The Follower’s Work

These words may come as a surprise to you dear reader considering that this page has seemingly ‘bashed’ or disparaged the role of the Follow in any number of ways, however: The role of the Follower is work.

This is by no means a complete list, but just a taste: A Follower must master in order to ‘dance’ with a particular Lead their stability, their walk backwards, and forwards, and side, without wobbling. They must master turning left and right, in close and open embrace, employing a Follower’s Molinete (the ‘grape vine’ turn) and or any of the 7 other types of turns that they’re led to. Their crosses must be clean (forward or back). They must not ‘plank’ in a Colgada, they must learn to ‘fall’ in a Volcada, and they must learn to step into their lead in a Sacada. They must master their disassociation and applied disassociation in the Ocho, which eventually leads to their ability to Boleo in Circular Boleos. They must adorn and embellish musically between the beats so as not to interrupt the lead (the action and not the person). They must constantly manage their space, their distance, their circular awareness around their lead with where they’re placing their foot and how so as to constantly manage the optimally position of the couple, and at the same time trying to not hit anyone. And all the while their embrace must not hang, pull, push, or constrict the lead’s motion in any way, shape, or form. 

That’s work. Hard work.

And all of that is done in 3 in heels, walking backwards whilst some sweaty piece of man has their proverbial meathooks around them, pushing and pulling this way and that, while ‘helping’ them (ahem…read that as ‘correcting them’).

Yup! That sounds like ‘fun’ doesn’t it ? Not to mention there’s so much ‘passion’ there, no ? Not!

Let’s be clear about something, this is ‘work’, all physiological work, it’s labor. A Lead (the person) may not understand just how much work this is until they do the job themselves, and they have the misfortune to ‘dance’ with a lead as characterized above. And at that point their perspective changes. Radically. Why ? Because they don’t want to be that guy. This moment is usually an awakening for the lead because they become Follower sensitive. Their lead changes from force, tension, and resistance moving gradually towards intention, suggestion and invitation.

As to the Follower’s work, it is never done. They’re constantly being challenged by L/leads that are not clear in what they want, and when they are clear usually the L/lead is employing and asking for resistance from them. They must put up with the Lead that talks in their ear while dancing with them (this is talking, not dancing). They have to deal with the lead that squeezes them and then pulled them off balance constantly. While at the same time having a Lead that is watching their feet, and their head is usually pressing against them. They must interpret an unclear beat between two masters (the music, and the lead’s interpretation of that). They must constantly work on their walking technique, forwards, side, and back. Let’s not forget the sensual/sexual issues that come up. And that’s just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. 

In short, it’s work.

The Tango Topics Opinion: Follower Technique. The very words spark either abject fear of not being good enough, or another yawn at the prospect of hearing the 10 most common things from some yahoo that knows absolutely diddly about what it means to be a Follower, or their internal voice about not doing enough, not detailed enough, not…. while at the same time they compare themselves to the latest, hot, wild Follower that totally does it for everyone else watching a performance on YouTube. Uuuugh. A nasty, ugly cycle. In all of that mishigas there’s work to be done. These are not mere words, but the reality that real work has to happen. The work, so that we’re clear, is all about 3 steps, and how one takes those steps (extends their legs), how to land the foot in socks, then in flats, and finally in heels. Forward steps. Side steps. Back steps. The step that drives about as much debate as does the debate over peanut butter and jelly or peanut better and _______, is the Back Step and how it should or shouldn’t be done. There are about as many theories and practices about this one step as there are, seemingly, grains of sand on a beach. Everyone has a theory and a YouTube video of a moment in a said video with said Follower did X which all of a sudden proves the point that one method is better than the other. None of it…none of it is true. What is true is the reality that in that moment something had to happen to generate the necessity for a particular type of step to happen. And this is where the “work” of the Follower really begins.

