Category Archives: mindfulness

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

The neutral zone and the 0.0 posture

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In our previous post we focused on the milonga and the key differences it has with Tango.
One of those differences referred to posture.  Specifically we observed that in Milonga due to speed we stay in the neutral zone while in Tango we have the time to shape the movement.

So this week, we will look into what we call neutral and range of motion and what shaping looks like.

Defining range of motion to figure out neutral

I am sure that you have heard or even used the term neutral position, for example keep your back in a neutral position.
What does this mean though exactly?

To understand better what it means we need to first speak about range of motion. 
Range of motion in a joint can be simply defined how far we can move around a specific axis, for example how far can we go in extension or flexion. Range of motion differs between different joints. And in the same joint it differs between different directions and around different axes. 
So for example we have a different range of flexion/ extension in our hips compared to our knees. Also though for the hip itself we have different range of flexion/ extension than rotation and we have more flexion compared to extension.
Bottom line it is all different so proceed with caution and keep exploring! and of course it is needless to say that each of us has different ranges of motion as we are all unique makes of the same grand design.

So now what is neutral

Well once you know how much range you have in a given joint, you know the end of range of a movement around an axis. The space between, the space before you reach the end of range is neutral. Neutral is an area, a zone not a specific point. The middle of the neutral zone where we are not committing in any direction we would then be in 0.0 posture..!

What does that all mean for Tango

To make things a bit more specific let’s look at one part of the Tango posture. Let’s look at the mid-back, where your thoracic changes to lumbar.


Here we have it all, flexion-extension, rotation and side reach. We have much more flexion than extension, like we see below.

posture1 NEUTRAL
Photo credit NatBat via Foter.com CC/ BY-NCSA
posture #1 NEUTRAL
Photo credit: yogamama.co.uk via Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

And anywhere between the end of the flexion-extension range is the neutral zone. In the middle where the joint are not going into flexion or extension we are at 0.

Taking a step

Finding 0 posture is one thing and takes some practice and exploring. But going from that 0 posture into a simple forward step can be tough!
It is actually like we will see in the video below one of the toughest transitions to manage.

And now on top of that we have different walking options, small steps, big steps or tiny steps. Those require a different skill.
Not that we forget or put to the side what we talked about above but when we are dancing we need to be aware but not limited by our anatomy. Every step is or can be unique, responding to the constraints of the dancefloor, to the style of our partner and most importantly the music.

Let’s see how the different types of steps can match some wonderful Tango music

So you have plenty elements to practice on and if you want more subscribe to our community.
Send me any questions or thoughts! 

I would love to hear from you,

Chrisa

Argentine tango, Art, be yourself, body awareness, body mechanics, community, Dance, Emboying the rules, improvise, mindfulness, motivation, online tango practice, progress in dance, social dancing, social skills, Uncategorized

Keep dancing! Keep Moving!

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Dancing… Most of us think of it just as a social activity of a recreational nature. Something we do to spend some good time with friends, to learn something new and to have fun while introducing some moderate (not always) movement in our schedule. Right..?!? Yes and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that!

Now think about dance in this last year. Are you taking classes online? Did you go to under-the-radar milongas or social gatherings? Do you dance every hour to a random song you hear on the radio like I do..?
If not do you miss dancing? If so has your perspective of what dance is here for, change through this experience?

The social aspect of every dance stems from within

Personally, I haven’t missed dancing as an activity because I still dance. But I have missed sharing the moment and creating something in the moment with someone else. And also the process of getting there, trying to understand my partner, trying to be honest, sharing and empathetic at the same time. This is irreplaceable!

Attending classes online and also offering classes online though made me shift or better said deepen my understanding of where all of the above comes from… and that is, from within each and everyone of us.

Spending some time understanding the human body, your body, through movement, will allow you to better understand yourself and then the other person, the human community and the world as whole. Coming from a place of understanding you can be more empathetic and sharing.

Dancing in the time of the pandemic

Though dance can surely not make the problems magically go away, the fact that we can feel more in control of our movement and our body while reducing stress and tension, can surely make us feel a lot better.

And this is where the dancer in me reaches out to the dancer in you!
Keep moving! Keep exploring and learning about all the things that make you, YOU!
How you breathe and how you can breathe more freely
Or how you walk and how you can walk with more ease
Are you holding your head in a position that pushes your whole body out of balance? You know which one that is… zooming into the computer screen! haha
And how you move to mitigate the impact of that

Dancing can help us look within, and understand what makes us…us; in the most free, comforting and comfortable way possible. I am not sure if this is just me, but I really need this! And I hope to be sharing this with you tomorrow and every Wednesday at the Tango Movement Lab happening live through Facebook and Youtube at 12:15pm Toronto time. Nothing is required other than you willingness to dance!

