Yoga breathing to survive the holidays

We all love our families, extra social events, over-eating and all the other things that make up the end of the year. However, those same items can create more stress than in normal weeks. If you are planning to dance during the end of the year, consider doing a little breathing exercise before you begin to ground you and get you more relaxed so that you dance well.

Alternate nostril breathing

Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing) helps to relieve stress and anxiety, so it’s a great complement both holiday survival and to preparation for dancing tango! It also balances the right and left sides of the body energetically, so it should also improve your balance. It sounds weird, but it works: try it!

Nadi Shodhana technique

Preparation:

• Sit in a comfortable place, either on the floor or in a chair if the floor is not comfortable.

• Lengthen your spine up out of your pelvis so you have plenty of space for your breath in your body

• Rest your left hand in your lap, palm up.

• Take your right hand and connect your thumb and ring finger (fourth finger) together to create a pincer effect. You can rest your index and middle finger on your forehead between your eyes if you wish.

Take one normal full breath in and out.

• Close off the right side of your nostril with your thumb and inhale fully.

• Close off both sides of your nose for a moment, then use your ring finger to close off your left nostril as you exhale through the right.

• On the next inhale, keep the left side closed, breathing in on the right side.

• Again, close off both sides for a moment, then release the left side of your nose and exhale on the left side.

That is one set of breathing (in on left, out on right; in on right, out on left). Do at least five sets of breathing. If at any time this makes you feel MORE stressed, stop relax, and try again, or try the no-nose-pinching version below. If this feels comfortable, try to balance the speed of your breathing, so that the inhale and exhale match, and gradually build up the “hold” between inhale and exhale. If you are new to this, don’t worry too much about the holds between inhale and exhale: you can extend them as you get used to the breathing technique.

And if you have a cold, try this

Alternate nostril breathing does not have to involve plugging your nose! I found this out when I took an online yoga teacher training class and was too stuffy to breathe well while only using half my nose. The teacher suggested this modification and I was surprised that it worked as well for stress/relaxation as actually blocking my nostrils!

Try sitting comfortably, focusing on the pattern of alternate nostril breathing (above), but instead of plugging one side of your nose, rest your hands palm up on your legs, and connect your thumb and fourth finger of your right hand, and inhale thinking about the left nostril. Pinch both sets of fingers together, then release the right side and exhale thinking about the right side of your nose. Continue, “pinching off” one side and then the other with your hands resting in your lap.

Using energy in tango to make a good connection

I just taught two hours of tango where my students are ready to add another layer to their dance. One can suddenly dance much more musically than the previous lesson. The other dancer is starting to connect with energy in the dance. This can happen at any time in the dance, but these two layers are (to me) the epitome of a good, advanced follower. I know I go on about “it’s not about the moves” but it is true. If you have a follower who gives you energy and musicality and takes part in the dance as an equal member of the conversation/team, that dance feels wonderful!

Show the leader what works for you

When I follow, I use the first few moves of the dance to show my leader what size steps feel the best for ME. My goal: to make what feels good for me feel so nice to the leader that they will adjust their dance to accommodate my needs. Of course, that is my definition of a good leader :-) If I can make what I need feel the best, of course the leader will want to incorporate my needs into the dance. I need to really articulate through my feet so that the leader can feel what I am feeling.

Inspire the leader musically

As the follower, I don’t make all the decisions, but I can influence them. If I know the music well, I can suggest speeding up, slowing down or pausing without wrestling the leader for control. Again, if I feel the follower dancing their heart out to a song, as a sensitive leader, I WANT to include the follower’s musicality in my dance. As a team, we are stronger. My entire body is dancing musically, but again I need to articulate through my feet for the leader to really understand what I am offering.

Stay on your axis but send your energy through the leader

Graciela Gonzalez told a class, “Pretend you are embracing your partner, but your favorite movie star is up in the balcony behind him. Embrace that person too!” You don’t need to put your back in jeopardy and lean on the leader. The point of connecting to find how your energy connects, not act like a lead weight around the leader’s neck. Think of sending energy through the leader, not at the leader.

If leaders keep pulling you in and pinning you to their chest, you have two options. First, try to connect with energy like this. For most people, that will fix the problem because they really wanted to find that connection energetically, even if they thought it was only physical. For the people who are sure you don’t know how to dance unless you do a leaning close embrace, you need to look for more open-minded dancers to work on your connection and then come back to the pushy dancers when you can protect your body.

Give good energy even if the dance is not good

This may be the most crucial time to keep connected energetically. A difficult tanda can be hellish if a dancer gives up and tunes out. It feels awful to the partner. Saturday night, I had the class play “Blah Blah” where you dance nicely, and then tune out alternately. Everyone in the class could feel the difference. So…don’t do that on the dance floor! It’s better to end the tanda after three dances than tune out and torture the partner who is torturing you. Try to improve the dance with better energy and technique. At least give that poor dancer the gift of your presence!

My latest obsession is fascia

You know I love to learn. I ADORE learning new things, and I always bring my newly acquired information to my students. When it comes to understanding the fascia in your body, this is pertinent to everyone.

What is fascia?

