You know the music!

A few trips to Buenos Aires ago, I went to my favorite milonga and had a fun-filled evening. I accepted a cabeceo from a dancer who looked good, but who I did not know. After the first song, he enthused, “You know the music!! I didn’t expect that . . .” he trailed off.

“You didn’t expect a foreigner to know the music, or you didn’t expect a woman to know the music?” I queried.

“Both.” he replied. “Usually, only men know the music that well. The women just dance with you and don’t always listen. And foreigners never know the music well.”

It turned out he was also a teacher, but locally, and we had many great tandas during that visit. I appreciated that HE appreciated the time I had invested in learning tango music.

Musicality

Musicality should be one of your bag of tricks for dancing tango. Like having an amazing embrace, good musicality can provide you with good partners even if you are a beginner or have middling technique skills. Also, for most dancers, you either have groove, or you don’t: it is difficult to acquire an easy flow of movement.

On the other hand, gaining a knowledge of tango music, and dancing in collaboration with the music, CAN be learned. It takes time, but you can fit it into your daily schedule with a minimum of extra expended time. Here are time-saving ideas that work:

• Listen to tango in your car. You are going to spend that time in the car anyway, so use it!

• Listen to tango as you make your morning tea, coffee, or mate. You might only have time for one or two songs, but that counts.

• Listen to tango as you walk or run or exercise. Again, you will get two things done on your list at the same time!

• Listen to tango as you make dinner or a snack. I hope the rest of your household likes tango, but if not, you can put earphones on. I like to annoy my teenager by singing along.

As you learn songs, make a playlist of the songs that you like, and add songs in that you want to learn. You can eventually learn most of the tango songs that DJs play regularly, but it takes time. Spend your energy on what YOU like.

I have playlists on Spotify for tango, divided into decades; as well as vals and milonga playlists. There are hundreds or thousands of playlists. Listen to someone else’s playlist and add your favorites to your list. You will find deep satisfaction in fine-tuning your favorites, and other dancers will notice.

Pick your partners

You don’t have to like all tango music; pick what you love and focus on that. I have favorite partners for vals, milonga, rhythmic tango, more lyrical tango, and alternative music. Most dancers excel at one of those categories. One dancer in Buenos Aires and I dance only to one orchestra when we see each other because that’s what we do best together. Another only dances milonga with me because we truly rock to milonga, but don’t dance tango well together. If you don’t like a song, sit down!

Three-card-draw game for building your tango ingenuity

How many times a week do I hear “I am bored with my dance!” or “Is my dance boring?” from a dancer? We all suffer from the habit of going back to our first few moves when under stress (a difficult partner, not enough space, a song we don’t know well) so how can we avoid that situation and keep dancing a more fluid, variable dance?

I have recently talked about following the follower, dancing like fluid dynamics and other ideas. I personally try to stay away from thinking about moves when I dance BUT to get to that point, we need to practice combinations enough times that our body does them without our conscious thought abandoning connection, our partner and musicality. How can we both practice methodically AND expand our repertoire?

Three card draw

To celebrate the holidays and reward dancers who showed up for group class, I passed out sets of flashcards and markers to help folks get started with this game. The main idea is to pick three moves and try to make a combination with as few steps in between as possible; and then practice that combo.

What should I put on the cards?

For you to find new combinations, you need to do two things: include moves that you don’t know as well; and be very specific so that the cards ask for move combos that aren’t your go-to five moves. For example, perhaps you always turn left. YOU need to include a card that says “turn right/CW” in your batch of cards. For someone who never uses crossed system except for back ochos, that person needs to delineate specific crossed system moves (walk to the X in Xed system; walk on the closed side of the embrace in crossed system; walk OUT of the X in Xed system, etc.). For someone who wants to learn sacadas, I would add the following cards:

• leader front sacada through follower open step of turn

• leader front sacada through follower forward step

• leader side sacada through follower side step

• leader back sacada through follower side step

• follower front sacada through leader forward step

• linear sacada line of dance in Xed system

• and you could specify whether the sacada was circular/through a turn or linear; or in the right or left turn; you get the idea.

The more specific you can be, the better the game will work (“leader front sacada through follower front step in the left giro” is specific enough). Vague cards allow you to just use your usual steps.

Make a list

Draw your three cards, try the pattern several times, and if you like the pattern, WRITE IT DOWN! Practice the pattern until it feels normal and part of your dance. Then, pick a new pattern and do it again. If you make a list of the combos you liked and the combos you did not like (or that your partner hated), you can start to build possibilities into your dance. You will also see what you tend to avoid, and work on those moves until you feel more confident.

Strategies for incorporating your new combos when dancing

DO NOT bring the list to the milonga and try to fulfil it! The last thing you need is a NEW list of five steps. Hopefully, drilling the new ideas will help wire more pathways in your brain from one move to another, so when you are dancing, your body can go somewhere a little new without much conscious thought.

You will find that you get into new ruts and are only dancing the new set of combinations. Whenever I teach a chunk of material, I end up dancing it too often. When I am bored with my dance, I try to vary the ending of my dances; or add one move back in that I have ignored for a while; or replace one comfortable combo with one new combo—something small that shakes up my routine.

Remember: ALL of us have these habits. You are not a bad dancer because you only remember a few moves at a time. A good leader has good floorcraft, protects the follower, leads clearly, listens to the music, and only after all that do the moves matter. They are the least important piece of the dance. Repeat after me: I am a good dancer!

Letting your motor pathways learn

I have recovered from my broken toe and arch injury, so I am back at my non-tango methods of staying in shape. Each one gives me diverse ways to see how we learn about our bodies, stay mindful in our tango, and let ourselves loose to play in our dance.