This isn’t about training one kind, or one type of step. It’s about training one’s body, conditioning it, for MULTIPLE kinds of steps in the most common situations. There are steps for the Follower’s Molinete that are ideal. There are steps for the Follower’s side of the Milonguero Turn. There are types of Steps for Traveling Ochos, etc. Hmmmmm, types of steps may be a bit of an overreach. It may be more appropriate to say that these steps are accommodations in each situation. That different situations call for different accommodations, and the Follower must build a LIBRARY of ACCOMMODATIONS! (Ummmm hence the MULTIPLE part) 🙂

In the end, all of this work, is a lot like what happens in the Television Production world which is: Hurry Up and Wait! You do all this work, stream sweat, cry blood, and then you wait for a Lead that is capable of actually leading what you’ve been working towards. And instead the Follower is met with “meh” for their Local Leads that can barely walk without blaming the Follower for X. That rush to do X. That push their Followers to do Y. That Pull their Followers. That squeeze the living daylights (uuuugh) out of their Followers and aren’t even aware that they’re doing it at all! All the while creating situations where the Follower has to accommodate their “peculiar proclivities” of their idea of an Embrace, a Traveling Ocho, an Argentine Cross, and the Follower’s Molinete to the Lead’s Giro! Situations ? Like for instance: The Lazy Man’s Turn ? The Armpit Dancer ? The Five Errors of the Cross ? Just to name a few of the many places where the Follower’s work isn’t on the ideal execution of their Technique, but rather an accomodation of how to deal with a particular Lead’s ‘issues’ which gets labeled as a ‘style’, when in fact it’s something else entirely different than that.

That said, the Follower has an enormous amount of work to do not just in the execution of Technique but also in dealing with a Lead’s ego.

MORE REMINDERS

The Powerful Follower

What is a Powerful Follower ? A Follower that has first and foremost a.) the force of the Follower’s muscles (legs – quads & glutes specifically) engaging with acceleration, power, and strength….

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Learning The Other Side

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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The Neurology of Leading – Part 1

There’s a component to Leading that you cannot even begin to assess or even address that happens because we’re in the line of dance. All of us have spent time in practice sessions, or in working with somebody one on one, or doing solo practice work, or class time, or solo practice time, or solo class time with your teacher. All of that is warm up to getting you to what happens in the line of dance. This is what I refer to as the neurology of leading.

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Practice (Part 8)

The question of what to practice for most dancers is really simple. The belief is that you should practice ‘dancing’. And this is not always the case. To be fair, while Tango does require a neurological adjustment on multiple levels which can only be attained from actual dancing – this is called ‘the neurology of dancing’, this is a given. However, in order to get to that place where refinements can actually occur in one’s dance, one has to practice, and that practice is not, so that we’re clear, with a partner, it is individually or solo practice.

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Perfectionism

There are those of us that separate being ‘good’ as being good enough, and anything beyond that is just ‘unnecessary’. It’s really about getting around the floor, and if no one complains about the embrace, or you don’t hit anything, or anyone, and you can throw in that cool move now and again, so much the better!

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La Cumparsita

At the end of nearly every Milonga in the world, that you will ever attend, while you will hear more than a few familiar songs, there are a handful that have very specific meanings. One of them is played at the end of the night to signify that the Milonga has come to end, which should be a cue to find your favorite partner and to dance with them. The song ? “La Cumparsita” or as it is translated into English, ‘The Little Carnival’.

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Being Criticized

The truth is that this is critical feedback, about what you’re doing and how you’re doing it. Hopefully that critical feedback or criticism is done with exacting detail, which is needed for analysis, breakdown, and then reconstruction or rebuilding your posture, walk, embrace, vocabulary, and/or musical interpretation. Without that critical feedback, you will continue to make the same mistakes over and over again thinking that everything is happy and lovely when in fact it’s not.

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The Blame Game

The dance starts out on an even footing. It’s quite clear two steps later that one of you is clearly better than the other. Usually the Lead believes that they’re all that, and the Follower is just trying to survive the compressive embrace, let alone actually dance. In reality…well let’s just say that no one is perfect and leave it at that, shall we ?

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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 dancingWhereas 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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