The Golden Nugget of Tango. Once long ago you were an itty-bitty Tango dancer. You could barely walk, the music was either intriguing or unappealing at best, one or the other. The very idea of going to a Milonga as a neophyte dancer where everyone and god could see just how much you were sucking raw eggs just about scared the bejeebers out of you. Then as you took a few classes, went to a few more milongas you started to feel like you knew what you were doing, sort of. You may have learned a few ‘steps’, gotten some feedback about what you’re supposed to do from a variety of people, you were possibly exposed to a Traveling Ocho, and the Follower’s Molinete (Leading and Following it), and most certainly the Argentine Cross. While at the same time, sort of seeing and hearing that there was an idea to the music but it was too vague for you to ‘get’ immediately other than there was a beat. You saw people dancing very close, and learned that this was called ‘Close Embrace’. You learned about the line of dance, about navigation and floorcraft (not the same things by the way), and something called ‘Cabeceo’…just to name a few. All along the way you made a few friends, people you enjoyed dancing with and enjoyed the learning process. And in the end you still feel like you had a lot to learn. This entire process of feeling like a ‘Social Dancer’ usually took anywhere from 6 months to a year at minimum, depending on the role you were dancing. And even less if you were role swapping right from the beginning!
What if there were another way ? What if you could have learned a way to Tango that encompassed all of that stuff, but quite literally took 1/10th the time! What if there were a particular pattern that you could use (as a Lead or a Follow) that would’ve allowed you to dance all the foundational vocabulary, that respected the line of dance, protected the follower, but wasn’t repetitive at all unless you wanted it to be! What if there was a pattern that was insanely musical, highly extensible, and easily modified, and easily learned! What if ? Sounds like sales hyperbole huh ? Thank god it’s not.
You would think that for the beginner dancer such a thing would be a god-send, for either role for a variety of obvious reasons! You would think that for the person that’s been dancing a while, the advancing dancer who has already gone through that trial above, for either role, that they’d clearly love such a thing because it addresses 2 of their primary concerns: 1.) what do I next ? and 2.) I hope I don’t screw up!
Enter The Golden Nugget of Argentine Tango.
What is The Golden Nugget of Tango ? This is a Tango Topics construct. It is a very irregular piece of Tango vocabulary that you won’t find anywhere else. It is one of the very few patterns or ‘steps’, if you want to call it that, that this site actively promotes as a very useful tool that you can take out social dancing today, not next week, not a month from now, but right now, today! However unlike 90% of tango patterns, this ‘step’ has far reaching implications. Put simply this is everything you will ever need to know in order to dance Argentine Tango in one complete package. This is not sales boast, or sales hyperbole. It’s demonstrable fact. The author is living proof of that fact!
The Golden Nugget (as it is affectionately called) contains the 7 basic ‘moves’ (seriously -> see the link) that you must master in order to dance. However, no one teaches it. And that’s because until recently it didn’t exist. Most Tango teachers will start you off with walking, and then possibly to Ochos, and then show you the dreaded ‘8 Count Basic’ which leads to an Argentine Cross, and/or show you the Ocho Cortado as a place to start pattern wise. And in doing so you, the unwitting student will end up repeating, and regurgitating the same move over and over and over again which makes them appear like a dance studio baby. 🙁
The Golden Nugget on the other hand replaces all of that stuff. Every. Last. Bit. Not that you don’t need to know walking, ochos, or crosses. No, you should study your walk. Not that you should not study your ochos and perfect them. You rightly should. Not that you shouldn’t rightfully practice the Follower’s Molinete. No. You should do all that stuff. That ‘stuff’ is insanely important and as every advanced dancer will tell you they’re constantly revisiting their foundation to clean up their issues.
The Golden Nugget solves the two problems above as well. It removes the uncertainty of what to do next because that decision is quite literally embedded into the solution itself. It also removes the problem of not wanting to screw up either and forces you work on and try to execute better or cleaner technique.
This is the The Golden Nugget of Tango in broad stroke.
The Free Tip. The funny thing about this figure is the orientation, true. The set up is far more important that you can realize. To put it simply, the Follower is unprotected on 3 sides. With the Golden Nugget ? They’re protected from an impact by another couple or the tables and chairs simply by changing the orientation of how they dance. So not only is the Golden Nugget Line of Dance compliant, not only is it highly extensible, and not only does it reinforce floorcraft, it also has the added benefit of being safe for the dancing couple!
About The Video. This video comes in at 31m:16s in length in 12 Sections. Both lead and follower technique is combined and integrated in the video.
Section 1 – Lead – 00:02:42
Section 2 – Follow – 00:02:03
Section 3 – Lead/Follow Together – 00:01:50
Section 4 – Linking Step 1 – 00:02:03
Section 5 – Linking Step 2 – 00:03:40
Section 6 – The “Why” – 00:01:36
Section 7 – Set Up – 00:02:26 (the video above minus the golden nugget)
Section 8 – Close Embrace Version – 00:01:22
Section 9 – Embrace Clarities- 00:04:51
Section 10 – Versatility – 00:01:25
Section 11 – Cross System – 00:04:38
Section 12 – Example – 00:02:50