Tag Archives: boleos

Advanced dancer, Argentine tango, Argentine tango technique, body awareness, body mechanics, Dance, online tango practice, Tango practice, Uncategorized

Show must go on Or taking a moment to figure things out?

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This is the video from the latest Live Tango practice that we run every week. This week things didn’t go quite as planned…
In retrospect nothing terrible happened but I did lose my balance a couple of times and got into show-must-go-on mode! (haha)

Show must go on–when is it useful?

One would think, like I did until today, that especially when you are teaching, dancing in general performing, then there is only one mode, the show-must-go-on mode…

And I can surely agree on certain performance types, such as a dance show, that of course you keep on going. However teaching and practicing, even if it is streaming live, have a different purpose, as during those times we have the opportunity to learn!

So if you notice in the video above there are some imbalances from the beginning of my dance. To which I reacted with stubbornly doing more back ochos, but to no avail. It was only after I slowed things down and then added rebounds that things started actually getting better. However from beginning to end my focus was to keep going and not to take some time to find out why I was off balance.

That of course takes us to nearly the end of the video where there are some more balance issues… Where once more, time is not given to address the issue. So even now that I writing this I can only speculate why I was off balance.

Someone might ask: Well what is the big deal? It only happened once or it happens to everyone or you just kept going…
Well it is not really a big deal but more a missed opportunity!

A missed opportunity to figure out what is really wrong

These were moments where I could have paused or I could have at least slowed down.

When we do that we are more able to pay attention, to listen, to stop the fear and the anxiety that are building up and focus on what we are attempting to do. Had I done that, I would have gotten a list of various different things that could have potentially caused the imbalance. However now I got nothing!

So you see what the problem is… Now there is no way to learn from this experience, the opportunity for deeper exploration is lost. Along with it, a step to progress and potentially not being in the same boat again is also lost.
In this way I see this as a missed opportunity.

It is a missed opportunity to deepen our understanding, to explore different options and possibly come up with more ideas and variations for exploration. So it is actually a missed opportunity to learn!

My suggestion to you…

If you find yourselves in a similar situation whether it is a one off or a regular case then pause or slow down and try to see if there are different ways to approach whatever it is giving you trouble.

Don’t see it as a moment to push through but an opportunity to go deeper.

That is my suggestion, of course you can decide for yourself how you want to manage those moments while going through one of our other practices for example…haha…which you can find here: https://bautanz.com/online-tango-practice/

😉

Enjoy

Chrisa

P.S: No time for a 30min practice? No worries try out the Tango exercise of the week:

Argentine tango technique, body awareness, hip axis, ochos, Tango practice, Tango walks, Tips on tango technique for leaders and followers

Boleos- A practice NoT about kicks

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It is interesting to see people’s reactions to boleos.
I am actually sure quite a few people probably won’t read this article because it includes the word boleos in the title…but for those who are here now be prepared for a bit of a twist to your regular boleo experience…haha

Boleos are not high kicks..!

So what is a boleo?
A boleo is a change of direction on a turn, on a pivot
It doesn’t have to be powerful, it doesn’t have to be high or super low and of course it doesn’t have to be a kick

Certainly there potential for all the things mentioned above…all of them though refer to style and not to the essence of what a boleo is.

ALL we need for a good boleo

And unfortunately it is not love…haha

2 are the main ingredients for a great boleo:

  • Timing as with everything in life and
  • The balance between energy contained and shared

The following video looks into both of these main items and sets the base for fancier boleos and more in depth explorations

Look beyond the kick- Enhance your Tango technique

If we look at a boleo for what it is, a change of direction and make our focus to make as smooth as possible whether contain or share energy, we will soon discover that there certain elements such as the hip axis that if we focused on them we could have a completely different experience during our dances.

The next two videos go progressively deeper into exploring the hip axis and especially the last one creates the link to other Tango essentials such as our walks and ochos

I really hope you will enjoy the practices and if you want to see more videos and more in depth structured practices to do at the comfort of your own home, at your own time click here: https://bautanz.com/intelligent-tango-programs-and-courses/

😉

Chrisa

P.S: A big thank you for the teachings and the inspiration to my teacher Frey Faust, founder of Axis Syllabus (http://www.axissyllabus.org)

ochos, Tips on tango technique for leaders and followers, Uncategorized

Rhythm, music and style in your ochos & boleos

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Yesterday we talked about musicality in the walk, so today I wanted us to dig a little bit deeper into capturing the essence of the music. And we will be using ochos and boleos to do that.

It is not though a video on technique. But a video on flavour, taste, and style…

Why did I choose ochos and boleos..?

First of all they are a vital part of Tango, especially ochos.
The main reason though was that they come as a package with so many rules, do’s-and-dont’s and styles that the more we learn the more frustrated we get…!

Look at the beginning of this video for example…
Yes it is me…unfortunately…haha

Look at that  grim expression on my face… You can actually see what is going on in my head…

  1. Keep the body to your partner
  2. Hips stay square
  3. Hold that posture
  4. Step-and-turn (put a robotic voice to this…)

Who wants to be dancing like that?!?!
I look awful! It looks like I am doing military service here…  hahaha

Thank fully I didn’t stop practising…

What am I doing differently, in that second part..?

Firstly, even though in the first video I am focused, you can see I am not in the movement, I am in my head thinking about the “should”, “could”, “would”…
Compared to the second video, that I am in the moment, commited to the movement

Secondly, my whole body is participating in the movement. The ochos are more about connection and upper-and-lower body dialog than disassociation.

That is exactly what I meant yesterday when I said that if you leave all the work to the legs, you will never stop feeling like a robot.
In order to have an effortless, efficient, enjoyable dance, your whole body needs to be active.
And in order to be able to FEEL, embody the music, you need to allow your whole body to move, to dance, like I am doing in the second part of the video.

Thirdly, I am matching the energy, the style, the dynamics and the feeling of the ochos with that of the boleos.
This, interestingly enough is a big issue for followers…
How are we supposed to do a boleo?
Where should I place my knee?
How powerful should it be… etc etc

Good boleos come from a good ochos, those two are intimately connected!
So find THAT connection first and then the right boleo will come out of it. All the 3 boleo versions you can see in the video are correct, so you can use either one depending on the energy, the music, your mood, the space etc

Choosing between techniques

Because I know that many of you will see this video and think: “But MY teacher says your ochos shoule be like this… and your boleos have to be like so…”

I don’t care what your teacher says… And you know why?
Because your teacher is probably correct!

This video is not here to prove your teacher right or wrong though. This is not the issue…
The issue here is to encourage you to try different techniques, different ideas, different styles… And most importantly to get your whole body moving, to get your WHOLE BODY dancing!

Then and only then you will be able to fully express yourselves, through movement.  You will be able to attempt a taste of the different styles of Tango, and choose the one that feels better for you depending on the music, who you are dancing with, your mood etc.
This way every dance will be a special experience for you and your partners.

The scariest question of the video…

Is this going to take 2 YEARS?
hahaha

It is true… THIS is how long it took me AND I practised every day for 2 hours A DAY.
You can imagine how frustrating that must have been. You can actually see the frustration in my face, in the 2015 video… its insane!

But you don’t have to go through that for 2 years…

You don’t have to make the same mistakes I made, you can actually save yourselves some frustration and anguish by practising a lot smarter, with the right material, sequenced in the proper way, here at bautanz.com by subscribing to this page and getting more goodies and Tango tips on your email weekly

Or through joining Intelligent Tango– the course,  where I have sellected the best exercises from my practice and I have sequenced them for you: https://bautanz.com/intelligent-tango-programs-and-courses/

Hope to see you there,
Chrisa