The fascia in your body is the connective tissue that holds everything together. Your muscles are attached to your bones and to other muscles in chains of movement. You have very heavy fascia, like the sole of your foot (plantar fasciitis sound familiar?) and the connections across the back of your pelvis, holding the bones together. You have thinner-than-paper connective tissue in other parts of your body.

How does it affect me for movement?

Your flexibility or lack of flexibility can be due to how your fascia works. For some people with very tight fascia, it’s hard to do “normal” stretching. For people who are hyperflexible like me, my fascia have extra stretch that can make it easy to turn my ankles and sprain my wrists. There are extremes both ways, but most of us fit in the middle where our fascia mostly do what we need: hold us together.

Chains of fascia instead of muscles

I have always thought of the body as discrete muscles, attached to my bones, moving my joint. However, there is an argument for thinking of chains of muscles and how they work in teams. You can dissect long connected groups of muscles with the connective tissue that shows how lines of movement throughout the entire body can work in a way that makes more sense than just looking at one muscle at a time.

I have begun to look at alignment as these chains of movement throughout the body. If the spiral line of fascia is unbalanced, you might roll out at the ankle or roll in at the arch of your foot, unbalancing the entire line up through your hip to your skull! However, if you look at these long lines in the body and subtly adjust somewhere along that line, you can often realign the entire body to work better.

Tango and fascia

One property of fascia is elasticity: it snaps back into place like a rubber band when stretched quickly. Think of a fabulous boleo: the entire leg is free and relaxed, and the timing of the leader can create a real THWACK! as the leg runs into the other thigh and then returns to its original alignment. What about a good traspie, with the entire arch of the foot, up through the leg to the core, rebounding with a stretchy feeling? That’s lines of fascia holding everything together!

As I teach using the ideas I am learning about fascia, I find more people can move easily using the knowledge. It removes the need to pay attention to each muscle or body part at the same time as four or five others, and instead allows you to monitor one band of fascia, feeling the stretchiness and connection throughout the body. The mindfulness pays off on an entirely new dimension of ability for many people.

If you want to explore fascia for yourself, I can recommend the Anatomy Trains book by Tom Myers. Its pricey, BUT you can access a few hours of videos with the book that you could watch and get the most pertinent information without reading every single word. I have been taking online workshops through Tom Myers, and my head is stuffed with useful information. I can feel it all the way to my toes :-)

Snow days? Remember you can Zoom your lessons!

Choose in-person or Zoom as you need for private lessons

As we have our first snow of the year here in Portland, I wanted to remind you of one of the benefits of COVID lockdown: I have video equipment! If the weather is unsafe for driving, or if you just can’t bring yourself to leave the house, you can choose to have a Zoom lesson instead of driving to your in-person lesson.

Please communicate your plans

I need to know ahead of time so that I can set up the equipment, as I finally started putting it away and returning to a more open feeling in my home studio. As I often teach several hours in a row, if you know you aren’t coming in person, PLEASE give me a few hours of notice so that I am ready for you.

Sometimes Zoom is just right

An added benefit to Zoom lessons: I can send you a video! Did you want that drill for cruzadas we just did to practice at home? Ask me to turn recording on. I can email you the recording later for home review.

If you didn’t take Zoom tango lessons during lockdown, there’s a TON of things we can do one-on-one to practice technique. I can also teach you a yoga class online. It’s up to you.

Group class MAY be on Zoom

If I can’t get to Shabu for the group class, I may choose to do a group tango class on Zoom, but I may cancel. For my small group yoga lesson, if it’s too snowy for all of you to get here, I may do Zoom instead as well; stay tuned!

Let it snow!

Quick etiquette reminder #3: Practica etiquette

Why are practicas like preschool?

I just walked by the local preschool and heard several corrections to kids that I think could help us as dancers at tango practicas. So here goes!

Dilemma #1: We need to take turns!

A practica should benefit everyone. A problem arises when you have an agenda, and the other person has an agenda—and one person ignores the needs of the other person and just does THEIR agenda.

Most of us have been brought up to be polite, and we often just go along with the pushy person rather than make a scene. How can we extract ourselves efficiently from this dilemma?

My solution: be clear with each person before dancing with them. I suggest saying something like, “Here is the one thing I want to work on: …” and ask them for one thing they want to work on, then do both and then exchange partners. That way, if they are not working on your choice, you can gently remind them that you agreed to do both people’s work.

Survival solution: “Excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom.” :-)

Dilemma #2: Honey, you need to share the treat with everyone!

A practica is a place where most people come to dance with a diverse group of people to improve their dance. It’s rude to hog a good dancer unless you have agreed that you want to dance only with each other. Do one tanda, or 2-3 dances together, and then change partners.

Sometimes, this dilemma is compounded by Mr./Ms. Insensitive from the dilemma above. If someone gloms onto you and does not check what you want to do AND does not check whether you would like to dance with other people, you have a real problem if you are a polite person.

How can we get out of this situation?

My solution: Agree to how many dances you plan to do before dancing unless it’s a practica that has tandas, in which case you can stop when the DJ plays a cortina (the music between sets). If that doesn’t work, I tell the person that I promised some dances to another person, and I change partners. If the other person protests that you are the only person they want to dance with at the practica, remind them that dancing with beginners is the best way to improve technique. Share the love!

