I slept for about nine hours, though still felt that was about ten hours short of the required quota. However, we did nothing in the morning, so a bit of lazing was the perfect start to the day. This was helped considerably by my foresight. I’d decided that a one-month stay was more like short-term … Continue reading Accidentally achieving one of my goals by going to the wrong milonga
I’ve long favoured lyrical tango over rhythmical – legato over staccato. While most songs of course contain elements of each, there’s a huge difference between say Fresedo’s Buscandote and D’Arienzo’s El choclo. The former has me leaping out of my seat, the latter shrinking back into it. Partly that reflects my musical tastes. My non-tango … Continue reading An unplanned, and very exciting, focus on rhythmical dance
I once saw an interview with Carlos Gavito, toward the end of his life, where the interviewer asked him what he was working on at that time. ‘My walk,’ he said. I guess at a high enough level in any discipline, people still work daily on the fundamental techniques, but I can’t think of many … Continue reading Tango lives in the details
I wrote last time about my challenge with motivation. About the wonderful theory of lockdown being the perfect time to hone our technique, and the less wonderful practice of dancing feeling like such a distant dream it’s hard to maintain the motivation. I had figured out one thing that helped a little with technique exercises … Continue reading Dancing the exercises, and three levels of collaborative dance
My tango engineer, Diego Bado, was back in town, and I had the first of two privates with him today. We started by just dancing so he could give me his current assessment of where my focus should be, and after that we would work on my giro technique. He complimented me on my musicality, … Continue reading Engineering my giro technique, and a great way to end them
I had to work late, meaning I would – shock! – not make it there for the start of the Tuesday Tango Space milonga. Steph teases me about wanting to be at milongas when they start (she’s very French about these things), but I like to be there early for one of two reasons. One, … Continue reading The tango gods are still my friends
Three months ago, I gave myself my six-month appraisal, and made what I felt at the time was a level-headed decision: So I think that’s where I’m at with it. A year of lessons, culminating in a trip to Buenos Aires. If I call it a day at that point, I’ve experienced a whole new … Continue reading My nine-month appraisal – a rather different beast to my six-month one
Tonight’s musicality class was all about collaborative dance: Response to our partner. To agree, to change, to add. To me, the transition from me leading everything to a collaborative dance is one of the most exciting prospects. I’d previously seen this as a very advanced skill, one where I’d have to develop my own dance … Continue reading Musicality workshop #3 of 4: The delightfully mundane secret to a collaborative dance!
I love technique workshops, because the changes you make as a result of them are often tiny, but the payoff can be huge. The seemingly infinite amount of refinement possible with the tango fundamentals is really quite astonishing. The walk is the obvious example, but as today’s workshop demonstrated, the same is true of the … Continue reading One small step for man and woman, one giant leap for their tango
Tonight was my best tango experience yet! The evening began with the Tuesday improver’s class, on the cross in cross system. Yesterday I’d been having mixed success with this, as I’m new to walking in cross system anyway. Tonight was still mixed success, but weighted more to the success side of the scales …
journey of a trainee tanguero 
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