Tennis

For those of you who know me well, you know that I have almost no distance judgment. My eye doctor told me that, if a fighter pilot is a 10/10, I am a 1.5/10 in terms of ability to distinguish depth. You can imagine how this affects any sport where you need to hit a ball with a moving object. I must memorize: “OK, if it looks like the ball is THERE, then it’s really in THIS spot.” If you ever feel frustrated by tango, you will feel better if you watch me try to hit a ball.

However, we all have ways to get around our body limitations. For me, I can rely on my body awareness to learn how to do something I cannot see. I can feel when the move I am making feels right. I can practice over and over, focusing on my weak spot and trying to convince that motor pathway to “stick” to the correct movement. I am working on my backhand, with information from my sports-crazed chiropractor; my patient tennis-playing husband; and my own studies in fascia. “Fascia!” I chant to myself as I remember to use the spring of my wrist as part of my motion. When I have hit two or three good backhand shots, I start to remember how to set up for the stroke better and begin to have more luck.

Back to tango

For those of you who tell me, “Oh, I have one leg longer than the other,” or “I just can’t be creative to music,” I challenge you: what else do you know? What other skills can you use here to get past your handicap? The advantage to being an adult learner is our ability to learn in context. What is your superpower that you forget when you dance? Apply it here!

Running

I am a slow runner. My son says that it is not fair to call this running. In grade school, I was the one with my ankles taped from strains and sprains, always last in the race. I did not like running, but trained for field hockey in high school, ran in college and Peace Corps and graduate school because there was always someone to drag me out to run with them. I learned to enjoy running in my thirties, running with the Hash House Harriers.

Because of my injuries, I have not been able to run for over a year. It feels great to be able to start again, even if the first mile still feels awful. After that, I get in a rhythm and give myself small goals. “After that street sign, I can walk if I want.” “If I can run to the top of that hill, I get to walk for a block.” “Look, it’s only four blocks back to the house!” I have found that singing the Hallelujah Chorus to myself will keep me in cadence when I lose enthusiasm. I give myself pep talks: Look how much lower my blood pressure will be if I keep this up!

Back to tango

Give yourself small goals. Allow yourself to fail. Practice for three minutes. Remind yourself that the balance and coordination you are learning will hold you in good stead as you age, reducing falls and keeping you more mobile than the other people your age. Remember that if I can run, you can dance. If you enjoy tango and it helps you stay sane/healthy/fit, then do it!

Barre 3

After a five-year break after COVID, I am back doing Barre 3. I am amazed that I am stronger and more flexible than before. I already know the moves, so I do not have to learn new patterns, but i can perfect the movements I already know, like going to tango beginner class.

I have been teaching yoga, lifting weights and only lacked the aerobic fitness I had before. After the first day, when I thought I might pass out, I quickly found the classes easy, even jogging home afterwards. I feel proud that I can keep up with the twenty-somethings in the class. The advantage of the class is that, as a competitive person, I will NOT let myself slack off if everyone else is doing something. I would never do this many burpees alone!

Back to tango

Tango class can feel frustrating. Why am I trying to do this move with someone else who has no idea what we are doing either? However, group class is for putting in practice time with guidance. It’s for trying your moves on more than your partner or your teacher. It allows you to ask your teacher, “OK, why is this not working?” It allows you to be competitive (“I WILL get this move!”) instead of just giving up. And it gives you a community to celebrate when you can do something, commiserate when it doesn’t work, and to prod you to higher goals (“Come to the milonga on Friday with me!”).

Find yourself a tango posse. Try things that are hard. Find ways around your shortcomings. Pace yourself. Allow yourself to be just OK at something for a while. Look for ways to integrate tango into your life, and your life into your tango! Give your motor pathways time to learn new moves, polish them, and adjust until they work well, and then GO PLAY!

Giving yourself feedback

We all get feedback when at practicas and (unfortunately) at milongas if folks do not know that one should not critique at a milonga. Some dancers’ advice helps our progress. Some information is just plain wrong. There are dancers who want to help us, and dancers who want to put us down. It is a mixed bag in terms of what we get out of practice. What else can we do to give more accurate feedback to ourselves?

Video yourself

I find it helpful, although hard on the ego, to watch myself dance. I am my own worst critic, and I see everything that I did wrong when watching myself. However, this is an immensely helpful tool when learning about your own dance.

The most important thing to remember is that watching yourself in 2-D will ALWAYS look worse than the dance in 3-D looked. Every time we performed in graduate school, our dance teachers reminded us of this fact. Some of the energy of the dance does not translate.

So be kind to yourself!

Things to look for in your dance

First, get over the initial disappointment that your dance is not perfect. Oh, well . . . Now, what do you notice is better than the last time you filmed yourself? What has not improved? What may have slipped back into a bad habit?

You will find that you know about your own habits, even if you have no idea how to fix the problems. It is better to know exactly what is happening and to move onto a new level of body understanding. Make a game plan for improving your dance: what is your priority? Conversely, what are specific, small issues you can address right away to feel progress?

Take a private lesson

If you feel unable to make a to-do list for yourself, take your video to your teacher and have them evaluate it with you, pointing out good moments and how you can improve. They can help you plan for improvement if it feels too onerous to do it alone.

Remember that you and your teacher are your team for making your dance better and more enjoyable. They want you to feel good, to succeed in your goals, and can be a good cheerleader to help you move up to a higher level.

Gratitude

Thank all of you who came to my birthday milonga! I felt very loved and valued. I don’t like crying in public, but having everyone sing Happy Birthday (which I truly had not expected) made me cry. Thank you for the gifts and cards as well as the kind words, hugs and dances. I am working on being able to receive, instead of only being comfortable giving; and Friday night was a crash course.

