David says "I suggest a lead, and she follows. But she follows as she chooses and ***goes where she will.***I then must react / follow her interpretation of my lead. Of course, I can lead so clearly(?) that she really has no choice, and sometimes I do. But that is only when I am too tired to really dance. Then I just lead with clarity and dance through her." Some time ago I taught to dance tango to a girl about 20 years old, she was a natural for this dance and learned very fast. Eventually we had a milonga, attended by many people from out of town. She is very attractive so everyone invited her to dance. At the end I asked her about her experience in this, her first milonga. She said - when I dance with you, you guide in such a way that I have no doubt, what so ever with respect to what I am supposed to do, but when I dance with some of the other men, (including an instructor from out of town) ...I have no idea about what I am supposed to do, so I do whatever I want, they follow and we continue dancing that way - . She disregarded my instruction: "If you do not have a clear lead, wait in place and do nothing till you get one." So this seems to be about several elements: 1 - We work hard about learning how to lead. We lead everything, even by omission. If I allow time she does more or slower ornaments, if I do not allow extra time she does less and more rapid embellishments. We lead the type of embellishment, low or high, boleos or amagues, etc. We "place" the woman, where she is supposed to go, so "she does not go wherever she wants to go. During early instruction she is taught precisely where to step with respect to the man, etc. As I already explained, she contributes, in her own feminine way, in her posture, the quality of her steps, the way she does everything influences what I am going to lead next. 2 - We do not go to the milonga, till we know how to dance, how to lead and how to navigate the floor. Usually it takes about two years of learning and practicing. Summary: you may dance as you wish, you may call what you do A. Tango as well. There are many ways to dance. The important thing is to have fun. Mario this is not about different tango styles, all the styles require a precise lead, the more complex the tango, the more skilled the man has to be with his lead. Best regards, Sergio _________________________________________________________________ Get more out of the Web. Learn 10 hidden secrets of Windows Live. http://windowslive.com/connect/post/jamiethomson.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!550F681DAD532637!5295.entry?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_domore_092008 _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
