February 19-25

Thursday, February 19, 2009

La Pista Milonga with lesson by Homer and Cristina Ladas: "Tango Accident, Tango Now & The Art of Improvisation"

This class was done in game format to spawn creativity, encourage experimentation, and to help us think outside of the box.

We began with one dance dancing as we normally would.

Game 1:
Tango Accident
There are two levels to this game.
Level 1: We walked, and at some point, the Follower randomly crosses (the Leader does not lead her to cross). The Leader has to think what to do to get out of it (i.e., behave as if he led the cross). Follower can do left over right foot crosses or right over left foot crosses.
Level 2: Follower can do any move accidentally (Leader does not lead it). Here, the Leader has to recover from it. We do this continually, with Follower doing different accidents and the Leader recovering from it gracefully and smoothly.

Game 2:
Tango Now
There are two levels to this game.
Level 1: While the Leader and Follower dance together, periodically the Follower says "now" in the middle of a move that Leader is leading. The Leader has to come up with a creative way to get out of it, instead of continuing to complete the move as usual. Follower should say "now" during a move Follower can predict so that she gives Leader a fair opportunity to get out of it. The Follower should follow and observe what the routine is before she says "now."
Level 2: When the Follower says "now" the Leader breaks the thought and does something entirely different.
Some problems we encountered here were that sometimes there is a lot of momentum to the move, and to stop it midway. The challenge was that when Follower says "now", it's like stumbling. The Leader should try to make the change smoothly. This game enables the Leader to try to lead something he's never tried before, to break patterns and habits.

When we give constraints, it forces us to become more creative. If there are no restraints, it is difficult to be creative.

Game 3:
Tango Blind
Constraint: Leader and Follower dance together with eyes closed.
- Who is around me?
- How can I be careful?
- It can generate some very interesting things.
- Be careful.
Here, we develop increased sensitivity to our partner, and develop creativity.

Game 4:
5th Step
Level 1: Every 5th Step of the Follower must always be a back step. Follower helps Leader by counting steps out loud. Boleo is counted as 1, and leg wrap is counted as 1.
Level 2: After the 4th step, but before the 5th step, the Follower calls out a move, such as a back step, forward step, molinete, leader sacada, follower sacada, leg wrap, volcada, colgada, soltada, calesita, etc., and she can be specific (left foot, right foot, clockwise, counterclockwise, overturned back ocho, overturned wrap). This game got us to start thinking about the flow of movement. Often the Follower has a better sense of what flows nicely, and she can help the Leader to be more sensitive to the flow of the movement, giving him feedback and permission to try something new. In this game, the dancers can slow down and think about it, figure out how to do it, before moving. Follower can help Leader discover new moves.

Game 5:
Leader and Follower switch embrace (Follower's left hand and Leader's right hand become the open side of the embrace and Follower's right arm/hand and Leader's left arm/hand become the close side of the embrace; line of dance remains the same, and Leader typically walks forward and Follower typically walks back as normal). We danced, doing very basic moves like the 8CB, ochos, etc. Here, the dancers will find that the difficult side becomes easier and the easier side becomes more difficult.

Game 6:
Moliono X Factor (named after a maestro named Moliono). Maestros only demo'd this; we did not try it because no students were skilled enough.
Leader and Follower switch roles so the Follower appears to be leading, but the Leader is back leading. The goal is to back lead the Follower to look like she is leading the Leader while he does ochos, ganchos, etc. New things open up, brainwise.

Game 7:
No Side Step
Constraint: We danced with no Leader or Follower side steps.

Game 8:
3 Elements
The Follower picks three elements, and the Leader had to do them in that order with no separation between the movements. Examples: side, back ocho, back boleo; half back ocho, volcada, leg wrap; soltada, calesita, colgada.

Game 9:
Sacada Twister
In groups of three, we held hands and had our legs open. One dancer began by doing a wrap or sacada between one or two people's legs, and then someone else goes. We tried to keep connected with our hands, but it was OK to change the embrace (let go of hands) if we needed to. We were to try to get more than one person with our foot.

