Integrating footwork and core strength into tango

The past few weeks, we have focused on process, the gestalt of a move, to enjoy how our bodies react to tango music and to our partner. This week, we are going to mess around with a few details that will add elegance and give you a good tango workout, too!

1-2-3 speeds of torque on Tuesday

When we learn tango, we work on contrabody for walking, to balance and create elegance in our dance. After that, we learn ochos and twist further to add pivots into tango. Lastly, we learn boleos and other extreme pivoting moves. Usually, we have used all of our twist to do the other moves, and so, as a last resort, we throw our bodies into overdrive—and usually off-balance—to make this third “speed” of torque a part of our dance.

This is true both for leading, where overrotating creates a lot of push-pull of the poor follower and back pain for the leader. The follower, who has been told to rotate past a comfort zone, these adjustments should make for a more elegant and painless pivot. I never teach this because feeling good will lead to looking much better than anything else!

This week, we are going to start with our extreme, find out where it REALLY stops, and then retool all of our smaller pivots and torques to fit inside what our body can do correctly and safely. You will find that walking takes almost no torque, no matter how twisty contrabody felt when you started to pay attention to how you moved. Ochos will also be much smaller in rotation that you thought!

By the end of class, all of your twisting and contrabody moves will feel better and more integrated.

Join us at 6:30 Pacific time, Tuesday February 23rd!

Footwork Friday

At noon on Friday, February 26th, we will focus on footwork. Articulate your arches, balance in your ankles, finishing moves 100%—it’s subtle, but that extra attention to your feet will pay off in your dance!

So many people tell me that their feet or ankles hurt when they dance (or their knees or hips….) and much of this can be alleviated with adjustments to how we use our feet as we balance and travel from step to step. It’s hard to feel what our feet are doing because the adjustments are small but focusing on the feet will yield a lot of tango improvement!

We will work on adornos in walks and ochos; traspies in ALL directions; some speed practice, and more if we have time. Class will finish with a musicality component, putting all of this into action with the music!

Join us at noon on Friday!

Focus on the process in order to progress

We are going to get to dance together at some point, but right now it feels like it has been forever since we got to dance at a milonga. Instead of stressing out about when we get to dance again, this week, let’s enjoy the process of feeling our own balance, dance, musicality—improve and consolidate!

Tuesday 6:30 PM lesson: back everything

This week, the Tuesday class will focus on the process of moving in back steps, back ochos and back boleos; adornos that happen in those steps; and looking at how you can hone your process for different music to work better overall. In real life, we do not move backwards much, so we have few bad habits to unlearn. However, as it is scary to move the direction your eyes cannot see as well, we have a lot of little dance habits to polish out for moving elegantly and with balance! Join us!

Friday noon lesson: front everything

On Friday, we will look at the other direction: walking forward, forward ochos, forward boleos, and adornos that work in forward movement. The process of moving forwards in tango can be tricky because we have habits from normal walking that sometimes cancel out our efforts to be on balance here. Also, anything we don’t get to on Tuesday will be added in on Friday, as we have time. Join us!

Where is side everything?

Yes, since there are only two group classes, I still have one more direction to move. We will probably do that next week, but don’t hold your breath! Teaching in lockdown is also a process, and sometimes we head off in a new direction in class that requires me to move along with you!

Or—you can practice that on your own!

Trust the process!

I personally started life as a very product-oriented being, but tango has taught me a lot about process. We do not know what the product of our tango work—or this lockdown—will be, and we need to let go of worrying about that right now and dance where we are, in front of our Zoom computer screens. I have seen so much progress BECAUSE of what one of my students called “enforced practice” of lockdown solo dancing! I can honestly say that every single one of you I see for group and private lessons has improved immensely this year. Trust that process! You are becoming more musical, more balanced, more elegant, more skilled dancers through your focus this year on process.

See you in class!

Tuning into the music for inspiration

So many of us were taught to “step on the beat” as the main component of tango music, but there is SO much more to play with and explore in your dance! In fact, I don’t teach people to step on the beat. Instead, I have new dancers try out all the ways you can move within tango music, and try to encourage creativity and real connection, right from the start.

How you take a step matters. The quality of your motion is important: do you start slow and then VROOM to a halt? Do you sneak up on the step, whispering your way through to balance? Do you find a quick pause or a slow pause? What flavor is this step/this part of the song/your partner’s musicality? Don’t let anyone tell you there is only one way to hear the music or move; this is YOUR dance!

Milonga and vals have a more insistent beat than tango, and it’s harder to play around. There are moments where your style/version might nooooot be quite so acceptable because it disturbs the groove of the dance. However, there is still a lot of person agency here: you can slide around the beat like a jazz singer, finding cool nooks and crannies in the song to make it your own.