Survival solution: Same as above.

Dilemma #3: Hold hands with your buddy!

We are all in this community together. We have been through COVID, inappropriate behavior allegations, closure of dance studios and other stress as a community recently. If we want to build our community back, we need more new, friendly people to join us. Bring along a coworker or your neighbor or your cousin when you go to a practica next time. It’s OK they don’t dance tango—yet.

The solution: Introduce your buddy to people. Ask some of your friends to dance with the new person as a favor to you. Remind everyone that when they started, some nice advanced dancers did the same for them! Make sure your visitor feels taken care of by you and your friends so that they want to come back (rescue them from self-appointed teachers and unpleasant people). In other words, hold their hand emotionally and bring them to tango!

Survival solution: Call some friends ahead of time and get them to commit to a few dances with the new person or go in a group. Hey, bring your entire office along!

See, preschool really does continue through life! :-)

Chacarera class at Las Naifas October 14th!

I hope all of you will join me at Las Naifas tomorrow for an Argentine folk dance class before the milonga. Tango is not the main dance in Argentina: in the countryside, folk dances have a big following, much like country music and Texas Two-Step have in middle America.

• 5:30 Chacarera class

• 6:30-9:30 Milonga with Ariel Marsh DJing (and one set of chacarera in the middle of the evening)

• Norse Hall, 111 NE 11th, Portland, Oregon

• $15 at the door

• Please bring your vaccination proof IF you are not already on the list from prior milongas

• Masking is optional

Chacarera is only one of Argentina’s folk dances, but if you are old enough to have had to dance the Virginia Reel in elementary school in the USA, that’s the place chacarera has in Argentina. You don’t trade partners like the Virginia Reel, but lines of dancers face their partners and dance called patterns facing and circling the partner.

If you still have trauma from grade school, do not worry! I will be calling the dance at the milonga, as well as teaching it at 5:30. It is not rocket science and it’s fun! Think long swishy skirts and booted cowboys showing off :-)

Hope to see you there, and I will also be teaching a fast and dirty review Thursday night after my regular class (that’s today) at 8:30 PM. It’s free if you are in the 7-8:30 PM tango class!

Quick tango etiquette reminder #2

Between social distancing during COVID and the new awareness of the Me-Too movement, as a dance teacher, I hear much more about how some dancers feel uncomfortable as we re-establish tango closeness. Here are a few things I find to be helpful.

Masking sensitivity

If someone is wearing a mask, you might want to consider masking up out of consideration for that person’s comfort level. I attended a milonga in Eugene over the weekend, and I was very cheered to notice that most people who danced with me grabbed a mask before asking me to dance (I was wearing a mask). I did not ask anyone to do so, and I felt respected and cared for by those who made the extra tiny effort.

As we move back out into the world that now includes COVID for the rest of our lives, we can adapt gracefully and get sick less often at dance events by masking.

Communicate about discomfort

I had three people come to me and express discomfort at one person’s behavior in my class. I spoke to that person, who both thanked me for my honesty and chose to quit class rather than engage with the dialogue. In the past, this happened very infrequently. I assume that this will happen more now that we have had serious issues in the community about inappropriate behavior. What can we do to create a healthier dynamic?

Assume that some people never knew what made you feel uncomfortable and let them know. If you don’t feel you can do that, have the teacher or organizer help you communicate with them. There is nothing wrong with turning down a dance because that person invades your space, hurts your body, or just feels unpleasant to you. However, letting them know why could eventually change their behavior. That’s a win for the community and for you.

Consider that COVID has removed close personal contact for two and a half years. Some people are desperate to touch other humans and may overstep boundaries. Some people are afraid to touch and may react more strongly than before to any feeling of boundary invasion. Put on your adult brain and see if there is a way through the situation to a better solution. Even just saying “Ack! Not used to this!” may lead to problem-solving instead of avoidance.

We are all in this together, so let’s rebuild our community with more communication and resilience.

Problem-solving to dance with other styles

When I learned tango, we were taught that a good dancer learns to adjust to myriad styles and partners. What I have been hearing from distraught students, is that other dancers are correcting them at milongas, explaining how they are dancing “wrong” because their style does not match the other person’s style.

Do not give feedback at milongas

Giving feedback at milongas is not appropriate! When people are dancing at a milonga, you adapt as best you can to the other person’s idiosyncrasies, and you dance your best. I make sure I teach all my students to respect other people’s dances and styles, but unfortunately, this is not a widespread practice.

Think a moment before you decide to preach the gospel of your style on the dance floor! The other people there are dancing to have fun. When you critique them, you are destroying their confidence and their mood. As one of my students put it when they told me they would look for a different city to dance in instead of returning to dance in Portland: “I don’t need anyone to harsh on my joy of dancing.” I find it sad that someone criticized a beginner enough that they plan to avoid the entire tango scene.

How would you feel if I said, “Can I give you some advice?” while we are dancing? Just because you have danced for five or ten or twenty years does not give you the permission to preach on the dance floor. Hold your tongue until a class or practica and then offer your pearls of wisdom.