Thank you Luisa and Art and Stevyn for supplying yummy cakes for the party :-) For those who asked, the one cake said 60/30/12: 60 years old April 6th, 30 years of dancing tango, and 12 years of marriage April 3rd. A bunch of milestones, all to be celebrated. I am honored by your presence in my life, all of you.

A special shout-out to the four dancers who drove up from Eugene just for the evening in order to celebrate with me. That is dedication indeed. I miss you folks! When I started teaching tango in 1996 in Eugene, I never expected to still be teaching 29 years later. I am so happy that all of you are still dancing!

Another special thank you to the people who came out to tango for the FIRST time since COVID! One person came out for the first time in eight years. Thank you to folks who also came out to their first tango event ever! I am glad you trusted me enough to be brave and get out there on the dance floor for my birthday.

I am so proud of all of you, my students! Someone came up to me and said, “Do you realize that over 80% of the people here have been or are your students?” A day like this helps me see that I have made a difference in the world. Your dancing is beautiful to watch: so many people having fun!

And thanks to those of you who are not my students, but still came out to celebrate. Thank you for welcoming new dancers into the community and encouraging them. It makes a difference in terms of community building to help new and returning dancers to feel welcome and part of things.

Come to my 60th birthday milonga!

In April, Norse Hall was already booked for our regular Friday evening event time, so . . . we are holding Las Naifas on April 4th, one week early. That happens to be my 60th birthday weekend. Please come to the milonga, eat some cake, and help me celebrate!

2025 is also my 30th year of tango! Last night at Las Naifas, I had students from my second and fifth years of teaching tango who showed up at the milonga: it’s wonderful to see that they are still dancing after all these years. I must be a tango great-grandmother by now, with my students teaching people who teach people who (you get the picture).

There will be a pre-milonga lesson by me: 5:30 1/2 hour of tango something, and 6 PM 1/2 hour of chacarera, in preparation for a chacarera set later in the evening. Peter Esser (who I also taught way back in the early years of Eugene tango) will DJ for us. Dancing until 9:30 PM.

There will be cake. Need I say more? I hope you will join me as I pass my 60-year mark.

It's time to sign up for Jose Garofalo!

Jose Garofalo arrives in Portland on March 11th: get ready! As I have said before, Jose has been my teacher since the 1990s, when I wandered into his milonga class in Buenos Aires on a hot tip from a friend. I learn so much from him every time I take a lesson or workshop! A friend of his in Buenos Aires told me she thinks he is a national treasure, and I agree: he has studied with so many masters and can transform his movement into the style of those dancers. He is a wizard of physical memory, able to bring back to life talented dancers who no longer dance with us in person.

On top of that, Jose was part of the group in the 1990s who explored and created “Nuevo Tango” and has performed for decades. On top of that, he is one of the only men I know who can dance credibly in heels and has performed in Buenos Aires as a lead and a follow; in traditional, Nuevo and performance art styles. If that’s not enough, he is also a talented painter.

He will not be performing this year unfortunately, but you can see him dancing last year here. He is a madcap performer, always tuning in to the music and interacting with his partner playfully. When I dance with him, I never know what is going to happen. There is no plan—it’s all improvised. Instead of practicing for hours together, he sent me off with three songs (of which two were completely new to me) and had me listen to them all week before getting on the dance floor. After our three dances, as I walked off the floor, someone told me that what they liked best about the performances was that they gave the dancer permission to play and experiment, not to try to be perfect, but to really dance. That’s Jose for you!

Workshops

Jose’s workshops will focus on the style and sequences of three tango masters: Tete Rusconi, Pupi Castello and Omar Vega. They are no longer with us, but I had the honor to study with all three of them in the 1990s. Come explore their dance, how it fits into the fabric of tango, and how you can develop your moves and style and incorporate this information into YOUR dance.

Jose is a relaxed, gentle, fun teacher who offers danceable, useful moves for the social dance floor. We will review the workshops in the month after the workshops, so it won’t be a “one time and now I forget” kind of weekend. You can count on Jose to take your dance up to the next level. Come join us for some fun!

Workshop schedule:

• March 13th (Thursday) 7-9 PM, $35, Shabu Studios. Part I of the three-part series.

• March 14th (Friday) 5:30-6:30, $15, Norse Hall upstairs. Stand-alone class.

• March 15th (Saturday) Noon-2 PM, $35, Shabu Studios, Part II of the three-part series.

• March 15th (Saturday) 2 PM-4 PM, $35, Shabu Studios, Part II of the three-part series.

• March 15th (Saturday) 7:30-8:30 PM, Tango Berretin, drop-in beginners lesson before the milonga.

• March 16th (Sunday) 6-8 PM, $50, Shabu Studios, ADVANCED COUPLES class building on the three-part series from Thursday and Saturday. Bring a partner.

Workshop pass (excluding Berretin): $140 for everything! You can register here, or pay at the door to Elizabeth.

Private lessons

Private lessons will be at 4315 NE Garfield Ave. Contact Elizabeth to schedule at ewartluf@gmail.com or on the contact form. Prices are as follows:

• $150/hour or 4 hours/$500.

• If you are taking the workshops with Jose, the price is $140/hr.

• If you are taking the workshops AND you studied privately with Jose last year, the price is $130/hr.

You can pay Jose directly for private lessons. If you sign up for a lesson time, you are responsible for paying for that slot. The price is the same for one person or for a couple.

DJ

Jose will DJ at Las Naifas on March 14th. He plays a mix of traditional bands, as well as new bands playing traditional music. There may be a set or two of more experimental music towards the end of the night—it’s up to Jose!

