[part 2 of "Lead and follow"]
(2) A man must know very clearly what he wants his partner to do. The certainty alone gives a woman the confidence to surrender her will to his. But his knowledge will also communicate details of his desire to her in a dozen subtle ways, many of which he is not conscious. He does not need to know all the details of HOW she executes his request. That is her job. He only needs to know WHAT he wants. It does help, however, to have practiced the woman's part and know some of what she does. This helps him better to judge if he should make a request, or if he should give her more time for some movements. When learning advanced and complicated movements often men will focus most on their own part. But if he focuses on her's instead his part will become clearer, because it is determined by what he wants her to do. Also sometimes he may discover more than one way to do his part of the movement. A woman enters into an unspoken contract when she accepts an embrace not to undermine a man's confidence, which for most of us is more fragile than we like to admit. Only in an emergency should she refuse a request, and the time to discuss technique is in a class, not at a milonga, or at least not on the dance floor. A leader should be willing, even eager, to risk (harmless) mistakes. It's part of being a leader, to adventure. But it's also part of leading to admit to it when one fails - including asking partners to do something they cannot do, either because it is beyond their skill level or because (perhaps) they are too tired to respond properly. There are two aspects of making mistakes I don't recall ever hearing/reading about. They build the leader's skill at recovering from errors - which happen no matter how careful and skilled a couple are. Also, in recovering, sometimes we discover/invent a new "step." (1) Puppy Costello supposedly said "Figures are easy; walking is hard." It's equally true that the seemingly simple embrace is hard, and hides many subtleties. The embrace is a pleasure in its own right, and for many part of the reward for dancing. It is also the "voice" we use to communicate our desires, and for more than just the immediate desires to move in ways that execute figures and communicate how well we can or can't do them. Learning how to embrace well, and practicing to make the embrace better, is crucial to dancing, especially in tango where potentially each individual step may be lead. We who do tango are lucky that pauses are part of the dance's vocabulary. I like to start each dance with a zarandeo, a gentle left- right twisting of our bodies. This means we can begin dancing even though we move our feet not at all. We can also begin dancing by doing cadencias, named after the way soldiers keep the cadence when stopped by stepping in place. The zarandeo and cadencia allow us to define then refine our embrace before trying to walk and stay synchronized. Once moving it is a good idea to dance very simply so we can focus on getting acquainted with our partner. The better we know our partner the sooner we can graduate to more elaborate moves. Even with long-time and favorite partners, however, we should not skimp on getting acquainted. Each of us is more than one person. The depressed or enthusiastic person at the beginning of the evening may change so that at it's end we are exhilarated or weary and a very different person to dance with. And thus we scratch the surface of leading and following. Larry de Los Angeles http://shapechangers.wordpress.com ____________________________________________________________ Click for free information on accounting careers, $150 hour potential. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2131/fc/Ioyw6iieWhxIA68hetHdJF14okP8CVxrYQG9fHcyoL0Q0yNNGC78ps/ _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l