This week in class, we are going to practice adornos and turns, BUT we will be working on finding how YOUR body works best in the technique and then, I am going to turn you loose to try different ways to approach these moves in the music. I hope that, by the end of class on Tuesday and/or Friday, you will feel more connected to your body—and to the music!

Classes this week

6:30 PM Tuesday: Adornos and turns in Tango, milonga and vals

Noon Friday: Musicality of adornos, turns and exploring your creativity

Join us!

Changing directions with balance and speed in tango

Why do tango dancers spend so much time working on their walk? After all, everyone made it into that first dance lesson without thinking hard about how to enter the room. Don’t we already know how to walk?

We try to be super precise in our walking technique in tango because we change direction all the time, and need to be even more on balance to do that in a couple. If someone backs up, or swings into our space, if the music is fast, or if the space is tight, we have to be in control of our axis (and hopefully our partner) so that we can avoid crashes.

A footballer (soccer player to the rest of you) dodges down the field, weaving between other players, while managing the ball—they say a futbolista makes the best tango dancer because of that training in changing direction, adjusting to other people in the way, etc. How do the rest of us get this practice?

Improving your precision

I am training as a yoga instructor, and there is a constant reiteration of “root into the four corners of your feet” that I find I also think about while dancing tango. I want to find the optimal place in my stance, with the three arches of my foot balanced as well as I can balance—so that I always have the ability to land on balance and change direction easily.

I make sure that my axis is stacked over that optimal foot alignment. Is my hip joint stacked over my arch? Are my gluteal muscles in gear, helping to line up my sitbones and my heels? Is my spine stacked on top of my pelvis? Is my core supporting my torso? Is my head on straight? Whatever part of my axis that is giving me the most trouble, I check in there first. Then, if I have time, I check other parts. It is just too hard while dancing/moving to be able to ask ALL of those questions at once :-)

Am I breathing? When I hold my breath, I can’t settle into my balance as well. Just simply breathing will fix a lot of minor balance issues. I let my whole body breathe: when I “stop” I don’t really stop my body. Think super-slow-motion instead, and keep breathing.

Millimeter by millimeter

The progress that you make is hard to feel sometimes, because it is so small. However, think back six months or a year ago: if you have been practicing, or taking class at least weekly, there will be an improvement. Don’t push yourself; remind your body to take it slowly, little by little.

Improving your speed

Focusing on improving your balance will help improve your speed for milonga or fast vals or syncopation in general. However, there are some other elements to practice.

Three Bears

Think of the story of the Three Bears: too big, too small, just right. Adjusting your step size to your newly improved balance, NOW try to adjust the size of your step. You will find an optimal step size for a certain speed. Faster moves are usually done better with smaller steps. Try it out!

Let go of perfection

It’s important to practice moving faster as well. Let go of trying to remember all the new alignment info you have, and just try to go fast. It won’t be as pretty as your regular or slo-mo movement at first. That’s OK! Let is be a mess! It will get better, but only if you practice fast as well as slow.

Get to know the music

Knowing the music will help you with the correct speed/size of step/etc. for a dance. As you get familiar with a tune, your body will respond more easily, and that will remove one more thing you have to remember. Plus, familarity usually allows you to dance better to that song.

Class topics this week

Tuesday 6:30 PM: Vals, musicality and styling

Friday noon: Changing directions with balance and speed

Both classes will work on moves that change direction, balance and speed, but Tuesday will focus on vals and Friday on milonga. Join us for one or both!

Feet and musicality

Yes, I do spend my free time geeking out about tango and the body. In fact, I spend most of my time at the chiropractor discussing feet, ankles, arches, etc. because he’s the only person I know who is just as interested—and has more information for all of us! Shout out to Seth Watterson: the Portland tango community has improved their technique because of you! And no, this is not a paid plug. I just think ALL of you should get Seth to check out your feet and balance, except then I would never get an appoinment!

How do my feet affect my musicality?

The better your technique is, the better you will dance. The better your balance is, the easier it is to dance well. When you are on balance, on axis, your brain has more time to think about what to do and HOW to do it, and your body has more time feel the music and allow the music to inform your dance.

Ways to get your feet to work better:

1. Do calf raises every day to strengthen your ankles. Here’s a video if you need to know what that means. I have been doing these to rehab my torn ankle ligament, and I have noticed that many of us have weak ankles, not just me.

2. Find the four corners of your foot, and root down. The mound of your big toe, the mound of your little toe, the outside of your heel and the inside of your heel all contribute to balance. Here’s a yoga class from one of my favorite online instructors to help you focus on your feet better!