Try to adjust and make the best of the tanda

Dancing at a milonga is not the time to convert a dancer to “the correct style” you dance. No one is willing to just jettison their training and join your tango church on the fly :-) Why should they? What we really need is more tolerance for letting dancers do their thing. Look at it as a challenge to adapt successfully, SILENTLY, and protect your body at the same time.

For example, how I teach is based on how the body moves and what you need to do to use your body efficiently and optimally. It’s not a "tango style” as much as an opportunity to know how your body moves best. I did love it when I asked Gustavo Naveira what the style I was doing was called, and he said, “Normal?”

Not everyone comes from the build-it-on-your-body school of tango. There are dozens of styles. Do you want to add a lean? Sure! It is a recognized style. It’s much harder on your body, but if you want to put more wear and tear on your body, that’s up to you. However, I don’t want to hurt myself, so I try to find a way to dance with you that makes you feel good and lets me dance in an anatomically safe position.

The main point is to have fun!!

How do you problem-solve for unique styles?

Each week in my class, we play silly games where we impersonate various kinds of dancers and try to fix the situation in a way that protects our bodies AND ALSO does not come across as criticism of the other person. The goal is to make both people feel more comfortable and for the dance to work better.

How do you “level up” a person who leans to one side? How you lead a person who is floppy? What can you do to relieve an arm-wrestling embrace? As a follower, how can you protect your body while still appearing to lean on leader who keeps pulling you off your axis? We try one solution per week and build our repertoire of useful “hacks” to expand the number of people we can dance with successfully.

What do I love about the problem-solving part of class? Dancers are having fun! Everyone is giggling, being silly, and dancing better because the pressure is off to dance ideally. Making mistakes on purpose is fun, and most dancers take it to hilarious extremes that make normal problem solving feel easy.

Dance with everyone

When I go to a milonga, I accept dances and ask people to dance regardless of level or style. Is that person smiling? Do they look like it’s been a few tandas since they got to dance? Do I see the obsessive tango gleam in their eyes? I don’t dance to look good. I don’t dance to show off. I dance to have fun.

Do you dance a different style than I do? I see that as a fun challenge.

Quick etiquette reminder #1

In this COVID tango world, many of us have appreciated an aspect of masking because it allows us to eat whatever we want before dancing. Unfortunately, some of us have forgotten that, when the mask comes off for both people, there might be repercussions if we don’t tune back into our old ways.

“How was the milonga?” usually elicits descriptions of how good someone danced or questions about how to approach dancing with someone where that first tanda together did not go well. Unfortunately, what I heard after Las Naifas were complaints about dancers and bad breath! “His dance was not great, but the worst part of it was his breath!” Hmm.

This is your tango mom reminding you to brush your teeth and check your breath before heading out sans mask to dance. Did you eat garlic, onions, and hot peppers before you danced? Grab that mask :-)

Small group yoga class now open

The small group yoga class is now open! The first four people to pay for the week are registered for 12:30 Wednesday class at my house. If you do not manage to register, you can contact me and I will add you to the waitlist. I want to keep the class small so that I can do hands-on teaching and focus on optimal alignment and use of your body, so that your yoga strengthens you, rather than injuring you!

A new listing will go up each Wednesday, after the current week’s class has finished. If the waitlist extends to several people, I will schedule an additional session when possible.

Circling back

I have been rereading Make It Stick by Brown, Roediger and McDaniel. Most of you have joined me in the time since I blogged about this book in 2015, so I thought I would draw your attention to the summaries I wrote about how the brain learns. The book itself is a summary of thirty years of educational research and I encourage you to read it: it’s the book that got me interested in neuroscience and learning. It also changed how I teach, which is why my classes may not feel like the kind of class you expected before you walked in the door!

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Part Four

This book is almost ten years old now, and a lot of new research has been done that I will start to put up on my blog. Learning is so much fun! I hope you enjoy reading these and applying them to your own dance!

Ganchos 101: review from class

I only teach ganchos once a year or so, but it’s been almost three because of COVID. A gancho looks like a much bigger move than it is, and I often see people doing versions that can injure the body. It’s good to understand how to lead and follow ganchos and then decide if/how you want to use them. Here is a quick summary of what we covered in class last week.

The free leg starts at the hip joint and pelvic floor

The gancho, or “hook” in tango, is a whole-leg movement for the follower. Even though it looks like you do a hamstring curl around the leader’s leg, this is about having a leg that is free at the hip joint. If the hip is tight or constricted, the gancho will look awkward.

Your core and pelvic floor need to be engaged to have room to allow the hip to open so that the leader can move the follower’s leg. Your best preparation for doing a good gancho: practice back steps with your pelvic floor lifted. If you are doing your best back step, the leader can produce your best gancho!

Practice for a free leg

It’s hard to practice ganchos solo, but you can practice having a free leg. Stand on a step or a book or anything that lets you truly dangle your leg from the hip joint. Lift your pelvic floor, and you should be able to feel that free hip joint even more in comparison. This also prevents your lower back from taking part in the gancho instead of your hip joint.

