"How to do a nice(perfect) giro?" I asked Javier after my imitation of one of his moves. "What's a giro?" He answered. Instead, he had me standing relaxed, feet together, in practice hold.
"Close your eyes" Andrea translated "now try to remember this movement."
Javier slowly drew a counter clockwise circle with my upper body. "This is the sensation. Remember that." Then he and Andrea danced to show me the body movement and energy, but not the steps...
I used to be fascinated by Javier's unique footworks (steps). I had spent hours loading his Youtube clips in Flash and watched them frame by frame, tried to break down his steps. I wanted to dance like him.
After the private lessons with him, I realized that I didn't want to dance just like him any more. I want to dance like myself. Of course, I will carry certain distinctive/signature Javier features, ones which he probably learned from his maestros: the embrace, the energy... It was what he taught me, however, freed my mind, my fixation of those fantastic steps of his.
The repertoire of tango is muy grande. But it is also very simple: natural: listen to your body, your body will tell you how to dance...
Your mind tells your body how to move, your body then tells your feet...
Think of whereabout of the fellower's foot (always on one foot), not your feet during the dance.
---Javier Rodriguez
Understand how to dance elegantly, how to dance sensually, the essence of tango, the connection between the two.
Think of the feet as paint brush, the floor as a canvas. You dance as painting on the floor with brushes.
---Maestro Carlos De Chey
Understand these, I begin to dance with more freedom.
Hi TP,
ReplyDeleteYou bring up a very good point. You are right: I think it is very common for dancers, especially those who are newer to tango, to latch on to memorization in order to get the courage to get out onto the dance floor, but then they get trapped their patterns. I, for one, am now starting to unlearn some "absolutes" that I have clung to for the last two years. I imagine it must be even harder for leaders.
There are teachers who just focus on teaching steps or patterns, and then those others who can teach something much more intangible: embrace and feeling.
I have stopped taking classes with teachers who teach only patterns. I find that the leaders who take these sorts of classes never progress past a certain point, and they become very frustrated if you have not memorized the patterns they want to dance. They could be dancing with a mannequin because there's no true give and take.
We spent two years learning steps, and never felt any skill at the dance, until we stopped learning steps all the time. It was like having a big vocabulary with no grammer. I don't blame the teacher for this, really, beacause eventually many good dancers have come out of his classes. Maybe it is just up to each person to realize what they have to do? Can feeling be taught?
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