Friday, February 20, 2009
La Tangueria de Oakland milonga @ Just Dance Ballroom with lesson by Homer and Cristina Ladas: "The Back Volcada Explored"
A didactic demo was not filmed for the February 20, 2009, class. The August 20, 2007 "Tokyo Drift / Back Volcada" video illustrates many of the same concepts; thus, places in that video are referenced in the notes below to illustrate similar things we did in class. See the video at www.tangostudent.blogspot.com

First, we began with some exercises:
Exercise 1: In circle formation at the perimeter of the room, the class practiced moving forward using back crosses to the center of the circle.
Exercise 2: Then the reverse: In the center of the circle formation, the class practiced moving backward using forward crosses to the outside of the circle.
Exercise 3: The Leaders practiced walking forward using rollerblading footwork in a straight line, as if walking on a railroad track, while Follower maintained back cross footwork walking back.
Exercise 4: We worked on Follower's back ocho technique, doing tight crosses with minimal hip rotation in order to build to the back volcada from the back ocho. We practiced this in open and close embrace.

Leader's Volcada Technique:
The Leader gives a tight embrace with a slight lift.
The Leader creates the volcada feeling by supporting and lifting the Follower more.
The Leader controls how loose or tight the the Follower's back cross is.
We practiced with the Leader leading consecutive tight back crosses while trying to preserve the connection as much as possible, and have tight, compact crossing in the Follower. See 2:07-15 in the video for examples of Follower doing a series of back crosses (looser and larger than the ones we get in class).
Leader does not move feet, but does arch his body, taking care not to rotate his shoulders.
Leader does not go back on his axis, but maintains a forward and upward intention in his chest, as does Follower, so both dancers maintain good connection to each other.
Leader should not go down at all, and really be forwardly and upwardly intended in his chest. This was reiterated several times.
For the Leader's footwork, he goes back on his right foot while still keeping a forward intention in his chest, not going back to vertical axis.
The Leader can lead a tight cross or more open cross depending on the range of communication between the dancers, the music, mood and space available to dance.
If a more open cross is used, there needs to be more suspension and lift from the Leader as it would require more support.

Follower's Volcada Technique:
The Follower tries to stay in front of the Leader as much as possible.
The Follower compresses down on her left side, digging down with her armpit.
Follower should not hesitate, and should have a lot of power in her supporting leg, digging down into the floor to push up and against the Leader. She should use her relationship to the floor and have groundedness.
Her body needs to be stable and strong, with her core muscles engaged so that she does not have a noodle or rag doll body and so that she supports herself and her body does not break or collapse against or onto the Leader.
The Follower's right foot crosses behind the left foot, and the left foot unwinds out forward, out to the left, and back as the Leader steps forward. The Follower's foot traces a half circle on floor, and Leader can track/feel where her foot is. The goal is to have a deep and big movement.
The Follower's left leg is free, but controlled. She should pay attention to how it articulates, and she can project her foot a lot forwardly if it's a big volcada. She should pay attention and think about how her foot unwinds, trying to make it as elegant, articulate and stable as possible.
It is important that the Follower stay in front of and square with the Leader at all times during this back volcada. This was reiterated several times.
After the volcada, the Follower should not kerplunk back with her footwork; she should ease back into her normal position, rolling through her feet.
See 1:43 and 1:51 in the video for examples of the simple back volcada.

Potential Pitfalls:
If both don't keep their forwardly intended axis.
It works better when neither dancer goes down.
If Leader rotates his shoulders or chest, the Follower will be in trouble because she will peel off the Leader.
If Follower is not aggressive in terms of pushing up against the Leader, and does not really push against him. In the volcada, the energy is always up or straight ahead.

For the Leader, there are three volcada killers:
(1) If he goes down.
(2) If he rotates his shoulders.
(3) If his posture goes back to fully vertical from forwardly intended in the chest.

For the Follower, she must maintain good technique:
(1) Holding or pressing down on her left side of Leader's right side.
(2) Stay in front of the Leader.
(3) Maintain her body position, being very stable and supported in her standing leg and with her chest forwardly and upwardly intended and connected to the Leader.
(4) Engage her core muscles so that she does not have a noodle or rag doll body and supports herself so that body does not break.
(5) Don't take big steps if they are not led.
(6) Don't kerplunk in the exiting footwork.