After you locate the hip joint this way, stand tall on the floor with your pelvic floor lifted, and feel your leg still dangle, but now touch the floor. Hold onto something and use your other hand to push your relaxed, free leg. Notice how long it takes to start your leg moving! The gancho is not an instantaneous move. You see the moment where the leg is moving the fastest (at the end of the move) and the brain is tricked into thinking that the entire move is fast. Take your time to move that 30-40 lbs. of leg with a FREE hip joint!

The gancho is ALWAYS an invitation

Students often ask how to “make” a follower do a gancho. The gancho is always an invitation. For a gancho to work, I need to be able to stand on my axis as the leader sets up the gancho request. If the leader has put me in a position where I might be in danger of falling, I will refuse a gancho even when I know the leader wants one. I might also refuse a gancho if I feel uncomfortable with having that leader that close to my legs. I know some dancers who grew up in conservative countries or who are shy who cannot bring themselves to gancho. Leaders: respect the follower’s decision!

Make a gancho the follower can’t resist!

As a follower, I can’t produce a good gancho if I am afraid of falling over. The leader needs to offer a gancho that does not knock the follower off axis. If someone sets up a good gancho, I will accept that invitation.

Stay close to the follower rather than lunging through their legs: a tall, skinny window of space is best for a gancho. If the leader squats and goes low for the gancho, the follower will not feel or look elegant! In teacher training, Chicho Frumboli always told us to “bring the follower to you instead of going to the follower” and he meant that the steps BEFORE the gancho should create a situation where the axis of the leader and the axis of the follower were as close as possible and on balance.

A good place to start is from the stepover (pasada) as the follower steps forward over your foot from a front parada. Most dancers can stay close for this step. You can also do a gancho from an overturned ocho or in the back step of the turn (giro), but many followers struggle to do good turns and may not be on balance enough to stay close in this move.

If you struggle to stay close, consider using the “other” leg for the gancho, leaders! Flip around 180 degrees and offer a gancho to the back of your leg! If this does not make sense, come to class Thursday!

Don’t autogancho!

Followers have spiked me twice in the past two weeks by someone who thought I was offering a gancho because they felt my ankle against their ankle. I am surprisingly good at jumping out of the way if someone winds up for an autogancho, but I still got kicked. Ouch.

For a gancho, the invitation needs to connect with the instep, foot or ankle (depending on style) AND be against the leg, preferably as high as possible, at the hip joint of the follower or near that. If you don’t feel a back-of-the-leg connection followers, DO NOT create a gancho yourself because you will hurt the leader!

There’s a lot more to ganchos, and many variations, but these are the main points I would want every dancer to know. Come to class and we will do the rest together!

Cabeceo tips and tricks

After hearing several people bemoan not being able to find partners at the last milonga and seeing several folks sitting staring at the floor last Friday, I think it’s time to polish our cabeceos!

What is a cabeceo?

A cabeceo is a gesture of the head, inviting someone to dance in the case of tango. The potential dance partners make eye contact. The person who is going to lead (usually) makes a subtle head gesture and or facial expression to invite the potential follower to dance. The person receiving the invitation can accept with a smile or an affirmative nod. One can refuse the invite with a “no” head gesture, but that is rare. Usually, the response is to not make eye contact with meaning that one does not want to dance.

Why do we cabeceo?

A cabeceo is very useful when in a crowded dance space. If you want to dance with someone, but they are across the room, the only way to forestall someone else getting there first, is to establish eye contact and agree to dance, and then make one’s way to the follower’s table or to a mutually indicated place to start dancing.

I was taught that the cabeceo protects the leader (traditionally a man) from the ignominy of crossing the floor to openly offer to dance, only to have the follower say no. Most people would prefer a private “no” to the walk of shame back to the other side of the dance hall, watched by the other dancers.

For me, if someone is looking eagerly at me, waiting for me to ask them to dance, I know that if I invite, they will probably say yes. Traditionally, this is how a woman invited the man to invite her to dance. It’s very circular, isn’t it?

Who benefits from the cabeceo?

The cabeceo gives the power of choice to the follower. There is no pressure to agree to a dance. Several beginner men in the Portland community have told me that they can’t get a dance because no one will look at them. As a woman raised in a patriarchal society, it is hard to say “No!” when offered a hand. It is much easier to say no from afar by avoiding a cabeceo.

The cabeceo also benefits introverts. As a shy person, it took me a while to get good at doing a cabeceo that required longer eye contact than usual in North American society. However, once I mastered that, it was easier to cabeceo than to walk up and ask folks to dance the way extroverts do.

Does the cabeceo still function?

In Portland, there are many dancers who have not practiced the cabeceo enough to use it well. There are other dancers who use North American versions of invitation, such as appearing at someone’s table and verbally asking for a dance or holding out a hand. On top of that, because many of us lead and follow, and many of us dance with partners of all gender identifications, it can be hard to figure out how to adapt the cabeceo to a situation where anyone might lead, and anyone might follow.

In Buenos Aires, I have only experienced this chaos at a queer milonga. No one seemed to know where to look. Someone asked me to dance from the next table. I danced with people, as a leader and a follower, and each tanda was a negotiation: “Do you want to lead? Or switch? Can you lead? I don’t want to!” It was a chaotic situation, much as it is at most milongas here in the USA.