Lets get exploring together!

Chrisa

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

Rhythm, is in us all!

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Rhythm, for some is something effortless and fun and for others a constant effort and frustration. And the truth is that the fact that it is in us all, doesn’t make it any easier to identify.

But lets take things from the beginning…

What is rhythm?

Rhythm is not the beat of the music or dissecting a music phrase in 7, 9, 11, 4 or 8s and it surely is not steps on a beat, like choreography. All these are methods to explore rhythm but neither of them is rhythm in itself.

I would like to suggest that we explore rhythm as a relationship between direction, velocity and distance. And that relationship is affected by mass, inertia, impact, energy we like to spend, shapes we want to create etc. Let’s look at some examples:

  1. elements moving in the same direction at the same time
  2. elements moving in opposite directions at the same time
  3. elements moving in the same direction at an alternate time
  4. elements moving in opposite directions at an alternate time 
  5. repetition which is inherently rhythmical

Practicing rhythm therefore will need to allow us to further explore and become more aware of those relationships; that are more relationships with world and not only with a specific song.

How to practice rhythm

For the month of March, as part of our Movement and Mindfulness workshops, we explored rhythm as described above and so thankfully I have a 1hr video to share with you, that can lead you through explorations on rhythm and hopefully inspire you to come up with your own explorations as well!

I would suggest you spend some time exploring these symmetries with your arms as it is easier compared to working with legs. Also work for a bit without music before you add your favourite music to accompany you. And you can work with all of these symmetries together or focus on one or two of them at a time, whatever works best for you!

Putting it together in a dance

Such explorations I find them extremely useful as they help me understand what I might be doing unconsciously or what I might feel I can’t reach. Whatever the case maybe though, real-life experience and testing is required after every exploration of every kind. If we don’t take what we learn in our real-life how will it stick? How will it become more than just an exercise? And most importantly how will it teach us to a level where we start changing our old habits and building new ones, aka progressing?

So after you complete the explorations above, or anytime during the video that you feel the need or you feel ready, completely let go of the exploration and just dance. Stop doing the exercise, and just dance. Feel how what you have explored so far manifests itself in your dance.

And of course this doesn’t stop there, step out of your practice shoes but take your practice with you. See, notice how rhythm manifests itself in your everyday life, when breathing, walking, shopping, doing the dishes. Make every big or small thing a dance!

Enjoy and join us for more by subscribing!

Chrisa 

P.S: For more on music and rhythm you can check here and here

Argentine tango, Art, community, Dance, mindfulness, progress in dance, social dancing, Traditional Tango

Dancers are explorers

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Yes yes, you did read that right..! Dancers are explorers!
It doesn’t matter in what type of dance you are in. If you are in any type of dance, in any type of movement practice you are potentially an explorer!

How do we start exploring?

We start our journeys as explorers from the moment we follow this urge to move, to learn about movement. The moment we listen to this inner wish to create and express ourselves through movement. And of course the moment when put ourselves in a vulnerable place and reach out to the other and connect.

This moment in time is probably different for everyone of us, but it is surely before we step in a dance studio. It might even be when we are watching someone else move… who knows!

Thinking back to when you took your first step. All the sensations, feelings and emotions that came up and how you responded to them. This active start of exploring the relationships between the different parts of the body, the music, the other people around us or with us; how all that makes us feel… And I would go as far as to say exploring who we are, as a person, as a human and as part of the world.

We start with a little choreography, then we learn about the music, the culture, the stories, the people, the gossip…
Next we practice and we start discovering other options, we reach out to people who we feel can help, we partner up and practice, exchange ideas, fight with another person… We learn about ourselves, about others, about humans, about history, about it all!

Everything becomes part of that journey

Living an explorer’s life, you must have felt that everything relates to your journey of discovery. Cliches such “Tango is like life” or “Life is a Tango” are cliches for a reason..!

Of course they are not reflective of reality, but they express possibly a common feeling, that of things that seem unrelated but unexpectedly come together to form a thread or network. Without therefore getting too romantically affected (though that is perfectly fine as well) by the cliches above, we can see opportunities for greater explorations

And a greater exploration, another link in the network, seems to be this research conducted by S. Elefante, M. V. Arenillas, S. Jovicic, M. Elefante, C. Black, of the University of Vienna.

It is an article looking at the common threads and the differences between the grand balls of Vienna and the milongas of Buenos Aires, at different time periods and locations, involving different social groups, musical genres, social etiquette, dress code and of course the closing of each event.

