

Again, Tango at its bare bones is such a caring dance! You can take it really slow if you like and notice where and when you need to make adjustments as you take a step. And if you have a good partner along with you, you can have immediate feedback on how any of the choices affect your posture, or even your energy/ tension/ connection.

Social Tango or maybe we can say Tango Salon, is not really a dance with special requirements, like for example ballet, unless of course we go into specific Tango styles that focus on creating a specific image. That makes Tango ideal for all ages to enjoy and for everyone of us to become a bit wiser on body mechanics.

Now you probably wonder how is the weather related to feet, injury or Tango..!

Noticing how the weather affects you, is the first step to awareness. Every day can not be the same, so why are so shocked when we actually notice that. If you are feeling stiff because it is cold, then give yourself a bit of time to warm up before you start going about your day. Or if you wake up and you are low in energy and your tone is low, then give yourself some time to bring that tone up. In both examples by the way gentle shaking helps..!

The idea overall is, spend time becoming more aware of YOU..! And to get started you don’t need to do anything else but to notice how your body feels when you wake up every day. Then as your awareness increases you will be able to capture more and more feedback, as you move and as you dance.

Maybe this video on feet and weight transfer trajectory can be the second step…

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

Chrisa

P.S: If you are wearing heels when you are dancing, check this article out

Argentine tango, Argentine tango technique, be yourself, body awareness, body mechanics, Dance, Dance chats, Emboying the rules, mindfulness, online tango practice, Posture, tango movement lab, Tango practice, Tips on tango technique for leaders and followers

Do you keep your posture or do you move through it?

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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

Argentine tango, Argentine tango technique, body awareness, body mechanics, Dance, mindfulness, online tango practice, Posture, tango movement lab, Tango practice, Tips on tango technique for leaders and followers

Any questions on posture?

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We have many times talked about posture through this blog, but now we are actually opening the floor to you to send us any questions on posture.

The floor is open and you can send us in your questions or trouble at chrisa.assis@bautanz.com

But as we gather your questions, we would like to start answering some as we wait.

Questions on posture #1

How can one modify the exercises, ideas and more, to one’s body?

This is a question we should all be asking any time we are attempting an exercise/ routine/ movement for the first time even if it looks simple. I would invite therefore to use this answer as a map to make any other Tango or non-Tango video your own.
So let’s get right to it:

  1. First things first, let go of any of any preset cues/ understanding/ ideas of how your posture SHOULD be. Regardless of whether they are right or wrong, they will not allow you to identify where you are at and what you need at the moment. Which naturally leads us to:
  2. Secondly, we have our body assessment. For this particular video, notice the following, without intervening to make things “right”:
    1. How you sit in your chair. Do you sit all the way back or do you stay at the front of the chair? Do you flex the spine or sit upright? Where are your feet placed? Are you crosslegged? 
      Ask all of these questions and more creating a clear picture of how your body looks and feels when you sit in your chair. You want to be as detailed as possible, as if you were describing it to someone who can’t see you
    2. How your body looks and feels when you stand. Like above you want to identify in full detail how the three volumes of your body–head, torso and hips– are arranged when you are standing. Remember not how they should be, but how they actually are. So are you flexing or extending the spine? Do you pull your tummy in? Are your hips tipping forward or back? How about your feet are they together or apart? Are you looking down? Everything! Full body scan from head to toe.
    3. Last but not least for this section; how do YOU transition? Do you push off your chair or knees? Is there any discomfort when you are sitting and standing? Do you roll back a bit to stand? All these questions and more to be able to get a clear picture of how you transition from sitting to standing and vice versa.

Now let’s get to the specific video at hand

  1. Watch the video, identifying the goal of the video and listening to the steps/ cues/ process identified without though copying the person in the video, in this case me.
  2. Putting all the above together. We are starting seated in our video, so you start in your seat, however your posture is when you are sitting, notice if you are already in flexion and see if can feel your tail on the seat. It will be subtle..! If you don’t feel you can add a bit more flexion. Nothing will happen if you do anyways, as long as you are consciously making the decision to do so. Then from this stage onwards, I would advise you not to look at the video, but only listen to the audio. Identify not with the image but with the goals and cues. For example, stay focused in creating the gentle pressure of your tail to your seat and in noticing how the rest of your spine reacts to that, instead of trying to match what you see.
  3. Remember, we are all unique makes of a grand design! So one is not exactly the same as the other. Use this exercise as a way to create a better map of how YOUR body is!

Any questions on posture?

These was our 1st Q&A, there is more coming in the weeks to follow, with videos accompanying our posts. We invite you therefore once again to send us your thoughts, questions and trouble. We would love to see and read them and most importantly we would love to be able to help you out!

Join us for more, by subscribing to our bautanz community

Best,

Chrisa