It's not you: festival weirdness

Note before I start: Yes, I am teaching my regular class Thursday night at Shabu; yes, I am co-hosting Las Naifas as usual Friday night at Norse Hall (come before the evening milonga!). I also want to help prepare the newbies for tackling a tango festival.

With Valentango starting in a few days, I want to remind everyone to put on their best festival manners —and take a deep breath. Festivals can be wonderful. They can also be frustrating and make you question your tango ability. Repeat this mantra: it’s not you, it’s just a festival!

Festival blindness

Every year, someone comes to a private lesson after a festival, upset about a regular partner ignoring them at a festival. Sometimes the dancer is in tears: what did I do wrong? Am I THAT bad a dancer? It’s not you: don’t take it personally.

There are several reasons why this happens. First, your regular partners are trying out new dancers instead of sticking to their regular partners. Think of it like someone on a diet who walks into a candy shop: even if they don’t like candy, they will accept the free sample at the door :-) They will be back.

Another reason for not getting the attention of your regular partners is the sheer chaos of a festival milonga. It will be crowded and people are tired from a day of lessons or three days of staying up until 3 am. They might not have seen you! Or they might have seen you but felt you couldn’t see them for a cabeceo from that distance. As someone who can’t see well without my glasses, I can sympathize with this. The sheer number of people can feel overwhelming. Again, it’s not you: this happens at festivals.

Navigation hell

For some reason, each community’s most dangerous dancer seems to go to festivals. That means you have ALL the worst navigators on the same floor. Look out! Also, as a leader, I don’t know who is safe and who is not safe to dance behind, at least for the first milonga or two. Expect the leaders to be wary. Leaders, don’t worry about your vocabulary and musicality until you have figured out the evening’s navigation: that comes first.

Followers, please realize that leaders are not at their best when worrying about the leader in front of them. If the dance does not meet your expectations, give the leaders another chance. Help them by creating a comfortable embrace on your part to help them stay relaxed. If navigation goes south, it might happen in front of your leader, so it may not be your leader who is at fault. Be patient.

Exhaustion

Everyone will be tired. Everyone will be sharing the festival cold, and fighting that on top of sleep deprivation. Feed and water yourself. Take your vitamins. Get enough sleep; take a nap! Consider wearing a mask. Wash your hands! Again, if a dance does not go well, all will be well; let it go.

Make someone’s festival

Be friendly. Greet people. Cabeceo someone who looks lost/scared/lonely. Compliment someone’s outfit or dance or shoes. Sometimes, all it takes is ONE person being nice to make up for festival weirdness. Don’t be shy!

Four extra vertebrae

I have been studying anatomy again. This time, I am taking a 20-hour online training course with Tom Myers for yoga teachers. Each time I study anatomy (this is round four), I learn updated anatomical information that helps me with my dance, my yoga, and my pedagogy.

A new way to think of posture

Did you know that the back four flat bones of your skull grow out of the same stratum of the embryo as your vertebrae? We tend to think of the body as a machine, made up of parts, but we are an organism that grows and develops. Looking at how the body grows can help you have a new understanding of how you can move in a way that is healthy for your body.

What if you think about your spine snaking up the back of your skull and to the top of your head? I have seen amazing adjustments to neck posture in the past month as I work with this idea. Every student who has tried the image while dancing or doing yoga has improved the stack-up of their neck and head. I see less neck tension, fewer jaws jutting forward and more elegant lines for posture.

Try it!

Jose Garofalo workshops in March!

Yay! Jose!

I am happy to announce that Jose Garofalo will be back in Portland March 12-20, 2025! This round of workshops will cover the style and sequences of Tete Rusconi, Pupi Castello and Omar Vega, three great dancers who are no longer with us. I studied extensively with Tete and with Omar, but only studied for a short time with Pupi, so I too am excited to learn new material.

The three main workshops will cover this material, and then the advanced partner workshop will build on those classes (so grab someone else from the workshops and come together!). If you are unable to attend all of the classes, try to make the Thursday night class (workshop #1), along with his stand-alone class at Las Naifas on Friday.

The carrot on the stick

If you look at the flyer/registration, you will notice that the advanced class is $50/person. This is not a typo. We hope you will attend ALL the classes that build up to it so that the advanced class CAN be advanced. Even advanced dancers will benefit from the regular workshops—I would be taking them if I were not helping Jose—so advanced means building on the material already covered. If you buy the entire package, everything is $140 for the workshops ($30 discount, so the advanced class is $20/person in that case).

Las Naifas March 14th

Jose will not only teach the class before the milonga ($15 for class, $15 for milonga), but he will also DJ for us. We are excited to have him. If you were not at our performance last year at Berretin, or if you went home early, you missed fun music sets at the end of the evening. One set had not yet been released—an advantage of having a DJ who is friends will current tango musicians in Buenos Aires :-) Expect traditional music from current bands as well as the old recordings.

Carrying the tradition, creating the new

Jose has danced tango for forty years. He was part of the Tango Nuevo crowd in the early 1990s but also studied with the old milongueros. He has an amazing capacity to capture the feeling of each dancer and dance style in his body and transmit that information. He is part of a group of dancers in Buenos Aires who dedicate themselves to preserving and documenting the dance styles and sequences from the old masters while at the same time creating the current tango.

You cannot afford to miss what he has to offer.

The registration is up!

I will be teaching in Eugene this weekend!

It’s been a long time, Eugene! I moved away in 2008, and this is the first workshop I have given in Eugene since then. I am looking forward to seeing all of you 17-19 January and dancing with you! Workshops are at the Vet’s Club. Here is all the information!

I may have one more private lesson available. Let me know if you are interested. Grab those dance shoes, and see you Friday night at the milonga, and Saturday and Sunday for workshops.