3. Work on your posture of your whole body, too! Heidi Weiss is offering a set of Pilates classes starting in a week, to help!

4. Another person to check out is Portland Tango’s very own Linda Machtelinckx. She is setting up BreezeKinetics as a way to offer Zoom, and then (I think) in-person classes. The first class starts next week. Contact her for more details.

Whether you are into calisthenics, yoga, Pilates, whatever—build your own system of workout that strengthens and protects your body so you are stronger and ready to dance when we get out of lockdown!

And of course, I am here, creating space for you to put your tango, balance, strength, musicality and enjoyment together, twice a week!

This week in my tango group classes

Friday (22Jan21) @ noon: Milonga: going fast with comfort // plus topics requested by students (bk walk and adorno sequence)

Tuesday (19Jan21) @ 6:30 PM: Making little count: milonga, adornos and dancing in small spaces

Optimal tango not ideal tango

I’ve been thinking about optimal tango (not ideal tango) and how each person’s body structure impacts their tango. I think that all people can become good tango dancers if they understand their own body and technique on a deep level, and adjust their dance to their bodies, not to what it “should look like” on the dance floor.

Last week in class, we spent a lot of time with our eyes closed. I wanted people to FEEL what they were doing, rather than evaluate it visually. The most interesting observations so far:

Ochos are straight lines!

As we worked on ochos, many dancers found that they had an idea of an ocho crossing across their midline, rather than a straight step followed by a pivot. I have to say that I had never tried to dissuade people from doing zigzags across the floor because it fits into a room well for a group class. However, when I asked people to go “straight forward” in their space and then pivot—a third of the class improved their ochos immediately! Our visual map of ochos can get in the way of what the body is actually doing.

Becoming aware feels uncomfortable

We hold memories, traumatic and positive, in our muscles and tissues; there’s a whole school of therapy designed to release trauma through movement. What does that mean for finding spots in your body that aren’t helping you dance well? Some of them unlock uncomfortable memories, or our body simply tries to avoid that spot.

Being open to feeling vulnerable means you are open to change, healing, growth—all positive, but scary. When you can look at that in your movement, you can discard what is holding you back and find your new, better-functioning body and technique. I didn’t say it was easy.

You feel the problems before you can fix them

Most dancers need to be able to FEEL what’s not working before it can be fixed. It helps if the teacher points out issues, but you won’t be able to fix them until YOU can feel what’s going wrong. At that point, most people confide, “I think I’m getting worse at this dance!!!!!” to me. From my own experience, I can tell you that I have felt this way each time before a major breakthrough in my dance, and I still go through this process. You will have an understanding of the issue before fixing it: you don’t suck at tango! You are GOOD at tango! Don’t quit now when you are about to go up a level!

Class themes for the week

So, classes this week will focus on YOU finding how your body structure actually functions in key tango fundamentals:

Tuesday (January 12): Balance challenges and adding adornos to walking, pausing and ochos

Friday (January 15): Balance on your feet and ankles, and balance in turns

Sign up!

Back in the saddle again

New Year, new opportunities to . . .

I took ten days off work for the first time in over two years. That gave me an opportunity to look forward and think about what I want to happen in the future, both for me and for my teaching. As I caught up with all of our older family members, I started to focus on WAY in the future, not just 2021. How do I want to live now, and how does that impact ten/twenty/thirty years from now?

Although it’s not a surprise to those of you who have studied with me, I am re-committed to incorporating elements of healthy living into my tango classes each week. I want to come out of this pandemic with more skills, a better life-work balance, and with a body that will allow me to dance! Here’s what to expect:

Tune into our bodies

I have been doing daily yoga since August with my husband (I am personally lazy, but he’s not). Since I tore my ankle ligament, I have not been able to go running, and yoga has given me daily time to tune into my body and be present the way I used to do when running. I recently started yoga teacher training to expand my toolkit of stretching and balance ideas for tango, and have realized that I am more of a movement geek than I thought: I am having SO MUCH fun thinking about which muscle does what as I learn new movements, and then applying that to my tango moves. It’s my third time through anatomy classes, but the first time in ten years; a good review!

So don’t say I have not warned you that tango classes will have enhanced body awareness components!

Relieve stress

Celebrating holidays without our loved ones, has not been easy. For the few who made the huge commitment to quarantine for two weeks in order to be with family (Stephanie!), you know how important those family ties are to you. For those of us too far away to visit, Zoom did help connect us, but it’s not the same.

Holidays are always stressful. On top of that, having COVID around is more stressful. Add to that (in the USA) that we are having a rocky political transition, and many people are stressed out about that, too.

