I get a lot of resistance from teachers on here, but, I still feel that there are a couple of things lacking from traditional teaching. Just mark this down as thinking outside the box.
(1) Teach a class where the leader indicates the direction and feel of the step, the follower steps and the leader follows the follower through the step. Experiment with various types of music. Instruct the follower throughout the class on musicality. Let the leader be along for the ride. Why not? Teachers always set the follower up to be the extra in the class. Have the leader follow the follower through the step. (2) Remember my post on making the pivot be more important than steps? Okay. Using #1, above, teach the follower to move in and out of the pivot musically. Yes, teach the leader, too. But, I am all for teaching the follower and send them out to the milongas with feel. Then, the leaders will feel it through them! Can you spot the people, at milongas, that move with varying feels (energies) into and out of the pivot? Sit and watch. There are probably only a few in your community. Yes, NYC, Denver, and others will have more. One time, my partner invited an advanced leader from another community to our milongas for the weekend. I love my partner. She has what Jackie wants to teach. I gave her all the space in the world. Later, I said, So? She said, I miss that feel. No kidding. I was watching. He had a great variety of leads. For sure, I sat and, mentally, took notes. But, I knew he was missing one thing: He wasnt changing the feel as he moved through a step. You know? Give her some passion! Cool leads are, well, cool! Passionate movements are musical to the n-th degree. Here, go to this webpage: http://www.2dcurves.com/exponential/exponential.html Click on the various exponential links. Teach your leaders and followers to feel the music according to different curves. Let the x-axis be distance through the step. Let the y-axis be speed, emphasis, energy, anything other than the boredom of constant speed and energy! Create exercises where they dance to the violin, the voice, etc. Create exercises where they think of dancing heavy, like a clown, etc. AND, give examples derived from those curves. Make it fun! Let it by funny! And, above all, stop teaching just the leader! The follower paid, too! --- jackie ling wong <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > as most people on this list know, i lead and i > follow. i have been > told that one of my best qualities as a dancer is my > ability to > express myself musically. to quote someone... "you > dance the music". > this is not through only embellishments. > > now, i have led many followers... and there are > followers who just > follow which is nice and then there are followers > who dance with > you.... who dance melodically... and hear the notes > that are > emphasized and can translate that to their dance. > it feels like they > are reading my mind because my expression in the > dance becomes so > easy. her/his boleo considers not only the time of > the movement but > the energy, how the beat is used (emphasized at the > beg. of the > beat...etc)... it feels like painting. > > i probably am not expressing this correctly and > please don't give me > grief for that. in fact, if someone can express it > better, i would > love to hear it. > > my question... how do you teach this? is there an > exercise that can > help people understand what i am saying? > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/;_ylt=Ahu06i62sR8HDtDypao8Wcj9tAcJ _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
