I last week mentioned my relationship status with milonga: “It’s complicated.“

There’s still a huge gap between what my head would like to be doing, and what my body feels it can lead at milonga speeds, alongside a concern about a possibly equal-sized gap between follower expectations and my reality. On the other hand, there are followers who knowingly drag me out onto the pista for milonga tandas, and even a couple who specifically seek me out for them. 

While the focus of my current privates is following, Irina Zoueva expressed her confidence in upping my milonga leading game several levels – and the resulting private turned out to give me a little following practice too …

We started by addressing the speed issue, with two keys here:

• The faster the music, the smaller the steps
• Keeping my torso relatively still, and moving my feet beneath it

Irina gave me a solo exercise of limiting step size to one floorboard, aiming to keep my body in the middle, and switching between single-time and double-time step patterns.

Alongside this, not trying to do the usual heel-toe steps I would in tango, as there isn’t time. Instead, put the foot down as a block, so it’s an instant movement. “Splash your foot down, like you’re stamping in a puddle.”

Then came the traspié step. While this is essentially an interrupted step, with the same four technique points applicable, Irina suggested that it should have a different feel. One way to translate the word traspié is ‘stumble,’ she said, and it wants to have something of that feeling to it – like the forward momentum continues in one upper-body movement to the final position, but there is this little stumble along the way.

One issue I’ve had in milonga is that I’ve only felt able to lead steps, rebound, and occasional use of traspié steps. The closest I got to pivoting was rebound turns. On a good day, a few of my rebound turns will be in double-time.

Irina said that, for a follower, traspié steps are actually harder than double-time pivots. This seemed counter-intuitive, but she demonstrated by leading me an ocho-cortado in double-time. While my cross wasn’t pretty, I did actually manage to follow it. And my following is still very much at the stage where if I can, truly anyone can! So that gave me the confidence to lead it (followed by a single-time pause).

She also demonstrated that it was easy to simply leave out the ‘cut’ and make it instead a 180-degree turn to the right. That is, instead of bringing the follower back and into the cross:

• Allow the follower to complete the side-step and leave her there
• I remain on my right foot and simply pivot right to square-up to the follower
• Then we’re facing the other way, and I essentially skip a beat while pivoting
• We’re back in parallel system ready for me to take a step with my left foot

That was just as easy in double-time.

Now, I Do Not Do Sequences. But … part of my challenge with milonga is not feeling like I can think of variations fast enough to lead them, so simple sequences perhaps have a role for me here. Irina demonstrated that I could follow the above turn with either a step with my left, or a change of weight, and I’m in a position to do a rebound turn to the left.

That achieves two things. First, by following one 180-degree turn with another, I’ve painlessly returned to the line of dance. Second, I’ve mixed in a right turn with a left turn, so no dizziness of repeated turns in the same direction, and more feeling of variety.

The same is true with a media-luna:

• Outside step with my right foot, then pivot 180 to my left
• The follower will do three steps around me, and I’m again ready to step with my left

I could then have us both change weight to repeat. Again, this can be led in double-time simply by pivoting faster.

Incidentally, Irina said there’s something magical about this turn. It doesn’t actually matter which foot the follower is on, as she will automatically take an extra step if needed to end back in front of me with her weight on her left foot. I didn’t see how that could be so, but Irina provided a very convincing demonstration by leading me, once from either foot. Now, I’m pretty sure that I didn’t do the ‘official’ steps in either case, but yes, whatever it was I did, I did indeed end up in front of her with my weight on my left foot. Magic indeed!

So, in theory, I now have a lot of things I can lead in single- and double-time, switching speeds as the music suggests!

The practice is another matter, of course; I need lots of it. I’ll be playing with this in solo practice, which will also give me more exposure to milonga music, as I never play that at home, so don’t have anything like the degree of familiarity I do with a lot of tango songs.

If I manage a week of that without breaking any legs or floorboards, I’ll invite a follower friend or two to take their life in their hands while I try it for real.

Photo: Unsplash+