One of my current obsessions with tango is, as usual, the embrace. However, thirty-one years into the dance, I am still learning a lot about how to make the connection between partners better.
Goldilocks
We try to create an embrace that feels good to both dancers. This is not rocket science, but many dancers are so focused on learning steps that they forget the importance of a great connection. How can we up our game when it comes to the embrace?
Too tight
Some dancers have too tight an embrace. This is especially true of many beginners: the absolute freak-out of being on a dance floor, trying to dance with someone, to music, without hitting anyone else AND remembering moves—aaaahhhh!
An obvious fix is to not pull or push hard on your partner. Check to see if you have the open side of your embrace locked into place: release it and make it stretchier. Also make sure that the hand around your partner is connecting into their body but not pulling them towards you. Let each person stay on their own axis for comfort.
However, the main problem for most tighter dancers is not injury but locking up your own body to the point that the partner can’t feel your body and feet. As a follower, that means the leader is flying blind, trying to guess where you are and often overleading (“shouting”). As a leader, if you tighten up, your follower cannot feel where your body is and how you are pushing off your feet. For the follower, that means they start to guess what move you want instead of waiting to “hear” it through their body.
Overreacting to dancing too tightly, the next step is often connecting too loosely.
Too loose
Have you ever followed someone whose hand around you feels like a dead fish? Or felt that the leader was waving their arms around, hoping to transmit signals to you? As a leader, have you ever felt the follower who is barely touching you and wondered why they agreed to dance if they don’t want to connect? We have all experienced that.
On top of a lack of communication, North Americans also suffer from our cultural background. As North Americans, we are uncomfortable with a lack of private space (at least 3-4 feet for most). One of my students who grew up in Asia told me that she preferred “even more” with a sheepish grin. Tango is Argentine, and Argentine culture has less of an issue with embracing and being close to other people. This is part of what we have to learn culturally when we learn tango.
I can’t help you with your feelings about closeness, but I hope I can help you with improving your embrace for the purpose of creating a better partnership on the dance floor.
Just right
I have paid attention to how each embrace feels while out dancing and while teaching for the past month, and I have noticed two themes in the Portland tango embrace that tie into each other: too tight on the open side of the embrace and too loose on the closed side of the embrace.
For most dancers, if they think of a connection that has 50% energy on each side, it often feels very uneven to the other person. When I ask dancers to put 80% of their energy into the closed side of the embrace, it usually feels about even to me.
Let’s be curious
Let’s be curious, as one of my students says:
What if we danced tango with a flavor of swing dancing on the closed side? What if that embrace is more elastic AND stronger than usual? This hand is closer to your partner’s axis, and so can help balance you whether you are a leader or follower. Remember that this is a team effort, not two people who happen to be touching: you are ONE unit with two brains!
What if the open side of the embrace has a soft shoulder and soft bicep, so that the connection through the palm to the other person is collecting data instead of pushing and pulling? I have noticed that EVERY follower who has released their right shoulder, then has a much freer right and left leg for big, fun moves without changing anything else in their technique. As a leader, keeping the left shoulder and arm anchored down into the body (instead of up) has resulted in better balance and a lot less work to lead.
Try it out!