I think the cabeceo is particularly useful for long distance agreements to dance. I sometimes initiate cabeceos, whether as a leader or a follower, with men or women. When I started to dance in the 1990s, this was not ok, but now it is accepted most places, and I do it as much in Buenos Aires as in Portland. Of course, after all these years, I don’t really worry about breaking some of the rules because I don’t care as much if I dance or not all evening :-)

How to use the cabeceo to your benefit

1. Make sure your target can see you! For many of us with aging eyes, we might need you to stand or sit close to us to make eye contact. Wait until I put my glasses on to cabeceo!

2. If you have someone specific in mind, sit up straight, send positive energy towards that person, and look interested in dancing! If you just want to dance, a more gradual pan of a group of potential partners will show you who is also searching broadly and may want to dance. Smile!

3. Move to a chair a short distance away from someone. Make it clear that you are trying to cabeceo. If they still ignore you, that’s a polite no-thank-you.

4. If someone has ignored you a few times, don’t give up on them forever, just for that night or a month or two, and then try again.

5. If someone is in deep conversation, that’s not the time to cabeceo. If a person wants to dance, they will look around. Don’t waste your time trying to pry someone away from their best friend.

The cabeceo is a part of tango culture, and as such, we should teach it and practice it to understand tango’s history better, even if not everyone uses it.

Las Naifas is at Norse Hall Friday July 8th!

Please join me to dance to DJ Robert Hauk at Norse Hall on Friday for Las Naifas Matinee Milonga! The lesson at 5:30 PM is beginner-friendly, as is the space and the people. The bar will be open downstairs for a drink or a conversation. Vaccinations required, masks optional. See you there!

Improve your tango musicality

Dance like a robot?

Many people come to me as advanced beginner or intermediate level tango dancers, and they ask me to improve their dance. I suggest that we dance, and I often spend the next few minutes being laboriously moved ON THE BEAT for several tangos. It’s like dancing with a robot. Somewhere along the way, someone has drilled into dancers’ minds the necessity of being on the beat. Now, I am not against knowing where the beat of the music is, and I like dancing in a rhythmic fashion HOWEVER I do not teach this as the basis for tango.

Basic tango musicality elements

In tango, we have the basic beat (tiempo). We can also dance in a syncopated, faster way (dobletiempo). We can pause (pausa) for one beat or two beats or for a looong time, depending on how the music speaks to us or the leader in front of us creates situations. Then there is slow motion (camera lenta) that smooshes around, stretching out the dance, moving away from the beat. If we use all of that, we have a dance that is more interesting than the robot step-on-the-beat dance, even if we just walk.

Outside of the box musicality

Can we take musicality further? Absolutely! All over the world, musical forms have evolved that explore and push the edges of what music and dance can do. Listen to jazz or rebetiko or blues or fado or Kultur Shock (who describe themselves as a gypsy punk band but whose main singer taught me a haunting Bosnian table song with no underlying beat at music camp). Sometimes, going away from the beat allows you to find new beauty in how you are moving, singing, or playing.

Why can’t tango go there too? It can! Try arriving a little ahead of the beat, or a bit behind it; or wander around near the beat, landing on it occasionally to ground your dance and prove to your partner that you know where the beat is, and that this is a push-the-envelope moment you are allowing yourself, not a where-are-we moment? You don’t have to be a musician to do this, so if you just said to yourself, “Oh, well I can’t do that!” ignore that little critic in your head and come play with me!

A note of caution

Some people prefer to dance with robots. If you explore, they will shove you back onto the beat. They are not comfortable with enlarging the dance. This is not meant as a torture device to be used against less adventurous dancers! If you are dancing with someone who is freaking out because you are playing around with what you hear in the music, then you need to respect your follower’s needs (or your leader’s bug-eyed expression) and tone it down a bit. Save it for the other out-of-the-box dancers.

Tango vs. vals and milonga

When it comes to vals and milonga, I am more traditional. I prefer a groovy beat for milonga and a nice heartbeat of a vals. I still don’t want to dance with a robot for those dances, but they are more geared to sticking closer to the beat. Save your very out-there explorations of music for tango. Again, this is only my own opinion, but don’t make me dance triplets in vals just because you are a musician, and you would like to prove to me that you CAN dance triplets.

The end verdict IMHO

Make the musicality emerge from the music to the dancing people. Try to stay out of an academic approach: play with what the music has to offer. For all three dances, I want to feel, not think when I am on the dance floor.

Listen to tango music from the 1920s right up to new tango bands. Even the old music has pauses, slides, stretching of the beat—all the ingredients of experimentation that you may have missed while only focusing on the beat.

Robot dance or human dance? I vote human! Go out there and mess around with your musicality! I will see you on the dance floor.

Use yoga tools to help your tango!

Yoga jellies for yoga

Yoga jellies are great for people with sensitive wrists and hands to use in yoga poses that put pressure on the hands. Made from silicone, the dome-like supports allow you to adjust your hands and wrists to protect them when doing yoga. They are washable, easy to use have proved popular among my yoga students. I had to buy multiple sets for my group yoga class so that everyone with wrist issues could use them and one student has already ordered their own pair. If you want to try some, just ask at your next lesson and you can try some of mine to see if they work for you.

