Tag Archives: walk right

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!

January 16, 2022 Chrisa Assis Leave a comment

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

Spiral–Defining our humanity

June 26, 2020 Chrisa Assis Leave a comment

If you had the opportunity to practice with me on Wednesday you probably noticed that a big part of the class was about this wave-like, this spiral movement our body follows when walking that can help us transition smoothly to ochos.

The spiral as an experience

I wanted to share some extra information on the idea behind this practice and a few extra videos that you can practice with.
The idea behind all this is the defining element of the spiral.
The spiral is not just some random shape that happens to appear in certain parts of the body. It is not just a shape that allows for efficiency of movement.
The spiral is our existence, it is literally our DNA. And DNA being the carrier of hereditary material it is experience!
The spiral in this way exists in our every move from our cells to our highest boleos!

Therefore, finding the spiral in your movement, even in the ones that look fairly straight, will heighten your awareness of your movement and it will energize your whole body with it’s vibrancy.

An important characteristic: progressive wholeness

When picturing a spiral of any type, we associate it, and rightfully so, with continuous energy. However, I would like to add to that and say that there is also the element of progressive wholeness
A spiral always moves switching between condensing and expanding, with continuous transition between the two and a continuous coexistence.
Try to feel the movement through your body when you walk and when you ocho–in the latter it is of course more evident–as a transition and coexistence of condensing and expanding. Instead of thinking how each muscle body part should move try to feel whole. And specifically a wholeness deriving from the continuous flow of the spiral and not through squeezing, pulling, pushing, holding etc.

And so to make it more specific let’s look at our practice. We explored forward and backward ochos feeling how the back and core muscles condense and expand and how one can create a different quality of movement making one or the other action (condensing-expanding) primary.
This is an excellent practice to follow if you wish to explore different Tango styles but also if you want to work on expressing yourself better on the music.

Some extra resources

Ok! Lets see videos to practice on all of this:

In the Spine:

In the psoas:

A brief overview of the body

I hope you will enjoy aaaall of this!
And if you would like to dive deeper into all of this Session #3 of our online classes, will be a great match.
Here is the link: https://bautanz.com/intelligent-tango-programs-and-courses/online-tango-classes-live/

😉
Chrisa

P.S: If you prefer Facebook here is the link to our Live practice: https://www.facebook.com/bautanz/videos/2679043972416304/

Argentine tango, Argentine tango technique, Dance, Emboying the rules, ochos, Tango practice, Tango walks, Tips on tango technique for leaders and followers, Uncategorized

Walks, Ochos and Timing

June 23, 2019 Chrisa Assis Leave a comment

Walks and ochos are the two elements at the heart of Tango; every sequence with maybe the exception of off-axis sequences are based on walks and ochos

It is therefore important to get a good understanding of how walks and ochos work and how they can be tied together. And this is exactly what we will be focusing on in this post

Zooming In: Walks and Pivotal timing

In this first video we are putting our walks under the microscope. We capture though the whole body, aiming to understand how all the dots connect.

By focusing on the feet, the legs, the hips, the torso and the spine we will discover that the opportune moment for a pivot, hides within our step.

Once that discovery is made, we can see how a walk can turn into an ocho and vice versa. This way walks and ochos aren’t as separate, disconnected Tango elements that are need a sequence to connect them.
This way we get to create options for ourselves on and off the dance floor.

Tango Technique: Zoom In on Ochos #2

In this second video there is a great focus on the upper body but again not as a separate entity.

The human body has so many fascinating links. The psoas major for example, originates in the outer surfaces of the vertebral bodies of T12 and L-1-L-3. T8-T12 is where your thoracic spine changes to Lumbar spine, so a muscle that goes around your hip reaches all the way up to your second- last rib… Fascinating!
(Look here for more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psoas_major_muscle
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iliopsoas)

It is all connected I tell you!hahaha
And by exploring these connections we can make our dances have much more flow, freedom and efficiency.

Tango, Body mechanics and Energy management

What was implied or talked about as secondary in the two previous videos, becomes primary now… Energy management..! Energy management not in a spiritual, abstract way, but in a very physical way. Managing the energy our bodies need to perform a movement and how can we manage our energy so it is not wasted.

Basically in this video we are aiming to make Tango feel a bit easier, at least in execution…haha…meaning that walking across the floor shouldn’t feel like a physically demanding task and pivoting also.

We put styling and personal preference to the side to examine how the body was in fact built to create these movements. Some being more chaotic than others, will require further exploration; and funnily enough walking is probably the most chaotic of all as it requires a lot of movements around different axises and on different planes.

So we have tried to come up with exercises that can help us understand a bit of the chaos, and possibly add to it; exercises that will allow us to feel a bit more comfortable in this chaotic movement and that will allow us to define the opportune moments for a change

I hope you have enjoyed this as much as I have. If you have any questions, comments or light-bulb moments drop me a line, I would love to chat with you!

If you more content like this, visit: https://bautanz.com/argentine-tango-technique/argentine-tango-technique-ochos/

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