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Have you seen the latest Miles Tangos Post?

Sweating

Tango can be, and usually is, a sweaty business for a variety of reasons. Not the least of which is the fact that in many places there are noise ordinances that prevent Milonga organizers from opening the windows. Or the venue where the Milonga is held, their air conditioning units are not up to the task, and are easily overwhelmed by more than 50 people in a room for sustained usage. 

That said, there are some really easy things that you can do to minimize the amount of perspiration that you generate (as a Lead, or as a Follower): 

1.) Dance Less. You know you’re in a confined space, and there are lots of people, dance fewer tandas. More to the point, dance one, sit one, alternating every other tanda. 
2.) Go outside. Leave the room for about 2 or 3 minutes at a time during your downtime. 
3.) Sit Further Away. That’s right, when you’re in your down time, sit further away from the dance floor. 
4.) Change of Shirt/Clothes. Regardless of role, bring a change of clothes. You’re going to sweat….that’s going to happen….so the best thing that you can do is to bring a change of clothes for yourself for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is it’s infinitely drier! 
5.) Run Cool Water on the vein side of your wrists.

MORE REMINDERS

Floorcraft

December 4, 2016 No Comments

What is Floorcraft ? In it’s simplest form, as there layers and layers to this stuff, it is how to navigate the floor while dancing with your partner and not hitting the couples ahead, or behind you. As well as not touching the tables, and chairs. All the while interpreting the music, concurrently interpreting the beat and the musical pauses to fit the tango vocabulary while maintaining the spacing between the couples.

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The Tango Haus

August 31, 2017 No Comments

What’s below is a small snippet of 13m:06s audio podcast of Today’s Topic on the benefits and detractors of building community using the idea of a Tango House. “What I refer to as the Tango ‘Haus’ idea. In this case this is the German spelling of ‘HAUS’. I just like the way it sounds. But we can use the American spelling of ‘House’. So a few years back and I may be bastardizing some history here. There was a tango house, and I’m not going to name the city, that grew up out of a U.S. based city. This community, at the time had a number of teachers in its area, and they were all using the typical model of how they wanted their students to learn to dance.

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Spectrum of Ideas.

December 31, 2016 No Comments

Because there are no ‘Standards & Practices’ in Tango, therefore ‘Right’/’Wrong’ are subjective, which are for the most part, based on your teacher’s point of view of how things should be done. And as a result you, the unwitting student, take one those ideas as your own because you believe that because X is teaching that they must be the soul of all wisdom. Very infrequently do tango teachers teach a fair and balanced, or well rounded point of view. They usually teach what their subscribe to in their Tango world view, what they agree with, and what their teacher showed them. Very infrequently will they teach something that is outside that world view.

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The Neurology of Leading – Part 2

September 17, 2017 No Comments

A question that comes up for some leads, not all leads, but some Leads (big ‘L’) is why is it important that you spend a lot of time listening to Tango music, and more importantly to mark the music ? Typically you’ll hear this question as “I have a life you know ? I have things to do. I can’t sit around all day long just listening to song after song after song for days, weeks, months, marking up every song in some crazy 8 count beat sort of way, and then try to memorize all that all so….

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Practice with Tango Sticks

June 9, 2017 No Comments

At some point along your tango curve, you have wanted 1.) to practice a step, a pattern, or a figure. Or 2.) you have seen something that you want to try out. Or 3.) you’re imagining an idea of how something might work and want to try it. In all three of these instances, you will need a practice partner. You’ll need to schedule their time against yours. And once you’re in the same room with them, balance their issues of how they do X vs. how you engage X. And once that challenge is overcome then it’s getting into the idea of what it is you had in mind to begin with. All told, this could be several hours or days between the idea and the actual doing of it.

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Learning The Other Side

May 15, 2018 No Comments

Let’s get right to the heart of the question, "Why on earth would anyone want to learn the other side of the embrace ?". The answer to that question is actually not a singular answer, there are actually 5 good reasons why you learn the other role that you may or may not disagree with. They are as follows:

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10 REASONS TO SUBSCRIBE

There are 4 Levels of Access: Free, Basic, Premium, and Premium+. Free pays nothing but gets a perk just for signing up. 

1.) Free Users get to see 5 of the 125 Different Tango Topics on the site. Plus you get access to the entire Tango Reminders and Tango Ideas sections of the site. These are short form Topic descriptors with a little detail about the topic and the video.

2.) Basic and Premium users Save A BOATLOAD of MONEY! Buying this stuff outright is expensive.

3.) Basic, Premium, and Premium+ users get access to the ALL ARTICLES and THE FULL ARTICLE which you can’t see right now.

4.) Basic, Premium, and Premium+ users have way better video resolution: Free = 420p, Basic = 720p, Premium = 1080p and 4K. 

5.) Basic, Premium, and Premium+ users get the ‘Dancing Perspectives’ & ‘The Soup’ sections of the document you just read (Lead, Follow, and Dancing) which are open to you. And that’s where all the good stuff is at. 

6.) Video Downloads! 

7.) Access to the Tango Topics Music Library (22 Curated Golden Age Orchestras)

8.) Access to ‘Tango Del Dia’ – Our Music Education System with access to 14 Days of Music, 30 Days of Music Education, and 30 More Days of Tango Del Dia. 

9.) We explain things, break the vocabulary down in a visual way, from multiple angles, showing feet, hands, and close ups! Yes there’s a lot of talking but we want you to understand what it is that you’re doing and why, not just steps, patterns, and figure

and #10:
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Click Here To Subscribe

Keep something in the back of your mind: What you’re seeing in a youtube video is a couple that is performing for the 15th row for a room full of people. They’re not social dancing! Whereas this website is all about ‘Social Tango’  or how to make things function on a social dance floor. Social Dance floor ? Your local milonga! They are showing you flashy moves as a presentation, to show off! But not stopping and talking about how this works which is what you need to see. This website and all of it’s content show you the how and  why you’d want to put that piece of vocabulary there, or how to make things work. This website is all about those things and more!

You could watch Tango YouTube videos and thereby spend your time, trying to infer, and figure out how things may work in that particular situation. Bend your body this way or that, twist and force this position or that. Place your foot here or there and figure it out. This is known as Tango Twister.  Which can be a lot of fun, but more than likely it won’t help you, because you’re missing something: The explanation from an experienced teacher showing you how to properly excute this stuff from a Leading Perspective as well as from a Following Perspective!

The goal of YouTube videos is to get you to study with those teachers in person. The goal of Tango Topics videos allows you to work at your own pace, in the comfort of your own space, so that you can play them over and over again to improve your understanding of the vocabulary or technique being described to therefore better your dancing experience. The goal of classes and workshops is to get you to come back over and over and over again, thereby spending more money with that teacher. This website and the videos under it are here to act as a resource for you to help you to improve your dance. Pay once and you’re done.

Eventually, one way or another you’re going to pay for this lesson, either here and now, or with them. TANSTAAFL! The difference between that lesson and this ? Is that you get to play this lesson over and over and over again. Further still, there are supporting materials (other videos) that help to explain the language and the underlying technique of how and why things work, so you can easily reference those things in the corresponding articles that go with the material, and or any language in the Tango Topics Dictionary. 

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