Dancing can relieve stress for many of us. Exercise can relieve stress. Breathing can relieve stress. When we don’t know how long we have to continue this marathon of pandemic alterations, we NEED those stress releases! So don’t say I didn’t warn you that tango classes will focus on taking you out of those moments of stress as much as I can!

Express ourselves

My extroverted students have told me that this isolation is really killing them. It’s not quite as hard for us introverts, but few of us have our normal ways to express ourselves available to us. That’s especially true for tango dancers: going out dancing and moving to music with a multitude of other dancers—that is not going to happen safely for a while. What else can we do to express ourselves?

My solution to this has been to incorporate “just dance” moments into class. Being able to see other humans expressing themselves at the same time, to the same music, allows us little windows into the future, where we will be able to dance in the same room, together. And there may be disco cooldowns :-)

Get stronger

2021 gives us a chance to set goals for ourselves. I am not a New Year’s resolution kind of person, but I want to be strong for as many years as possible, so I am focusing on finding ways to strengthen my body that will be accessible to me as I keep aging. Tango and yoga are both on that list.

I feel that most of us who dance cannot envision a time where we cannot move to music do all the other activities that we love. So . . . You can’t say that I didn’t warn you that dance class will work on building your body and your strength to keep you going this year, and for many years.

Find balance

As we age, balance tends to decline. I don’t want to lose the ability to do the things that I do, so I have really dialed down during the pandemic, working on my balance. Again, I want to live my entire life doing what I love, and not ending up sitting in a chair, unable to move easily. OK, so I love to knit and spin, and I have activities I could do sitting down, BUT I want to be able to dance, walk, garden—all that—until I keel over someday.

There will be balance challenges in class to help all of us work on maintaining and improving our balance.

What are YOU doing?

Share what you have lined up for yourself for 2021! How are you going to keep your tango improving to be ready to dance together? What new cool stuff have you learned to help you do that?

Adjusting your body map focus for classes this week

El Obelisco, December 2019

Many times, we talk about “beginner mistakes” in tango. You know: those moves we learned as a baby tango dancer, where we didn’t really know what we were doing? Somehow, as our dance matures and we learn new steps, the more advanced steps become easier because we learn them as intermediate or advanced dancers. However, for many of us, our basic steps still retain some of our beginner issues.

I think the same thing happens with our tango body map. We pay careful attention to how we do a boleo or a back sacada—anything tricky. However, we schlep through walking to the cross, or doing back ochos, or even just walking backwards. We’ve done it for so long that we don’t even notice that our body mapping is off for certain movements.

As 2020 ends, let’s take some time to reimagine our body maps, fill in the gaps, polish and refine older assumptions, so that we are ready to dance with other folks when we are able. We will bring a more enjoyable dance with us, because we will be able to feel our mapped body, and know where we are in space. Come join us this week for a body-mind meld!

6:30 Tuesday (Zoom): Body mapping hips and down

Noon Friday (Zoom): Body mapping core/contrabody and up

A year ago, I was packing for Buenos Aires

A year tomorrow, I was on my familiar trajectory: PDX, Texas, Buenos Aires, preparing to take my tour group for their first taste of dancing in the heart of tango.

2019 marked 20 years of traveling to dance in Buenos Aires. I had gone first to do my master’s thesis research on tango and gender, but kept going back, even when I claimed I didn’t plan to ever return. What can I say? I love this city and its people.

At first, I didn’t want to be identified as a tourist, so I dressed like an Argentine, did no sightseeing, and just danced 24-7. After a few visits, I realized that there was a lot more to Buenos Aires than tango, and started to relax about looking like a foreigner.

When I started to lead tours, I allowed myself to take time out of tango to get to know more about the area. The more I learned, the more I loved!

A year away from my past visit, what do miss? Of course I miss my friends and the milongas. Of course I miss the excellent food. But I also miss the street fairs, the parks, the summer warmth when it’s winter back home, and being in a real city. I miss taking the train to Tigre and going out on a river taxi to the delta. I miss bike touring in the parks.

I hope that when I go back, people and businesses will have survived COVID. I hope to take more people to dance in my beloved Buenos Aires; to fall in love with this city as I have. Ojala (God willing) in 2021…

The belt maker in Plaza Armenia

Folkloric dance at the street fair in Mataderos

The Tigre delta and a river taxi

Christmas in summer

Building a robust body map

During our lives, we learn to ignore parts of our body—often after injuries or trauma—and the resultant awareness of our body then has gaps. Those gaps can both contribute to repeated injury, and slow down the journey towards better balance, fitness—and tango technique. Most of the past several months I have been working on building a more robust body map for my students.

What is a body map?