Yoga jellies for tango

Now that you have yoga jellies to help your wrists for yoga, let’s use them for tango! If you know me well, you know I am always looking for innovative ideas to improve tango technique and speed up learning. One morning, I looked at a student leaning to the side who felt they were completely upright and grabbed a yoga jelly out of my yoga tool drawer. “Put this on your head!” I told them, and immediately saw an improvement in balance. Aha!

Try it yourself: turn a yoga jelly upside down on your head and walk. This is the best way I have found to keep a kinesthetic sense of “tall axis” while dancing. The weight of the silicone yoga jelly is just enough to push against to lengthen my spine. On top of that, if you drop the jelly, it does not break! It works with hair, without hair—if you stand up, it stays up. If you lean off-axis, it falls off. That’s a direct indicator!

Yoga jellies for tango inspire yoga jellies for yoga

I showed my new drill for tango to a student. He responded well, lengthening his core, and standing straighter. He took one look at the jellies and happily decided to go back to yoga and try it with yoga jellies, as his wrists had been a problem in his yoga practice. How’s that for a circular inspiration?

Note: This is not a paid ad. This product is great, and I have bought several pair of the yoga jellies for my students to use in yoga class. There are cheaper versions available if the price tag seems too high, but I prefer this brand. I should have bought stock . . .

Las Naifas is Friday!

Friday, June 10th, 2022

Please join us at Norse Hall (111 NE 11th, @ Couch St.) for Las Naifas on Friday, June 10th! I teach the lesson at 5:30 PM, with a focus on survival tango and games to make tango fun and creative. The music for dancing runs from 6:30-9:30 PM. The DJ, Ariel Marsh, is impressive and I think you will enjoy her music choices. The bar is open downstairs, but grab a snack before you come dance, as we no longer have catering available. $15 cash at the door.

Masks, vaccinations, and all that

Although masks are not mandatory, with the current surge in Omicron, I suggest wearing a mask to stay healthy! We are still requiring vaccination proof, but if you have been to my classes or to a prior Las Naifas this year, all you have to do is check your name on the contact tracing list. You don’t have to show your card again.

Free parking available

Norse Hall has a lot at 10th and Couch. You are welcome to park there if there is space. Street parking is free after 7 PM. There is room to lock your bikes to the railing in front of Norse Hall. There are also bus lines running right past the venue. Scooters, Uber, . . . so many ways to come dance!

What to wear

This is Portland, so if you are wondering how dressy you should be, don’t worry. Some people dress up but some have come straight from work. As long as you are dressed, it should be fine.

Planks to help your tango technique

Over twenty years ago in Omar Vega’s milonga class, he used me as a helper to show moves. The whole time he told me, “Higher, higher, higher . . . NO! Lower! No! Higher!” I had no idea what he was talking about until the day he finally said, “Yes, that’s it!” I could sense how stretchy my body felt at that moment and tried to memorize how I had achieved the feeling he wanted. It took so much core strength to do what he wanted!

I have a much stronger body now than back in 1999. Yoga has helped me build and maintain my deep core, and that improves my tango as well. You can have a stronger body too if you incorporate a few exercises into your week.

Shoulder blade to sacrum

My trainer, Seth Watterson, helped me focus on the line from the bottom of my shoulder blades to my sacrum to build my back strength and anchor my shoulder blades on my body. This helps me avoid injury from followers pulling on my shoulder to balance themselves. It also helps my technique as a leader and a follower because I can connect to the floor on axis and thus communicate my intent to my partner more clearly.

Forearm planks for shoulder blade stability

All planks can help with shoulder blade stability, but I find it harder to cheat when doing forearm planks. In this video with one of my yoga teacher trainers, the first exercise is forearm planks. She explains it very well: try it!

Armpit to belly button

My Portland yoga teacher, Suniti Dernovsek, helped me identify another place that I lacked connection and strength in my practice: the line from my armpits to my belly button. Before that, I had worked hard on my pelvic floor-to-belly button line, but still face-planted when trying to do any move that required me to trust my arms to hold me up. After working on it in yoga, I realized the same focus improved my tango posture, even if there are no arm balances :-) Omar Vega would be proud of me.

Side planks to build core stability

Out of all the possible ways to build core, side planks help me connect my armpit to belly button line of my body. Again, there are many planks that will build your core, but I like side planks because I can focus better on the armpit-to-belly button line of my body while I work. I don’t study with the woman in the video, but I know other dancers who do. She explains some variations of side plank clearly here.

Human kinesiotape

I add one more thing to my side plank: instead of reaching my free arm up, I wrap my hand into my armpit and LIFT up to help me connect better to my deep core. Like kinesiotape, touching the skin above the muscles you want to use triggers the muscles to work better. I use this approach in many of my tango exercises to get my muscles to work more efficiently for me. Try it!

Polishing millimeter by millimeter

One of my yoga teachers says that you improve “millimeter by millimeter” in yoga. That is true for almost any endeavor. Subtle, tiny details eventually create substantial changes.