Balls and Milongas in Vienna and Buenos Aires: analysis and comparison

Borrowed from the official abstract sent to me by the team: “At the end of this historical journey, we can conclude that what undoubtedly unifies the balls of the past, those of today, and the milongas, is the the common desire of the guests to dance and enjoy. So, let us go back to the message from H. Ferrer and indirectly also from his aunt…‘Let us both dance’. What truly matters is to simply spend a pleasant evening and have fun dancing”

Isn’t it magical!
How our passion for a dance will not only drive us to learn more about a foreign culture but it will also push us to research for any common elements with our own culture. Making us in this way explorers of the world!

😉
Chrisa

P.S: From more become a member of our community and subscribe to Bautanz- Constructing Dance
P.P.S: For similar stories check also: Musicality_A Musical Journey to the past

Argentine tango, Art, be yourself, body awareness, Dance, mindfulness, Musicality

Qualities of movement

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Back in December we started a donation based series of workshops that were around mindful movement.
Our classes and explorations carried from breathing and posture to walking, music and rhythm. This time we will turn our focus to qualities of movement.

Our goals will be to connect to the world of emotions and feelings and express ourselves through movement. We will also, focus on qualities in the music and how those can be expressed through movement. 

Quality hides in the transition

I am not sure if you have ever felt but I definitely have… this feeling of uncertainty, of something missing even though you have performed a movement “correctly”…?
You would start off correctly, or with what would appear as correct, and end at the right spot but somehow feel like you had missed something in between. A feeling that something is not quite right, or that something was missing

So that is the feeling we will be trying to better understand… Where is it coming from and why? 
What are we really missing?

Becoming aware of the transition from point A to point B can be a way to discover more options, opportunities and qualities in our movement and I hope that you will join me in this journey on Saturday March 27th at 12pm (EST)

Pay from the Heart

This is a donation based workshop because we feel it is important to open up opportunities for people to move even if they are not Tango fans, even if they haven’t really for the last year and especially if they feel that it takes a lot of effort, physical or psychological, to move.

So we have taken down all limitations on our side and we only ask for you to contribute as much as you can, through a donation here: https://paypal.me/Bautanz?locale.x=en_US

And if you can’t contribute a monetary amount still join us, attending is another form of contribution.
So here is the link to our Zoom room for Saturday: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85966158244
Or if you prefer Facebook: https://fb.me/e/435N5uQBj

And maybe you will decide “Qualities of movement” is not for you at the moment, still subscribe for weekly movement inspired emails and future classes

Hope to see you Saturday,

Chrisa

Argentine tango, body awareness, body mechanics, Dance, mindfulness, online tango practice, tango movement lab, Tango practice

Tango Movement Lab

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Movement Lab, what is that?
Well that is surely a borrowed term, from other movement practices….

In a movement lab, what usually happens is that people get together and “brain” or better said “body” storm; exploring movements, testing ideas, analyzing, giving and getting feedback and generally researching movement.

One can use different tools in such labs; and tools can be different dances, movement practices, meditation practices, anatomy learning, and more or some combination of them all.

Why introduce a Tango movement lab?

Well we have been in this lockdown mode for about a year now, on and off… so what are we really doing here?

What are we practicing or taking classes for?
Is there any point practicing elements tightly related and strictly specific to Tango when we can’t go social dancing?
And wouldn’t we benefit more if we used Tango as a tool to move better and with more freedom in general?

The reason therefore of letting go of the Tango practice and shifting towards a Tango movement lab, is that the latter will allow us to break free of drills and exercises and instead use Tango only as framework to find ways to move with more freedom.

By the way our first Tango Movement Lab already happened… Check it out here:

How is a Tango movement lab different from a Tango practice?

Practicing follows a different pattern than what we described above. During a practice we focus on a very specific thing; from connection to practicing ochos we are zooming in on a specific element and drilling on what we have learned in order to progress.

That in itself makes practicing necessary and important, especially in the beginning when we are trying to learn all the fundamentals and the “rules” of Tango. It is almost like memorizing words when you are trying to learn a new language. You just go over lists of words or through games and puzzles over and over again in order for them to stick.

But once that is established, how would you grow your vocabulary? Maybe you would go and get into chats with people who speak the language. Or you would see a movie in that language without subtitles, You could start learning about the history of the language and the place. Or even get into how speech is created through the body…. And so many other paths that will help grow your understanding of speaking and expressing yourself through speech overall! And the specific language you were trying to get better at… well that is now just another language… just another tool to help you speak and express yourself with more ease!

A Tango Movement Lab therefore is here to help us move and express ourselves through movement with more ease! Tango will only be another tool!

Who is with me?
If you are hit subscribe and meet me every Wednesday at 12:15pm EST on Youtube or Facebook

😉

Chrisa

P.S: If you were looking for practicing though we have a lot of that too… You can start here