Category Archives: Private lesson

My heart remains in BsAs, but the spirit of the city is alive in the UK

I’ve been back in the UK for almost two months now, but the pull of BsAs hasn’t diminished in the slightest. While most of my body got on the plane to Heathrow, I seem to have forgotten to pack my heart. If only my bank account shared my sentiment, I’d get straight back on a plane again tomorrow.

Fortunately, there are places in the UK where the spirit of the city is alive, and I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy three of them since my return: the Argentine ambassador’s milonga, the Sheffield Tango Festival, and a return visit to Tango by the Sea …

Continue reading My heart remains in BsAs, but the spirit of the city is alive in the UK

Another hit of the following drug, in a joyful private with Emma

Tango has an astonishing ability to energise. I’d been woken at 4am by a certain chocolate-coloured feline who decided to make a heroically unsuccessful attempt to jump onto the living room window-sill. I was alerted to this fact by the sound of two cacti pots crashing to the floor. (Orange Boy had a solid alibi as he was asleep on my pillow at the time.)

I didn’t get back to sleep, and when Emma arrived for my private some 14 hours later, I was feeling not dissimilar to the cacti. But as soon as we danced the first song, I found myself feeling as lively as a 4am cat …

Continue reading Another hit of the following drug, in a joyful private with Emma

When a thirst for understanding turns into a deluge!

Tango is an extraordinarily skilled hunter, capable of looking deep into each of us, and figuring out the most reliable way to draw us in.

Once she’s captured us, she has many ways to leave us incapable of ever escaping her all-enveloping embrace. But I think with each of us, there was a singular weakness she used to ensnare us in the first place. With me, it was my thirst for understanding …

Continue reading When a thirst for understanding turns into a deluge!

Feeling like a tango god or tango toddler; rarely anything between the two

This city can make me feel like a tango god. When I get the right milonga, the right atmosphere, the right music, the right follower, the right floorcraft … when everything flows effortlessly, my partner and I reading each other perfectly, and I feel like I own the floor.

It can also make me feel like a tango toddler. When I’m at a milonga where the music is relentlessly fast, where everyone is spinning in high-speed circles, and I wonder what the hell I would do even if someone was looking in my direction …

Continue reading Feeling like a tango god or tango toddler; rarely anything between the two

An Argentine embrace, and a wonderful night at Muy Martes and Parakultural

I have a dozen identical white linen shirts, which you might think sounds like a lot. But given that I generally need a change of shirt during a milonga, and am sometimes doing two milongas a day, dropping and collecting laundry is a regular task.

The hours of my local laundry are clearly shown as 11am to 9pm. Of course, this being Argentina, that doesn’t mean 11am to 9pm. It means ‘We do, broadly speaking, have the general ambition of operating hours which may perhaps bear some resemblance to these. Oh, and we may randomly close for half an hour to an hour at any point.’ Which explains this sign when I got there at 5pm …

Continue reading An Argentine embrace, and a wonderful night at Muy Martes and Parakultural

A back cross private with Emma, and a practica to put it to the test

I don’t generally use my privates to work on figures, but I did want to add the back cross. There are times when a slow rebound feels right for the music, but I also feel I over-use them, so wanted to have something which had a similar feel to it, but allowed more variety.

I’d had a private on this a loooong time ago, but because I hadn’t felt confident enough to use it in milongas, I’d long since forgotten how it worked. So that was Emma’s task last night …

Continue reading A back cross private with Emma, and a practica to put it to the test

Milonga with Diego; a workshop with Corina and Ines; and an unusual Tango Garden

Milonga (the dance) and I have an unusual relationship.

Most leaders run a mile from it during their early years; I didn’t. Because I could dance to the beat long before I had the vocabulary to dance to the melody, I was actually very happy with milonga tandas from a very early stage. And because a lot of leaders hide, it made it very easy to get dances, even as a raw beginner.

But as my lyrical dance emerged and evolved, my rhythmical dance felt increasingly unsatisfactory – all the more so at milonga speeds. I wasn’t so much afraid of boring followers as feeling bored by my own dance. I was doing the usual leader’s milonga journey in reverse: I’d now become one of the leaders who avoid it …

Continue reading Milonga with Diego; a workshop with Corina and Ines; and an unusual Tango Garden

Another magical milonga at the ambassador’s residence, and a breakthrough lesson with Emma

The Argentine Ambassador’s milonga is one of my absolute favourites. A spectacular setting, fantastic DJs, three dance floors, and a friendly atmosphere. If the grandeur were more faded, you could almost imagine it were BsAs.

One difference from the real version is that, in London, a flexible embrace is the norm. That’s also the case in some BsAs milongas, but in the more traditional ones, the prevailing style is very much sustained close-embrace: where everything can be danced chest-to-chest. I therefore followed up with a private focused on this …

Continue reading Another magical milonga at the ambassador’s residence, and a breakthrough lesson with Emma

Returning to leading lessons as BsAs fast approaches

Three things to me are clear from my following adventure: I’m really enjoying it; it’s helping my lead too; it’s going to be several months before I get anywhere close to being able to follow competently in a milonga.

That being the case, and with my month-long return to Buenos Aires rapidly approaching, I decided it was time to use my last few privates before March to tune-up my lead …

Continue reading Returning to leading lessons as BsAs fast approaches

Pugliese helping out with my latest following lesson

A busy work trip to Vegas followed by a bout of COVID brought home as a souvenir meant that I hadn’t done as much solo practice as I’d hoped – and it showed! Though Emma seemed more impressed by my following than I was, with rather more ‘Esa!’s than I felt were merited.

But despite me still feeling I was 70% clumsiness to 30% flow, Señor Pugliese joined Emma as co-teacher to deliver one hugely important lesson …

Continue reading Pugliese helping out with my latest following lesson