Best way to learn Argentine Tango redux

I just found these summaries of Make It Stick that I wrote a few years ago. I recommended the book to a student, and then realized that it would be faster for her to read my summary of how humans learn best. These are the ideas on which I build my tango (and yoga) teaching. Start your new year of tango with new goals! Enjoy.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Other thoughts on tango

One of my students came in today and told me about a program he saw on quantum mechanics, including “quantum entanglement”—and the physicists were tango dancers, and demonstrated quantum entanglement using tango! I will try to track this down and post it here ASAP! Sounds enticing to me.

Start the New Year right!

Holiday special

Do you dream of dancing? Are you ready to begin Argentine Tango? The best way to do that is to start off strong with a few private lessons and make a commitment to weekly tango group lessons to practice and meet other dancers.

If you are already dancing tango, do you want to take your tango to the next level in 2025? Perhaps you want to get in the habit of practicing, or maybe you plan to learn the other role this year. Do you feel stuck in your dance, and want to get over your tango funk and find more fun in your dance?

I have made a holiday special to encourage you to grab the bull by the horns, and get started! You get five private lessons and the five January tango group classes, for $400 (and yes, if you are a couple, I will let both of you come to the group class for that cost. So, sign up here!

May the New Year bring tango joy and expertise :-)

Paying attention to how you spiral and pivot

Over the past almost three decades of studying and teaching tango, I have heard many competing ideas about how to turn/pivot/spiral in tango. Part of this is how each teacher uses language to try to describe complex movements in the body. Another aspect of the problem is that not everyone who teaches knows how the body works. Yet another issue is the diversity of body shapes and abilities that come to tango: there cannot be one look for all bodies to move, so we need to dig in and FEEL how the body moves.

The most important takeaway I would like you to get from reading this blog post is that YOU understand how YOUR body works, and pay attention so that you use your body as efficiently as possible, in order to avoid injury and to get the most fun out of your tango!

Proprioception

Proprioception is the fancy word for being able to feel what your body is doing and how it is moving through space. Most of us have some ability to tune in and stay aware of how we move. However, many people have past injuries or trauma that we avoid by teaching our bodies to ignore certain parts or amounts of pain. This gets in the way of discovering a deeper awareness of how the body is connected. I know from personal experience how difficult it can be to find “new” body parts and connect them to your body map. It takes time and work and gives a sense of wonder at how complex and fascinating the human body is, which makes the work worth it.

Tensegrity structures

Tom Myers describes the body as a tensegrity structure, with the bones floating inside of the connective tissue. The stretchy ligaments, tendons, and fibers that run through the muscles—the connectors—create the movement. If you look at the body this way, you can see spirals of connective tissue running through the body, and it makes sense that we are built to spiral, twist and bend. The angles of the bones and their placement decide WHICH movements happen at any one place.

The spine is a good example (here is a video of a spinal tensegrity structure). Each part of the spine moves in diverse ways.

• The sacral vertebrae are mostly fused, but there is movement at the SI joints (sacroiliac), connecting the fused sacrum to the rest of the pelvis.

• The lumbar spine can bend forward and back, as well as bend sideways, but the way the articular facets of the vertebrae are positioned, there is almost no twist in this part of your spine.

• The thoracic spinal articular facets are positioned differently. This area of your spine can side bend and does a lot of the twisting in pivots and turns, but it has limited flexion and extension (bending forward and back).

• The cervical spine can do it all: bend forward, back, side, and twist, but is not used much to create pivots.

We need to connect all the parts to create the movements we need for tango. This is why I do not teach “disassociation” when I teach pivots and spirals.

A few tips to help maintain readiness to pivot and spiral

Your neck is part of your spine

Put your head on straight! Your neck is part of your spine, and your connective tissue flows up the body from the feet and up over the top of your jaw and skull. If you put your head in the wrong position, it pulls the entire structure off balance. Take time to ensure that the back of your neck is as long as the front. This helps to keep the weight of your skull balanced, which allows your spine to twist better.

Find stability and then let flow happen

When we watch a turn, or an ocho, or a boleo, what we see is the flow of the movement that comes from the body being balanced, aligned, and therefore free to move. However, stability is needed to set up the conditions that allow the flow to happen. People forget to find the structure that allows the movement. Because the entire body is one tensegrity structure, stability is not a gripped into place, frozen shape: it also has adjustments and balances.

To find your best pivots and spirals, pay attention to what needs to SUPPORT that motion first, and then focus on building the flow on top of the supports. We will be working on this in class tonight.

Pay attention to your feet and ankles

The myriad bones of the feet and ankle work hard to maintain stability. The more you establish the correct position of the foot, the easier the rest of the task of balancing will be at the hips, spine and higher up. I do daily exercises to strengthen the arch of my foot and ankle.

To pivot well, build your dance from the floor up, letting the spirals of fascia that already exist in your feet and ankles and legs help you.

Maintain your normal turnout

Turning out extra to make tango look like ballet does not help your dance. Keep your normal turnout so that the fascia at the hip joints is less stressed. You will be able to keep your leg relaxed in the hip joint for a free leg and your spine will twist better without the impediment of a tight pelvis.

Shoulder blades as stability

I have written at length about the embrace and how it creates stability for the couple. If your shoulder blades and arms are stabilized, the connective tissue that attaches to them can twist better. Examine your embrace and see if you are using it effectively.

Practicing solo to improve your tango

I often hear the complaint, “I don’t have a tango partner, so I can’t practice/get better at tango.” Although practicing dancing with someone IS helpful, I have not found that the key to improving my technique. I got better at tango, faster, when I started practicing solo. During lockdown, I taught twice-weekly solo classes on Zoom, and all the dancers danced better than they had before lockdown, when we could come out and dance together.

