The advantage to both leading AND following tango, is that I can steal moves from folks I danced with in Buenos Aires, and bring them home to YOU! My intermediate tango class on Wednesdays at the Interstate Firehouse Cultural Center (5340 N. Interstate, Portland, OR) will be learning these moves during this six-week session. We'll do a new one each week, so feel free to come drop in and dance!
Ocho cortado
There are many ways to do ocho cortado, but there are some fundamental elements that must exist for the ocho cortado (or ocho milonguero) to happen:
- Follower is led in a back-front rebound step (R foot back, L forward). This is ONE movement, like a basketball hitting the ground and returning. Does the ball stop for a moment at the ground? No! It flexes and returns (just like the follower's body).
- Follower is led to step through to the leader's outside track (leader's right) with the right foot.
- Follower is led in a side-side rebound step (left-right), ending in a front cross/close. This should have some circular motion around the leader to make the move easier for the follower and conserve space.
Notice that the ocho cortado is based on the follower's footwork! As the leader, I could hop up and down, as long as the follower gets these messages: rebound, step through, rebound, close. However, most of us prefer a bit more structure, so here are the leader's steps for the linear ocho cortado:
- Leader does a forward back rebound (left, right).
- Leader steps backwards with the left, while leading the follower through to leader's right side.
- Leader does a tiny rebound side-side, but most of the movement is circular, so that the follower's rebound goes around the leader, not away, out into space.
- Leader completes move by stepping in place (or near there, depending on the variation) with the right foot, ready to begin another pattern in parallel system (or doesn't switch and is in crossed system).
Most of the arguing about how to do the ocho cortado here in Portland centers around whether the ocho cortado should be circular or linear. THERE IS NO CORRECT VERSION; linear vs circular is a decision made on the dance floor, depending on the space available.
Common mistakes in performing an ocho cortado:
- Abandoning the follower's first rebound step to "make room for the follower" by tucking your free foot behind yourself. Your follower doesn't need you to get out of the way, s/he needs you to lead clearly. Easy Fix: If you are going to make a circular ocho cortado, make sure the follower is completing the rebound (i.e., headed back towards you) before you pivot. No fix is needed for the linear version: if you were walking correctly, your foot is already behind your other foot, ready to receive the rebound.
- Pulling the follower to your side to make sure they know this is a forward step after the rebound. Your follower needs to stay connected to your center, not your shoulder, so this pulls the couple off balance. Easy Fix: Check your first rebound. You get the momentum to carry the follower forward by completing the rebound. Don't think rock step; don't think check step: think REBOUND. Stay connected with your energy, but allow the follower's body to rotate against yours if she needs more room for her hips.
- Stepping open to catch the follower and send her back to the other direction to close. This usually makes the follower's "rebound" step into a yee-haw cowgirl, knees locked attempt to finish the step. Easy fix: Make your own rebound step TINY (if you tend to fall over here, stand on both feet and just rotate!), and focus on making the follower's side-side rebound have a slight circular quality to it, around your center. Use the follower's momentum from the rebound to catch him/her and reverse direction.
- The enormous, yee-haw! version of the ocho cortado seems to start from a big, enthusiastic first rebound. A lot of guys have complained to me that they feel the followers charge through the middle (creating the "on the shoulder" orientation of the couple), and that they are forced to take a big step to catch the follower, in order to save the move. Yes, sometimes it is definitely the follower's auto-ocho-cortado that creates problems. But if you are leading, you get to choose to fix that! Easy fix: take a small first rebound step. This should make the follower's forward step through smaller, AND result in a smaller side-side rebound. Whatever the energy of the beginning of the ocho cortado, the rest will mirror that. YOU are in charge, leaders!
Linear ocho cortado
Having said there is no correct version, full disclosure time. I prefer the linear version of this move as a follower. Too many folks have abandoned me in the middle of my first rebound in order to tuck their right foot behind and start turning, without having told me what to do! Yes, I can SEE where they want me to go. Am I being difficult in requesting that the leader LEADS me to dance? I don't think so. When I follow, I want to feel clarity, not see it :-)
As a leader, I don't even think what shape I need. I focus on making the first rebound the right size for my space on the dance floor, and then only move circularly when I have no space behind me. I rarely plan ahead for more moves, but let the end of the ocho cortado dictate what comes next (and yes, fourteen years ago, there was often a pause there because I couldn't figure out what to do next!). The energy of the dance makes the choreography, adjusted for space.
Where to find more information
An excellent source of review of some basic variations on ocho cortado is Oscar Mandagaran and Georgina Vargas' Rhythmic tango DVD. I like their explanation of the basic ocho cortado as well. I think it's Chapter 11 on changes of direction, traspie timing and the ocho milonguero; and several chapters after that for the variations.
If you are coming to my class April 4th in Eugene, we'll learn three to five new variations to add to your dance. I just realized today that I'm teaching on Easter. Hope some of you show up anyway!