Shoelaces

My current tiny fix in my life involves my shoelaces. I am not joking: if you have studied with me, you will know that I manage to spontaneously untie my shoelaces while dancing at least once an hour. This has been the case for years. I triple-tie my shoes and accepted that there was no way to remedy this annoying issue.

One of my students told me that, if I tied my shoes in a square knot instead of a granny knot (i.e., left over right, then right over left instead of left over right two times in a row) my shoes would stay tied. I felt skeptical but tried it out. He was right!

I could not BELIEVE how hard it was to change how I tie my shoes. I learned to tie them in kindergarten, and I know that because it was one of the skills on our skill board on the wall in school. That means I had performed the same kinesthetic task every day for over 50 years. The concentration required to make my fingers change the direction of that action was enormous the first three days. For the next week or so, I could do it, but I had to think hard. A month later, I no longer think about it.

Tango yoga and the like

As you polish your movements and make them work better for you, your brain WILL hurt from the concentration. Remind yourself that growing new motor connections takes time. Would you yell at a five-year-old who can’t tie their shoes? No! You would be patient and kind: treat yourself like that five-year-old. Be nice, be patient, encourage yourself. Millimeter by millimeter, you will gain that new skill. Millimeter by millimeter, you will improve the old skill. You can do it!

Ways to survive a group tango class as a follower

Several of my tango students who prefer to only dance as followers, harbor trauma from their initial group tango classes. They feel the new leaders dragged them around and expected them to guess what move should be done, but they were not taught how to follow. On top of that, they paid as much as the leaders, but did not feel the teacher instructed them, except to help the leaders feel good about themselves. I know that is not everyone’s experience, but if you are feeling frustrated in a class that seems to ignore the followers, I have some pro-active suggestions.

Lead!

For those of you open to leading, learning to both lead and follow is the best way to learn tango. That way, you have a more holistic view of the dance. In addition, in a leader-info-heavy class, you can use all the information taught in the class and you will remember it better than someone only leading or only following. On a deep level, trying to lead something makes you understand what the leader needs from the follower AND what the follower needs from the leader to be successful. You also gain the added bonus: you can recognize when you ARE following exactly what the leader led and stand up for yourself if you hear the “why aren’t you doing what I led” reproach.

I like to lead and follow for several reasons. First, I learned all my couple dances this way. The group of dancers available when I learned to dance at Carleton College was small, and we needed everyone to contribute. We all danced both parts. I have continued to learn and teach that way, whenever possible. Second, I feel strongly that doing both parts allows you to dance when you want. When your favorite song plays and none of your favorite leaders are available, YOU can grab a friend and lead. The leads to a less competitive attitude between followers in a community and to more friendships: two positive points!

Focus on your own technique

If you do not want to lead, that’s fine. Perhaps you lead enough in your off-the-dance-floor life that you just want to melt into someone’s arms and NOT lead; this calls for a different approach.

Group class is the perfect time to practice your technique. Most people learn technique in private lessons and practice with others at group classes. Your teacher knows what you are working on in individual lessons and can guide you in the group class to apply your knowledge to various situations that arise. It’s Tango Princess time, no matter what gender you subscribe to: work on looking good, dancing well, expressing yourself musically—and if the leader leads the move, it will happen. If the leader does not lead the move, that is not your problem! Articulate through your feet, maintain your axis, breathe, practice adjusting your embrace to work well from person to person: these are the deep, subtle skills of tango, not the moves!

Learn by peer teaching

One of the best ways to solidify your own knowledge about tango is to peer teach. If a dancer unused to following and you are not used to leading (or if they are much bigger than you are), it can be daunting to lead someone to show them how their lead feels to you or what is not working. However, if you can describe what needs to happen, you will find you understand the move much better yourself.

Find ways to help the leaders understand the move from the follower’s point of view! Every single person I interviewed for my thesis on leading and following in Argentine Tango in Buenos Aires said the SAME thing: “Make the follower feel secure so that they will feel comfortable and let themselves be led.” The leader wants you to feel comfortable and happy, despite complaining that you aren’t doing the move. Remind them that leading as difficult as following, and that it takes time to get it right.

Plus, a leader who has suddenly gained understanding of a move so that it works, can express gratitude and you will feel great for helping create a leader who will (later) both dance better and remember your help.

In defense of move-driven classes

Last week I taught a class that was larger than usual. Dancers ranged from complete beginners to 10-15 years of experience. On top of that, most of the women in the class were working on lead and follow. Some of the men were also switching roles (not all happily, but I appreciated their willingness to try!). Normally, I spend at least half of my class on general technique and follower technique because I know most classes do not. However, with such chaos (and so many tentative new leaders in the mix), I talked more about leading. The few people who were not leading at all, got the short end of the stick. Don’t judge a teacher or a class from one interaction on one night: if you see an ongoing pattern that does not work for you, tell the teacher. If there is no response/change, try my tips above and/or find a new class!

And to my students who came to me with years of trauma from group classes that ignored them as followers (one described herself as a tango robot doll), keep dancing as you heal emotionally!