I think the fastest way to describe this is to use my own experience. I was born with my left foot pointing in and my right foot pointing out, one leg shorter—you get the picture.

In my mind, I thought that my body was aligned, as my body feels “normal” to me. I had received corrections on my dancing for years from my teachers, but no one ever pointed out my body imbalances.

With input from my chiropractor and my Pilates teacher, I finally realized that when I THOUGHT I was standing in a perfect parallel stance, my left foot was slightly forward and turned in, compared to my right side. My brain was convinced that I was aligned, but my eyes could see my stance was off. My body map was incorrect.

Improving your body map

To work on my misalignment, I asked my Pilates teacher to point out each time my stance was uneven. I found it helped a lot to have an external pair of eyes helping me to move my body into better alignment. Gradually, I learned to “lie” to my brain in the correct way, so that my legs and feet aligned better. It’s not completely fixed yet, but I can close my eyes, put my body into alignment, and have things look the way they feel in my body map.

Should you correct your body map?

There is a whole other part of this discussion: should we fix such issues? Will “perfecting” our imperfect bodies put too much stress on joints and connective tissue that were not perfectly designed? I think that becoming aware of our bodies, and mapping them better in our heads, will fix a lot of minor problems. More major ones DO need to depend on advice from medical experts. In my case, this is an ongoing debate/effort between myself and my chiropractor. So far, none of the work we have done has caused more problems. I am better aligned, have better balance, and have reduced hip issues I have had for years, so that’s a win in my opinion.

Does your body map matter?

I find that I enjoy a more accurate map of my body in my mind. It helps me learn new movement and correct problems myself without as much teacher help; it also gives me a fuller sense of being alive, and more enjoyment from the amazing machine that is my body.

Try out making a more robust body map for yourself. Take five minutes, look at a YouTube video or a book that shows you all the bones and muscles of your hand. Move your hand around, locating all the pieces: you will be amazed at how many little pieces allow you the intricate movement your hand can do! Now imagine having that awareness ALL OVER YOUR BODY!

Further reading/DIY

These are the books that I have used for MANY years in my lessons. While I was a graduate student in dance, I asked my dance kinesiology professor to recommend a book that I could use to show how the body worked to my students, and he suggested this. I am on copy #2 and have bought the exercise book that accompanies it; maybe you need ideas for Kwanzaa/Hanukkah/Christmas gifts?

YES Zoom classes Thanksgiving week

We can’t visit with family or friends, but I am still going to make a lot of my favorites, just in smaller quantities. And you? I predict we are all going to eat a bit too much, sad that we can’t see our loved ones in person and be safe at the same time. Sign up for class!

I am looking forward to working some of that turkey off, both before and after the probably too-big dinner I plan to make for Thursday. Here’s what I have planned for keeping us dancing through this week:

6:30 PM Tuesday (24Nov20) 1 foot, 2 foot, red foot, blue foot (thank you Dr. Seuss!)

Why the strange title? I am still sporting a blue-wrapped ankle injury, but it’s getting stronger. Plus, it helps you tell which foot to use on Zoom! We will be focusing on balance on one foot vs. balance on two feet, moves that turn on one or two feet, and having an in-body musical experience.

Noon on Friday (27Nov20) Thankfulness: Celebrating our abilities, creativity and being alive!

Let’s spend a class enjoying what IS working in our bodies! Adornos, boleos, getting creative with our musicality and moves—and burning some calories!

Stay tuned for a Thanksgiving week blog post (maybe even a video…) with more about building a robust body map to improve your tango and your dance enjoyment!

60 minutes to a better pivot

During COVID, many of us are getting rusty in our tango. To combat this, let me share how I practice my pivots, ochos and turns. As many of you know, I tore an ankle ligament at the beginning of the summer. I am still working to get full flexibility and strength back in that joint (ah, middle age!), so I can’t just sit around and hope it’s going to improve without work.

Below is an explanation of how I practice to improve, but if you are like me, practicing is hard to do solo. I invite you to come to class this week and walk out the other end with better pivots for all your tango moves. We will be working on a combination of leader and follower drills for spinning, pivoting, swiveling and turning this week.

Classes this week (Pacific Time)

• 6:30 PM Tuesday: Turning over a new leaf: turns in milonga, vals and tango

• Friday @ noon: Twist and shout: swivels, pivots and all that stuff

Drills for turn practice

Slow practice wires moves into your brain

Although we want to be able to dance any speed, dancing slow motion (BREATHE!) will get all the little details wired in better. I practice as slowly as possible, looking for parts of my move that need attention. Make sure that you are not starting slowly and speeding up!

