*Bob wrote: *"Does Argentine tango help one dance better ballroom? Does ballroom dancing help one *dance better A. tango? In other words, is there a cross-training benefit or does one *genre interfere with learning the other?"
I firmly believe that if you start your dancing career under professional direction with the Ballroom dances, you will be a better Tango dancer quicker. I also think that if you, as a Tango-only-taught-dancer went and started dancing Ballroom, you would have a longer learning curve than vice-versa. I personally began my dancing in the Ballroom circles so I speak from personal experience - others experience may differ. In Ballroom the teachers emphasize on posture and frame for a long time. A tango teacher than made his student pay as much just to learn how to stand right would probably lose that student, even though in my opinion it is something that needs to be done and learned. Tango is famous for drooping heads and concaved shoulders; we've all seen that 6'-8" guy reduced to 6'-2" because he can't keep his head up. Same with women: Tall women seem ashamed of their tallness and shrink and project down. Short women don't arch their backs so they're projecting straight versus up, as they ought to. To learn how to stand up straight and how to properly project and to extend seem to take a lot longer to achieve if attempted via tango-only. I would say years versus months. This of course depends on the abilities and skills of the individual dancer and the frequency of their dancing, but on the whole I do believe the way to start is via Ballroom: it is "big" dancing. Like Daniel Trenner said: It is easier to make the steps small once you've learned them big than it is to make the steps big if you learned them small. Tango in my experience starts off very small - at least in the States. Positives from Ballroom for leader: Straight back and neck, strong square frame, ability to hear the beat in the music. Appreciation for manners and etiquette (including my personal pet peeve: Open Jackets. If you're wearing the jacket to dance you keep it closed. If you're hot you take the Jacket off -as long as you haven't soaked your shirt, then you keep it on and suffer to protect the follower). Negatives from Ballroom for leader: Need to soften the frame to adjust to more crowded dancing conditions and to different holds that different follows have. Need to learn Cabeceo and to stop asking women to dance by standing in front of them, bowing your head, and extending your hand, lol. Positives from Ballroom for follower: Good tall posture and projection, ability to take long back steps without sacrificing ones posture. Ability to follow the lead - only weird things to learn are the cross-step and "sloppy dancing". In close-embrace if you do traveling back-ochos the woman can't be pivoting from their mid-section, it's sub-hip-motion. Negatives from Ballroom for follower: Need to re-learn embrace; connection will be higher than in ballroom, but all one would have to do is pivot from their mid-section: Upper-body comes closer to the leader while the pelvis separates. Re-learn where and how to place their left arm and hand. Also important to keep the head either straight or directed toward the man's instead of away. Again, these are my personal experiences and observations and unless you have similar Ballroom experience then you've no leg to stand on if you're wanting to troll. Ta. _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l
