Great lessons even my maestro teacher argentino never explains that to become a Good follower See you soon I will love to meet you and dance tango with you class or milonga Muchas gracias
Originally I thought the topic was about alignment in relation with the leader. Generally when I step, I try to keep a constant distance with the leader unless I feel the leader wants me closer or farther. Using the line of reference, I would think being able to control your foot alignment rather than focusing on a fixed alignment so that one can respond to any lead. In a video from another teacher, he actually suggests another practice to cross to the other side of the line in a walk. In actual dancing we also see some moves requiring this capability.
Thanks for sharing! I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "fixed alignment" vs controlling your "foot alignment." The way I think of it is what allows you to arrive in the most balance way on the next step while remaining connected with your partner.
@ I had to briefly review the video again to understand myself🤣, for example, the leader might not be walking in a straight line due to the way he walks either due to habit of just a moment of balance issue, through the connection, I have to just sense this and naturally align myself with him rather than focusing on my own alignment, and vise versa. Regarding the size of the step, if I am well connected, it is normally not possible for me to step too far in following because the energy is from the leader, as a follower, I am just balancing the upper connection and the ground to stay with the leader. There may be cases that the leader gives too much energy but did not follow up in his step, then what I normally do is give some extra push to help get myself into the cross or step even if it means increasing the distance with the leader. In the side step, at a practica, I recall meeting a follower that could not extend before the side step, so she could not step in a controlled speed manner, and could only follow the side moving direction of the body of the leader, not liking to tell people how they should do things, I tried various ways to try and get her to extend without success, which was the only unique situation I had encountered. One follower whom has been in a class I assist in a few times from when she started learning, I noticed she is becoming more and more difficult to lead as she becomes too conscious about “the right way” to dance, and the fun in the dance goes away since there is too much awareness on how things should be done and less focus on the enjoyment. The focus personally I would prefer from a follower is more focus on how she wants to have fun with me according to the music rather than focusing on being perfect, how she feels the music in her own body is what I can feel. In a class, yes, there needs to be some understanding of what is going on, but once on the dance floor, we need to let the body respond naturally. So it is import and to develop the “feel” of each step in class, but let the body respond naturally on the dance floor. This is where solo practicing with the music becomes important, something lots of followers kind of focus on self technique and ignore the music in practicas here, and kind of not well connected to either the music or the leader. So personally, I almost only show up at milongas with live performance so that even if I do not dance, I feel the emotion in the band and still enjoy.
Having danced the following role for two years, I am continuously finding that I need to step as far as what the leader’s lead suggests and the leader needs to feel when the follower has reached a limit. If the follower starts reaching the limit with the extension, she will be more tense provided that she can know how to relax. The actual step follows the body of the leader. Whether the follower can comfortably collect or not after the step depends on whether the leader takes an equal amount of step or not to maintain an adequate distance so the the leader can actually assist in placing the follower in the collected position. During the walk, leaning of the follower will be different between walking alone vs walking with a partner. When walking with the leader, one is actually balancing the forces between your weight, floor contact foot, and leader connection to maintain one’s posture through the walk, that is the way to be with the leader. One class organizer likes to use me for practice because I most likely can step as far as he desires and at the speed he desires, and he is starting to try slow moves to feel the interaction throughout the step. Slow moves are challenging because it needs fine control, which relies on deep slow twitching muscles to be smooth, and the connection needs to be almost like two bodies as one. Quite often people are using the wrong muscles…
Such great observations. Yes, ideally the leader remains sensitive to the natural range of movement in their partner. That's really the goal, that both people move with mechanical integrity according to their natural range of motion.
@@imsotango In reality, I take lessons on the following roll to help determine how I need to expand my natural range of motion. Then I look for methods of body training to do such. Few people do this. One follower actually does weight training with her mom, dancing with her at a practica last week showed that she was more relaxed stable than nearly a year ago. When certain types of music are played, we will look for each other because this is when we both feel the music together, and there is that rare communication in the dance.
Great lessons even my maestro teacher argentino never explains that to become a Good follower
See you soon I will love to meet you and dance tango with you class or milonga
Muchas gracias
Thank you from Canada❤
You're welcome! So glad you enjoyed the video 😊
Pure gold. Thank you.