Practicing by yourself is not sexy or exciting. It is hard to begin. I like to run once I have started, but I find it hard to get out the door to get started. For tango, you need to take five minutes to do the work, and like running, once you start, you might continue for longer than planned.

Practicing in the car

Yes, that’s what I said! One of the main ways you can improve your tango is by learning the music better. Instead of setting aside more time from your busy day, why not incorporate practice into what you are already doing?

When you drive somewhere, put on a tango, and listen to it. As you get familiar with the music, you will dance on a deeper, more musical level. Look for the subtle layers in the song. Is there a stretchy, smooth section? Is the music staccato and jumpy? Does the singer mess around with the beat while the piano keeps time? Even a staid, regular tango has myriad points of departure to make a lovely dance.

I have made Spotify lists of about one hundred songs from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s that DJs often play at a milonga. I share them with students so that they can do this practice efficiently. Do you want my lists? Look for them under my name on Spotify.

If you do not drive, put tango on while you make coffee in the morning, or just one tango at lunch. Who knows? You might end up listening to five or six, or more!

Less than five minutes

The things you need to dance well with a partner include good balance; strong feet, ankles, and core; a long, stretchy body so there is room for legs to move with less work; and body awareness to efficiently move with ease. Here are some ways to squeeze practice time into your life without changing your schedule:

• Work on your balance by standing on one leg while you brush your teeth twice a day. Added fun: do adornos!

• Do heel raises to strengthen your feet and ankles while you wait for your coffee water to heat. Added challenge: do this with your eyes closed.

• At work, anchor your hips to your chair and twist your torso to loosen up and find your pivoting muscles (and get a stretch). Yes, you need to twist your hips with anchored shoulder blades for pivoting, but these are the same muscles and you will not shock your colleagues as much as lying on the floor to do that :-)

• Lift your pelvic floor muscles and lengthen up your spine while waiting in line at the grocery store. Imagine you are super tall, very fabulous and regal.

I have promised a video review of the Pivots and Pinot class, and I am working on that. Making a video takes more than five minutes, unfortunately! However, if you do one exercise a day for five minutes, you will build a stronger, easier way to pivot. Thank you to the dozen participants and the elongated social “hour” afterwards: you are all a joy to hang out with and chat about non-tango parts of your lives.

Pivoting with grace while protecting your body

Pivots are a big part of tango. In real life, we do not pivot as much and so it makes sense that we struggle to find healthy ways to pivot. Over the past 30 years, I have explored the best ways to pivot to protect yourself. These are drills and exercises that I learned from different teachers, as well as exercises based on my anatomy studies or borrowed from my yoga teachers. I will use anything that seems useful!

Pivots and Pinot class

Sunday, November 17th (THIS Sunday), I am teaching a one-hour class to improve your pivots (leader, follower, advanced, beginner—you are all welcome), followed by a fellowship hour (bring a snack to share!) to chat and enjoy the company of other tango folks, off the dance floor. You can sign up here.

We will do exercises solo and in pairs to help each other up and encourage each other. You will be able to video the drills and exercises if you like. These are all techniques I use for my own tango practice, and the practice will improve your giros, ochos, and any spinning, pivoting moves you do as a leader or follower.

Please bring socks AND your dance shoes. Bring a snack to share or something to drink. It does not have to be alcoholic. You do not have to bring or drink pinot: I have had to explain this a lot, but the name was just for fun :-) Hmm, maybe I should rename boleos and bourbon?

Dancing tango if you cannot pivot

I have recently been collaborating with dancers who have injuries that do not allow them to pivot on one of their feet. All of them have a foot or an ankle that will not function consistently for assorted reasons. Here are some modifications we have worked on for basic moves:

• Traspies and/or changing feet in place are a great cover for inability to do a front ocho. If you end up in the right place, on the correct foot, very few leaders will even know that you have changed the game plan.

• For turns, you can choose to do a non-pivoting version of the giro. If you replace one thigh with the other thigh and stay on balance, again, most leaders will not be aware that you have adjusted the requested move.

• For back ochos, using a traspie to get around the corner and adjust your angle will fix a multitude of issues. The back pivot is much harder on the body than the front pivot and takes hard work to hone a perfect pivot. Give yourself permission to try out variations that work for your ankles, feet, hips — whatever is giving you trouble.

Remember that it is better to modify the move and arrive at the location the leader requested than to do the move and not get to the specific place: navigation comes before fancy moves. If a leader needs you to only do the move they insist on, this is not a person for you to dance with today.

Other issues, such as recent back surgery, or recovering from a hip or knee replacement, etc. can cause issues with pivoting. For each person, I look at how they are using their body and make suggestions. Then we try out different modifications and experiment with personal style, musicality and cover-your-a** possibilities that work for their dance.

Leading someone who cannot pivot

There are many workarounds as a leader if I know that a follower cannot pivot on one foot: I need to focus to ensure that I do not revert to my regular patterns and ask for moves that the follower cannot do. I see this as an agreeable challenge, but a more beginner leader may find this untenable.

When injured myself, I rarely encountered a leader who could do this for me. I do tell the leader about my injury and request that they help me avoid steps I cannot do without pain. However, I assume the leader is going to forget that I need help, and I adjust for my own body health.

The tango embrace

Several students have asked me, “What is the correct tango embrace?” recently. Given that there is no ONE correct version of the embrace, how can each of us create a connected, comfortable embrace with as many partners as possible? What makes a great embrace?

Tensegrity structure as a model of the body

I am taking a 20-hour yoga and anatomy training right now, and as the body is the same body that dances, I have been applying it to tango. Tom Myers is an amazing teacher, and has studied with Ida Rolf and Moshe Feldenkrais, yielding a deep understanding of anatomy and movement. He also studied with Buckminster Fuller, and has built on Fuller’s tensegrity structures, using them to explain how the body works. Here is a video with Tom explaining tensegrity and the body if you are interested.

