Daisy, you are absolutely right in saying that. Your feeling wont' lie to you, but sometimes your eyes may.

Walking is everything, though you need fancy figures as icing on cake but not the other way round. But this is just my opinion. There are many who believes those fancy steps are the main course and walking is only the transition between one figure and the next. I tend to take the view that walking is an attitude and a brave show-off of your perfect balance and tempo, as well as your control of your own will in your body and mind and not be "danced by the music but dance the music". Especially true is when you dance to Pugliese's music, many people would feel they need to do many big movement, high boleo, jumping etc to interpret the climatic emotion. I tend to like Javier's just walking through them.

It feels like taking a casual walk in a battlefield as if you were not frightened by bullets and cannons flying around, that is cool! That is an ATTITUDE!!! Sometmies i feel doing too many steps when the music "seems to be" urging you to make you look like those soldiers running for their lives.

Anyway, dancing tango is a very individualistic pursue, and different people have different way of seeing and liking it.

Sorry to be off topic.

Hi Coleman,

I agree with your comments. Which is not really surprising. It seems that people who are passionate about Tango and have learned it for a few years mostly seem to end up in the same place. The walk, the embrace, the connection - that's Tango. I wish you luck with your project.

Keith

Daisy,

You're absolutely right, but don't give up on the men too easily. For some reason, it just seems to take the guys a lot longer than the girls to 'get' what Tango is all about. As for guys who try to 'teach you how to follow', I can only give you the advice I give to all my students who ask ... "who are the good dancers?" I always say, if he tries to teach you, he's not a good dancer because, if he's a good dancer, he can just lead you.

And yes - 'Walking with Energy' is an excellent phrase and is something that all men need to understand before they are able to lead well.

Keith

Hi all,

I find the latest discussion on this topic very interesting and am glad that it has appeared in the forum. There's something to learn for everybody. It's especially thought provoking for newer dancers coming into the community and those who might consider dancing tango for life (for teaching or simply a passionate hobby).

If tango is just about what Coleman said "your leg around her neck" then I might as well take up a sport. ;-)

Long live the tango!

Kitty

The walk, the embrace, the connection - that's Tango. I agree, although this way of putting it can be slightly misleading since walking may well bring the wrong image to mind.

It fails to capture the incredibly dynamic nature of the Tango walk. It also seems to exclude all sorts of things - when perhaps a better way of looking at tango is to say that nearly everything in the dance should be part of the walk.

It also ignores one other important element: the other dancers.

In really great Milongas one can often experience not only an incredible communication with your partner - but also a sort of general connection with everyone. And this is mainly about the music and the space and how we are all going to move...

And of course this extends to the DJ and the dancers who are not dancing at present.

One has to wonder how on earth any culture could produce a social dance of such staffering complexity.

Coleman,

Feelings won't lie but that just meant for one moment. In my journey to Tango, I constantly felt transformed. One day, it was a lead that was so light and I can hardly transcribe. Later, I felt it's a little bit forceful.

Soon I found my preference has changed from absolute following with clear instructions to with a little freedom, flowing-like softness lead that has vote me a trust of being able to follow at the right musicality... a freedom to step on beats on my choices... Chasing this rare feeling is sort of pain (well, happened only occassionally, maybe once or twice), worse is, I didn't know it's on the 'right' path or not, or, is there any 'right' path?

Guess everyone experience similar things and even an argentinean teacher couldn't help much in demonstrating the homogenicity of Tango.
We need a variety of couples.

Now I will treasure and remember all nice dances that I ever have... coz they don't exist forever.

Siu Yau