Right now, I am doing this focusing on how I use my feet and ankles, to reestablish my technique, but I vary this from week to week. You can concentrate on:

• foot articulation

• unlocking your knees (or stretching them longer if you are “bend zee knees” kinda dancer)

• opening your hips joints and making them stretchier to allow your hips to adjust from step to step

• engaging your pelvic floor/deep core so that the top of your tango looks easy—even ‘though it’s not!

• shoulder blades down, hugging into the body to support balance and torque better

• long, stretchy axis from floor to ceiling!

• breathing

Little by little works best

Rome was not built in a day, and neither is your tango. Each time you revisit an idea, you polish it and tweak it a bit, and improve teeny bit by teeny bit. Do FIVE minutes a day. Every day. Two tango songs. Dance while your brush your teeth! Balance while you do the dishes. Do adornos in line at the store—you can fit five minutes in, no matter what.

I also work part of my turn at a time. Front cross, pivot, side step; or side step, pivot, back step; not the whole thing. That way, you find little details that need attention instead of completing laps. It really works!

A little speed practice for survival

I challenge my strength, balance and technique by doing fast versions of what I’ve done slowly. Don’t expect perfection at high speeds: aim for survival first, and gradually build your ability. Put on a song that makes you WANT to go fast (Pugliese? a milonga? alternative? disco?) and go for it!

After all, we will need to go faster than we want sometimes on the dance floor when we get back to dancing with other humans (soon, soon . . . spring? summer? Get on that vaccine and fast testing, world!). People will ask: Who was that masked (wo)man?

Musicality and turns

Having nice turns that work with the music is an acquired skill. You have the ability to kill or to make wondrous any dance with your turn skills, especially a tango vals. What better time to learn the music better, than when we can’t go out to dance?!

Put that music on, and DANCE! And come to class and dance with us!

Entre una pisada y la otra: how you get from one step to the next

That is the focus for BOTH Zoom classes this week! Transitions are the hard part of the dance: making it look flowing and easy while doing all the work underneath (technique) AND musicality at the same time? Elizabeth, what are you DOING to us?? Well, I thought this week would be a good time to challenge us and to take our minds off all the other craziness happening around us.

Tuesday @ 6:30 PM

We will work on lateral corridas, turns, and students’ choice while focusing on VALS for musicality (with some tango and milonga as a contrast).

Friday @ noon

We will work on Pepito’s crossed milonga patterns, lateral traspie combos and then switch gears and go for some tango adornos and/or students’ choice while focusing musically on milonga and tango (of course we can do a vals for Meg :-))

Join us!

Sign up and pay here, or if you already have a punchcard, add yourself to the Tuesday or Friday list by contacting me here. I also accept Zelle and PayPal; just ask! Hope to see you this week!

Classes this week: Feet, deep core, speed and musicality

Join us for class this week!

Tuesday @ 6:30 PM: Feet, speed & 40-40-20

We are continuing to work on how to keep your axis long, stretchy and elegant—and today, how to do it while syncopating and changing speed. Plus lots of work on foot articulation for better balance and elegance! Join us!

Friday @ noon: Thighs, core & musicality

Your deep core and pelvic floor hold your dance together. Come work on improving your musicality with stronger thighs and core—and then exploring how musicality in turn can support your technique for tango, milonga and vals. Join us!

If you already have a punchcard, just contact me to sign up, or book now to buy a class or a 10-class punchcard, and the system will sign you up.

Come join group Zoom class!

Maybe it’s time!

We have been dancing together on Zoom for seven months now. I am very pleased to see how much everyone has progressed in their technique. In the normal scheme of things, it is difficult to slow down and work on the deep technique needed to improve in tango. However, without the stress of learning a lot of new moves and trying to show off at milongas, we have delved deeper into creating better balance, axis, alignment, energy—all the things that make EVERY move in tango work better.

If you have not tried Zoom yet, maybe it’s time!

Group classes this week:

Tuesday @ 6:30 PM: 40-40-20 and disassociation: tips for maintaining your axis and energy

We have been working on how to be tall and stretchy while maintaining a grounded dance. This week, we will be looking at disassociation (and why I don’t usually use that term), and how to efficiently create spirals or helixes that help us pivot, spin and rotate more easily and quickly.

Friday @ noon: Spiral up and Spiral down: Turns, boleos and musicality

As promised, this coming week will continue our work on musicality. We will focus on how to use spirals in the body to create better pivots for turns and boleos; and how to use that extra twist and/or extra time, to play with the music.

Contact me to sign up if you can't pay; or sign up/pay online!

Musicality: Inspired--again--by John Cage

John Cage and dancing

Every once in a while, something about John Cage comes up on the news or in conversation, and I remember how mind-blowing his ideas were to me as a dancer and choreographer when I was just starting to dance.