Instead of thinking about the body as a stack of parts, like a building, imagine it as a series of solid parts (bones) connected to each other with bungee cords, floating between these stretchy parts and surrounded by them. In other words, the connective tissue of the body, the muscles, skin, etc. hold together and support the bones. With this elastic construction, the body can be twisted, bent, and bounce back to its basic structure thanks to the ligaments, tendons, and other connective tissue.

If each person can be a tensegrity structure, what happens when you join two together in the tango embrace? What if the COUPLE becomes a tensegrity structure? This is what my group class will tackle tonight.

Tensegrity and the embrace

When I talk about leading from your feet, you can see that each person feels the other’s body, all the way to the ground where it can anchor, and then traveling into the other person’s body via the embrace. The embrace does not run the show, but it communicates in real time so that the partners can feel each other’s movements, musicality, and intentions. It also allows both people to create the stretch, tension, or stability that the other person needs.

Too loose, too tight, just right!

The embrace needs to be a stretchy connection between the couple, not a rigid frame, and not a wet noodle limply attached. Finding the right amount of stretch, tension, elasticity—this is the work of building a better embrace. Each dancer and their body presents a different shape and a different amount of stretch and tension to create the best embrace possible. Throughout the dance, as each body moves, the embrace becomes part of the entire structure, and needs to adjust, tune in and move within the ONE tensegrity structure of the couple, as well as inside of the dancer themselves and their personal tensegrity structure/body.

The embrace connects into the body, not just the skin. Imagine being able to touch the muscle layer of the body. Can you feel the structure of the body and the movement of connective tissue, muscles, skin, sliding but anchored? Can you feel the partner’s body adjusting to their breath? Explore to find the “just right” amount of stretch and tension needed for THIS person, for THIS song.

The best embrace

For me, the best embrace wraps around both partners. On the closed side of the embrace, both people have their hand on the other person’s ribs, shoulder blade, or a good bony surface to the side or back. I do not think gripping your partner’s arm with your hand and holding on tightly will ever feel like a nice embrace for social dancing. For stage dancing, sometimes you need this for lifts and other things that should not be on the social dance floor :-)

Think about a wall plug: too loose, and a light will flicker. There is no way to plug the light in more when the plug gets to the wall. Pushing harder doesn’t fix the problem of meeting your partner in the middle; if they don’t meet you, that embrace does not work. The best embrace has each person’s hand on the open side “looking” at the other person, not in a push/pull position. The embrace is round. Chicho used to teach us that the leader creates a sphere, containing the follower, and the follower meets that sphere, sending energy out.

The best embrace makes me feel secure, relaxed, taken care of by my partner. That is true whether I am leading or following. With a good embrace, I know my partner is present and paying attention, and I offer that back to them. I jokingly call this “Hold the baby” but that level of security plus tenderness makes a great embrace all the time. Don’t drop the baby, don’t squeeze so hard the baby cries. Rock me in your embrace and let’s dance.

Make your tango more juicy!

My student, Debbie, likes to describe a good tango as “Juicy!” You may use a different word, but I bet you have a way to describe your favorite tandas, or an especially wonderful dance. How can we make MORE of our dances feel that good? What makes a tango nice and juicy?

Texture

Although having a large vocabulary of moves may make a dancer feel confident, that is not high on my “juicy” tango list. If you know a few steps and use them in diverse ways, your dance can have texture, rather than flat lining into blandness. Don’t worry, we are still working on learning new combinations; but that is less important in building a dance that feels great :-)

I like to use varied sizes or flavors of steps to build a textured dance. I discussed the idea of having different flavors/volumes/textures in detail in my 6/6/24 post on milonga. This is even more possible in tango. To work on this in your dance, try my Three Bears game: Too Big, Too Small, Just Right. Dance to a song and find how big or small you can move to that specific piece of music, with that partner, and use the entire range that works. Let the music expand your technique instead of your vocabulary list! Even three or four moves can feel expansive and varied.

Timing

Playing with the timing of my dance to the music and in collaboration with my partner, is the key component of juicy. For the next few weeks in class, we will explore slow motion, pauses, and accelerating — things we sometimes forget in the worship of “staying on the beat.”

Slow-motion (camera lenta)

OK, I LOVE slow motion musicality in my tango. I love stretchy, lyrical tangos that allow me to squeeze all the lovely juicy bits out of a song. Slow motion is not easy, as it requires breathing and balance, mastery over your body to move like a big cat, on balance, and respond to the music. I embrace that challenge because it gives me so much more power and elegance and eloquence in my dance.

I try to let the music give me ideas, rather than imposing a plan on my dance. When the music encourages me to stretch into slow motion, I let that happen. I try to let my body, not my mind, take the lead. When I really know a song, then I can respond organically with more ease. Hint: listen to tango music :-)

Pauses (pausas)

Pauses (which are not stops!) have a feeling of catching a wave, stretching until the moment is right, and re-releasing all that energy back into traveling. To create a good pause, the leader needs to be on axis and stable so that the follower feels the pause as potential, either for adornos, or for a great gathering of energy and breathe, a moment of pure being—before reentering the movement flow of the dance. Leaders: remember a follower may need 3-4 seconds of pause simply to figure out that there is a pause! Be prepared to put both feet down, suspend the follower gently, and let them find the pause before moving on!

Moments of acceleration

In class, we have already been playing with how to use traspies and cruzadas to speed the follower up or slow them down inside of the dance. Those moments of groove, power, putting the pedal down and MOVING, are the flip side of slow motion, Again, I am looking for an organic reaction to the music (and to my partner) to create the variations in my dance that make it musical. We will keep working on this Thursdays in class.

