There have been two practicas I’ve been meaning to try forever. Having recently been given the go-ahead to resume dancing, I took the opportunity to try the first of these: Sumate (Spanish for ‘join us’).

Practicas are surprisingly rare things in tango, and Sumate was not only the genuine article, but a joyful experience …

The event, co-hosted by Daniel Toloza and Goldie Aurum, is held in that most British of locations, a room above a pub! Specifically The Duke of Wellington in Marylebone, equidistant from Baker Street and Marble Arch tubes.

You know you’re at a tango event when you get hugged three times before you can even take off your jacket! That very much set the tone for the evening; I think almost everyone danced with almost everyone else, and there was a great deal of laughter. And not just when I attempted to follow …

The practica isn’t specifically billed as a dual-role event, but it seems the majority of participants at least aspire to learn the complementary role. I attempted a few tandas as a follower, with the usual results.

That is, I do now bear a passing resemblence to a follower when there are just steps and rebounds involved, and I have occasionally been known to cross without the leader needing to first serve me with a court summons, but the moment anyone attempts to lead me in ochos or a giro … well, let’s just say it’s a good thing there were no horses to be frightened.

I am back at work with my solo exercises as a follower each morning, practising ochos at the kitchen worktop. Initially I had to apply some downward pressure on the counter to support myself, and that’s still true in back ochos, which suggests I’d also be weighing down a leader. But with forward ochos I can now just use fingertips against the side of the counter, so next time I’ll see whether someone can lead me in those.

Something that’s always special to me is dancing with complete beginners. I remember how kind and generous followers were to me in my very early days, and I take every opportunity to pay that forward. A one-month follower provided further evidence for my ‘salsa dancers always pick up tango absurdly quickly’ theory!

I’ve talked numerous times about how much BsAs changed my dance, and in particular how I lost any interest in dancing in anything other than sustained close embrace. The challenge that introduced was that I pretty much had to re-learn, well, everything bar walking! I’d previously opened the embrace to some degree for pivots, and minimizing that tendency has taken a lot of work.

There are some types of movement where that’s still very much the case, and clockwise giros are a good example. I sought some help from Daniel with this, and he emphasised plenty of initial dissociation for the entry to the turn. When I tried it with Goldie, her feedback was that my best example was when I carried a decent amount of momentum throughout. There’s still plenty of work to do, but that gives me a couple of good pointers.

Of course, London tango will still London tango – while my preferred style is milonguero, the prevailing style in London is very much open-embrace, and that was reflected in the room. The other practica I plan to try is Tango Secrets, where close-embrace is the norm. With remarkably poor planning on their respective parts, both are on Mondays!

But I had a great time at Sumate, and am sure I’ll return.