While I was studying for my M.A. in Dance, before I started dancing tango, I took several classes about dance, musicality and choreography that were required for my degree. I also took a special seminar on John Cage and Merce Cunningham. John Cage’s avant garde music in the 1940s and 1950s involved pieces for prepared piano (putting things on the piano strings so different sounds were played); pieces where composition decisions were made by chance; and one piece of music where no sound is played by the instrument at all. We spent a lot of time making dances based on chance, dances in silence, etc., but I had forgotten about it until this morning.

TED Talks and tango

Today, I tuned into TED Talks while I did some wool prep and spinning, and there was one about sound. As I have been teaching musicality as a main focus of my online Zoom group classes, I spend a lot of time thinking about music, sound and dance, so I tuned in. The speaker said “John Cage” and I was hooked. It’s not long, so take a moment and listen to it.

Here is your tango homework

OK, now go outside (or if that’s too public/weird for you, inside), and play the piece again, just dancing along to what you hear. I just did this, and it’s amazing.

What did you hear? What did you dance?

If you are in my class today, you are now fore-warned what will will be adding to the planned class :-)

How to practice sacadas solo

COVID-19 has limited some of us to dancing tango solo, and a lot of my students bemoan not getting to try moves with a partner. HOWEVER, I have almost always practiced solo, so I have a lot of ways to practice on my own that I am sharing in my classes. This quarantine gives us an opportunity to step back and improve our own technique, without the stress of repeatedly trying a move that doesn’t work yet, on some unsuspecting soul.

Tools

Why no great YouTube video on this, Elizabeth?

I promise that I will put all of this up on YouTube soon. I have new video editing software on my new computer, so I again have video-making capabilities. However, for those of you who have seen me on video recently, you know why I am putting this off. For the rest of you, I can suggest that the best tool for practicing sacadas is: crutches!

Frankly, I had never thought that having a torn ligament would be helpful for teaching tango. It does make many moves difficult, as I cannot currently pivot on my left foot. However, the crutches are great for showing how my leg is moved by the other person’s leg. And you should see my self-led volcadas!

Now, let’s look at more likely suspects.

The traditional practice tool of leaders without a follower!

Two sticks

For those of you trying to figure out how the four legs of the partners interact, I suggest the traditional two sticks or two brooms or two dowels. You can get dowels at the hardware store: I prefer the 5/8” thickness by at least 48” long dowels. If you are taller, longer dowels will help. If you have hiking poles or brooms around, both of those will also work; after all this is the age of COVID: use what you have around the house!

As you think through each move of your pattern, put the sticks where the follower’s feet/legs would be, and then figure out where YOU have to step in order for the next move to work.

Alternately, if you are new to leading these moves, using the stick will help you see where the follower’s next step will go (Are you blocking a “leg” that will need to change direction? Are you starting a leg in a big swinging motion where you will have to pivot? etc.).

When I did my thesis work on leading and following in Buenos Aires in 1999-2001, one of my interviewees who also took Tete’s vals class with me, told me, “I get up in the morning, make my coffee, and then I grab my two sticks and I practice.”

Your hands

The best tool for learning the kinesthetics of the leg receiving the sacada, is your own hand.

The sacada is best done as high on the moving leg as possible, so if you relax your arm, your own hand will be at about the perfect position to learn about the weight of your leg and the movement in the hip joint to make a good sacada. In the drills I use, as soon as my leg becomes the free leg, ready to do a sacada, I can push my leg with my hand, simulating the interplay of the partners, and feel where my leg will go with different angles/amounts of force/timings.

When I have you try this in class, many of you are loathe to do this in class. Maybe you are uncomfortable touching your body in front of other people? No problem! No one else can see you practicing at your house! NOW try it!

Paper and colored pencils or a Painting app on your phone

Here are a linear sacada from the follower’s side step; and a linear sacada from the follower’s back step. Purple (and the heart) is the follower, and red (and the star) are the leader, showing and where each person moves, and where it’s important to stay, or to regain balance in place.

These days, I spend a lot of time on Zoom, sharing my screen and drawing all sorts of arrow-based pictures of where each person goes in a move. For the engineering inclined of you, it may be very helpful to plot out where each person goes in different colors. You can then envision both people’s movements, and better understand the geometry of what you will need to do to keep a move going down the line of dance instead of spiraling into the people behind you :-)

I hope that gets you started on your sacada practice, and more will be coming as soon as I heal up!