I’m so glad you enjoyed this-thank you for watching!
nice. thank you from uk.. wish all tango teachers wore attire like this so that the feet movement is clear to see. ... thank you !
Thank you! I’m so glad it was helpful!
Thank you for sharing this!❤
You are so welcome!
Originally I thought the topic was about alignment in relation with the leader. Generally when I step, I try to keep a constant distance with the leader unless I feel the leader wants me closer or farther. Using the line of reference, I would think being able to control your foot alignment rather than focusing on a fixed alignment so that one can respond to any lead. In a video from another teacher, he actually suggests another practice to cross to the other side of the line in a walk. In actual dancing we also see some moves requiring this capability.
Thanks for sharing! I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "fixed alignment" vs controlling your "foot alignment." The way I think of it is what allows you to arrive in the most balance way on the next step while remaining connected with your partner.
@ I had to briefly review the video again to understand myself🤣, for example, the leader might not be walking in a straight line due to the way he walks either due to habit of just a moment of balance issue, through the connection, I have to just sense this and naturally align myself with him rather than focusing on my own alignment, and vise versa. Regarding the size of the step, if I am well connected, it is normally not possible for me to step too far in following because the energy is from the leader, as a follower, I am just balancing the upper connection and the ground to stay with the leader. There may be cases that the leader gives too much energy but did not follow up in his step, then what I normally do is give some extra push to help get myself into the cross or step even if it means increasing the distance with the leader. In the side step, at a practica, I recall meeting a follower that could not extend before the side step, so she could not step in a controlled speed manner, and could only follow the side moving direction of the body of the leader, not liking to tell people how they should do things, I tried various ways to try and get her to extend without success, which was the only unique situation I had encountered. One follower whom has been in a class I assist in a few times from when she started learning, I noticed she is becoming more and more difficult to lead as she becomes too conscious about “the right way” to dance, and the fun in the dance goes away since there is too much awareness on how things should be done and less focus on the enjoyment. The focus personally I would prefer from a follower is more focus on how she wants to have fun with me according to the music rather than focusing on being perfect, how she feels the music in her own body is what I can feel. In a class, yes, there needs to be some understanding of what is going on, but once on the dance floor, we need to let the body respond naturally. So it is import and to develop the “feel” of each step in class, but let the body respond naturally on the dance floor. This is where solo practicing with the music becomes important, something lots of followers kind of focus on self technique and ignore the music in practicas here, and kind of not well connected to either the music or the leader. So personally, I almost only show up at milongas with live performance so that even if I do not dance, I feel the emotion in the band and still enjoy.
Having danced the following role for two years, I am continuously finding that I need to step as far as what the leader’s lead suggests and the leader needs to feel when the follower has reached a limit. If the follower starts reaching the limit with the extension, she will be more tense provided that she can know how to relax. The actual step follows the body of the leader. Whether the follower can comfortably collect or not after the step depends on whether the leader takes an equal amount of step or not to maintain an adequate distance so the the leader can actually assist in placing the follower in the collected position. During the walk, leaning of the follower will be different between walking alone vs walking with a partner. When walking with the leader, one is actually balancing the forces between your weight, floor contact foot, and leader connection to maintain one’s posture through the walk, that is the way to be with the leader.
One class organizer likes to use me for practice because I most likely can step as far as he desires and at the speed he desires, and he is starting to try slow moves to feel the interaction throughout the step. Slow moves are challenging because it needs fine control, which relies on deep slow twitching muscles to be smooth, and the connection needs to be almost like two bodies as one. Quite often people are using the wrong muscles…
Such great observations. Yes, ideally the leader remains sensitive to the natural range of movement in their partner. That's really the goal, that both people move with mechanical integrity according to their natural range of motion.
@@imsotango In reality, I take lessons on the following roll to help determine how I need to expand my natural range of motion. Then I look for methods of body training to do such. Few people do this. One follower actually does weight training with her mom, dancing with her at a practica last week showed that she was more relaxed stable than nearly a year ago. When certain types of music are played, we will look for each other because this is when we both feel the music together, and there is that rare communication in the dance.
In other words: Dance with your whole body, not just with your legs. Not like a robot, more like a cat.