An easy place to adjust the speed of the dance is the traspie. As the follower rebounds back to me, I can use the second half of the move to slow them down to a pause OR speed them up for a big move OR keep the momentum going in the direction of the next part of the dance. Remember that this happens after the follower’s heel hits, their hips cushion into the step, and they are rebounding back at you. It’s all about timing, isn’t it?

Connection

There is more than timing to make a dance juicy. The embrace and the energy of the couple connecting to each other—that is the secret to a juicy dance. A good, adjustable, connected embrace can make the difference between an OK dance, and a truly memorable tanda. We will explore how the embrace adjusts to different bodies so that we can make every dance better. What if we had an evening where EVERY dancer felt amazing in our embrace? Wow, what a goal!!

Follower input

As a follower, you have as much potential to make a memorable dance as the leader does. Your musicality, your embrace, your presence, and depth of connection, create the dance. You are the motor of the dance. No motor? The car will not go. Put more into your dance to inspire the leader to give you more! It is still 2024, so it’s still all about collaboration!

See you in class!

Join us for class for the next few weeks as we explore these ideas in our tango! Thursdays at Shabu Studios. Warmup/fundamentals at 7 PM; All levels at 7:30 PM; and advanced intermediate at 8:30 PM. Come alone or bring a partner, and create YOUR juicy tango!

This is also a great focus for a few private lessons. Sometimes, in-depth work on your dance needs one-on-one attention.

Refocus on collaboration

In January, I mentioned that my word for 2024 was “collaboration” for tango. I would like to return to that thought. Have you been able to find a deeper level of collaborating with your partner when you dance? If yes, that is wonderful!! If not, what can we do to further that goal?

Collaborate with your partner!

Take the moment at the beginning of each dance to calibrate to your partner. Create your embrace together to find an optimal starting point where both dancers feel comfortable. Can you feel your partner’s breathing and/or heartbeat? Tune it to them!

Listen to the flavor of the song: how does it make you feel? The same person will feel different when dancing to different songs. Let the opening bars of the song suggest how you would like to move to it and use that intuitive tune-in to begin moving. The emotional feel of the moment counts much more than being on the beat or showing your partner all the moves you learned this week.

Be present on all levels. Breathe. Then dance.

Collaborate with the entire dance floor!

This dance involves a community. Everyone out on the dance floor should be tuning into all the people around them. Find the flow of the room, the flow of the music. Feel the unity involved in dancing together. Remember to share the dance space with everyone. Be respectful of other dancers’ rights; this is not just about you.

I just got home from Balkanalia. Many Balkan folk dances involve holding hands, linking bodies together and coordinating with the entire room of dancers, singers, and musicians. Everyone gets in the same groove and the dance flows through the space like a trance.

I acknowledge that it may be easier to all dance together attached to all the other dancers physically, but. . . Can we try to find the same level of togetherness and community on our tango dance floor as well? I think so.

Create community!

Welcome new dancers. Dance with new dancers. Dance with struggling dancers. Smile at people. Volunteer at events. Help clean up. Give people rides home. Invite coworkers and new friends to come try tango at a friendly venue. Make all the venues feel more welcoming. What can YOU do to send everyone home with a smile on their face?

I had three hours of sleep last night between the end of singing, dancing together and listening to amazingly talented musicians and singers and getting up to drive someone to the airport who needed a ride before going back to camp to help clean up. Other people were up even earlier to get the New York contingent to the airport by 5 am. I am exhausted, humming tunes under my breath, feeling incredibly happy, and hoping to bring some of that into my other dance community. See you in class or on the dance floor!

Taking care of yourself

To teach 30+ hours of dance and yoga a week, I need to take care of my body and mental health. I am in decent health for being almost sixty, but in the interest of continuing to have a functioning body for a few more decades, I do a couple of things I recommend for everyone.

Chiropractic

I would not have recovered from: a broken toe; a torn ankle ligament; a metatarsal arch injury; a shoulder injury (do I have to continue?) without Seth Watterson. He is the best chiropractor I have ever met. The added benefit of his athletic training skills has helped as well. What other chiropractor gives me PT exercises to do?? He even helped me work on my appalling bad tennis backhand! I go to Seth monthly to put all the pieces back together and we also work on preventing injury. I like having a chiropractor who is trying to do himself out of a job!

Massage

I have two LMTs I use monthly. A tango student who also ran recommended Kurt Marion at P.A.C.E. On my first visit, he expressed relief that I was there to really WORK on my body and did not expect a relaxing, soft spa experience. As he knows my chiropractor, and they work in the same building, they can share information about my needs and make a coordinated plan.

Float North

Dana Highfill is my other massage person. She is the newest part of my care team. I am impressed by her range of training and her ability to read my body and what I need.

Dana owns Float North. If you have never tried a float tank, you should try it. I was skeptical, but Dana convinced me to try it before a massage. It really helps integrate bodywork, and the results last longer. Floating can also relieve pain, as well as reduce anxiety and depression. As Dana told me, “Float North is a place for healing. Our goal is to help people develop a practice of caring for themselves so they can feel their best.”

Float North is in-network with Providence and BlueCross Blue Shield. They also can bill motor vehicle accident cases and workers comp cases for massage therapy. They also accept HSA and FSA cards for all services and products.

This is a not a paid ad

I feel very strongly that these people and the services they offer are at the top of their field and the best I can find. I have warned them that I am promoting them, but I am not receiving any compensation for doing this: my interest is in helping YOU connect to wellness.

What do you do to take care of yourself? Apart from dancing tango :-)