What do you miss about tango? The other answers

Sometimes being a former English teacher gets in the way of being a tango teacher. As my dear husband suggested, “People don’t write paragraphs anymore! Don’t expect to get essays from folks!” I am happy that some of you wrote a few sentences. I have put all of them on the blog, and will announce the winner of the free private lesson on Facebook and on my email feed. Every day, I hear, “When will we be able to dance again?” from my students. The answer: TODAY with your body, and we don’t know when connected physically with someone else. But continue to keep your dance polished—or even improve it—so that you are ready when it’s safe again.

“It’s hard to put into words what I miss about tango. It supports all aspects of my wellness- my physical health, mental health, social connections and relationships, my creative drive, and my sense of purpose. Looking forward to the day when I can be back in class with the Portland community!”

— Rosie Yerke

“It makes me too sad 😢[to comment].”

— Heike Sommer

“The music, the embrace, the ronde.”

— Margaret Lentell

“I miss snuggling with my friends and dancepals. Snuggling feels good. It helps me feel less lonely. And you learn so much about someone by snuggling with them that it’s a delightful way to get to know someone. ”

— Peter Silverman

What do you miss about tango? Answer #1

From Tanika

“I miss so many things about tango. 

People I got to know in the last 12 years. Their smiles. Memories we have built from house parties, camping trips, hiking, and dining together. I miss beautiful people who clean up, put their best clothes and take an effort to get to the tango place to share the joy of music and dance. I miss music tremendously. I miss the sensation in the middle of a good milonga night when you are completely dissolved in music. 

I miss tango life. ”

— Tanika Barsegian

Safety first!

Thank all of you for sending me your thoughts about starting to dance together. Overall, most of you are being cautious. With a few exceptions, most people do not want to dance in person: especially not changing partners. As Multnomah County has not opened at all yet and infections are on the rise, I think this is a good approach for right now.

Zoom lessons are still the safest

My group lessons will be on Zoom for at least a few more months, and probably through next flu season, unless we get a vaccine up and running or the virus dies out in the area. I want to have everyone safe, and this is my FIRST consideration.

Private lessons will also be available on Zoom from now on. For some of you, we have found half hour lessons twice a week work best; and that works better without a commute. For others of you, you are more health compromised than I am, and need to be 100% safe. And then there are those of you who live in other countries and have been doing lessons—what a nice silver lining to this situation, to meet you and teach you!

I encourage all of you who are willing to continue learning via Zoom, to do this. I should be getting a new camera tomorrow to further enhance distance learning. I am continually working on improving online lessons. I know it’s not the same as in person, but we all want to be alive to dance together on the other side of this!

Be safe and take care of yourself and others: wear a mask!

Traveling ice cream (uh, tango) truck?

I have been experimentally visiting some students and teaching them from outside their French doors, while they dance in their house. I bring my mask and the music, and don’t come inside.

This has worked well, but I have found I cannot really sustain a visiting teacher status without charging for travel because it affects how many lessons I can teach per day. If you want me to deliver tango to your house, let’s talk. We will need to come up with some sort of travel charge.

Outside couples’ lessons are open

Studies have found that COVID-19 transmission is much lower outside. While the weather holds, this will be the new option available.

Private couples’ lessons OUTSIDE AT MY HOUSE are now open! As of this week, I am the proud owner of 1. an infrared, touchless thermometer; and 2. vinyl flooring on my back porch.

The porch is covered and it is big enough to social distance and/or have me stand inside to teach. Unless it is a downpour, the floor stays dry. There is room to change your shoes, etc., and you can come down the driveway and avoid entering the house. Unfortunately, heels are a no-go right now. I hope to strengthen the flooring later to make it heel-friendly, but for now, please wear socks or practice shoes only.

There will be a fan for more movement of air. There will be hand sanitizer available and I ask you to get used to wearing masks (please bring your own) during classes, especially if you want me out of the porch with you. I will take temperatures and run through safety protocol for each class. I know it’s a hassle, but a month is the hospital is more hassle than that.

Planning for private solo lessons

I am a bit nervous about dancing with people, as I have a history of several bouts of pneumonia. I will be taking it very slowly in re-opening private solo lessons. The first people will be those who live alone, have not been socializing, and preferably have had a COVID-19 test. I hope by the end of the summer to have all of you back dancing, AS LONG AS numbers of cases in Multnomah County start to go down. Stay tuned.

Private one-on-one lessons will require:

• hand washing/sanitizer;

• temperature check;

• masks;

• dancing outside

• me feeling comfortable with/knowing your level of socializing.

Thank you again for your input. I am taking into account all information. I have a few friends who work in infectious disease research, pharmaceutics research, etc., and I have been bugging them for information to help me stay au courant with COVID-19 news. Again, the county has not budged, and numbers are going up, so please bear with my slower-than-you-want opening, those of you who want to dance NOW :-)