As a treat, we also tried to do the Volcada-Plus:
From the simple tight back volcada that we worked on, the Leader brings his feet together, takes his axis back and down, which causes the Follower to do a split with her legs, and then he drives her left leg back into the forward cross.
The Follower uses her supporting right leg to have lift and have the left leg open up out to the left side.
See 2:59-3:00, and 3:02-03 in the video for similar examples on the left side, which is what we attempted. 2:20-22, 2:30-34, and 2:48-50 are examples of the right side, which we did not attempt.

As for the milonga, the quality of dancers was good and the floorcraft that night was excellent. I needed to leave early since there was nothing to nosh on to keep me going energywise (and I didn't find the vending machine offerings appealing).

Saturday, February 21, 2009
TangoFire show @ The Marin Veterans' Memorial Center in San Rafael (www.tango-fire.com). The show was an entertaining show tango show, geared toward international audiences. The first part of the show was more traditional in music, and was very campy. The dancing was show tango, meant to be performed on a stage rather than at a milonga, with lots of high kicks, aerials, ganchos, etc., most of which would send the average social tango dancer to the hospital or at least the tailor/seamstress/dry cleaner for repairs. The costumes were beautiful and functional, and I thought it was a great touch in the opening number that the bottoms of the tangueras' beige shoes were Christian Louboutin red. The second part of the show really allowed the outstanding band to shine. Facilitywise, there is not a bad seat in the house, and the city planners did an excellent job as it is easy to get to, and there is ample free parking. Many of the local tango community attended the show.

Special after-show El Beso milonga @ Bay West Ballroom in San Rafael. Many of the attendees of the show, including several of the performers, made their way to Bay West afterwards. The milonga was fun, though ventilationwise it got a bit hot and humid. We opened windows, but the seemingly gale-force winds blew napkins and glasses around the ballroom, so we had to shut them to just a crack. It didn't get super crowded, but there were ample skilled dancers, which made for a fun time. Floorcraft was not an issue, except for the one ballroom teacher who seemed to ham it up all night...complete with Argentine costume (think gaucho with handkerchief tied around his neck) and exaggerated, big open moves with arch turns, loop turns, and dips that he thought were suited to Argentine Tango. He made for an interesting distraction, visually and physically. Jonathan and Olivia did a fine job, as they always do with their events.

Monday, February 23, 2009
Orange Practica at the Beat in Berkeley, with lesson by Homer and Cristina Ladas: "Leader and Follower Enrosques" (see the video at www.tangostudent.blogspot.com)


We began with one dance, trying to include as many enrosques as we knew how to do.

There are many definitions of what enrosques are, but they all have a corkscrew action element to them.

They can be done from the turn and sacada, sometimes with weight changes and sometimes without. The

Follower enrosque from forward ochos typically do not have weight changes.
We began with a solo exercise to develop enrosques for our body: we practiced crossing our foot in front and changing weight after the cross.

There are two main shapes to enrosques:
(1) Eye of the Needle: has space between the thighs
(2) Eagle position, like in yoga, with thighs close together, going to the other side.
Both have 90 degree pivots, and the foot is planted next to the axis foot in the middle of it, with toe tip pointing down and touching floor. It is important not to sickle the foot here.The pelvis joint and how open the hips can get will determine which enrosque you do.

Next exercise in partnership:
We did forward ochos, and enrosque wrap (either eye of needle or eagle) in front without weight change.
(1) Step
(2) Position foot one next to the other (not too far way, and do not sickle).
(3) Pivot.
This was a more stilted, paused exercise to get us used to the movement and to slow us down to look at all the variables in getting the technique right.

Next option:
(1) Step
(2) Pivot
(3) Then go into foot placement.
This is a more fluid enrosque.

For Followers, no weight change is best option for enrosques.
Followers can do forward ocho into enrosque embellishment, letting her free leg go in front, cross, and then pivot. This adds momentum. She must try to step as close to the Leader as possible to maintain connection.

An alternative is that she can pivot first, then whip the leg in front. What really helps is (1) to keep good spiral in the upper body, (3) rotate the hips, and (3) keep her shoulders square/parallel with Leader's upper body, facing Leader the whole time. All ocho technique applies (spiral and counterspiral).

Next, we drilled with the Leader leading forward ochos, and Follower doing enrosque embellishments on her ochos.
Level 1: Regular enrosque (a little amague) in regular time.
Level 2: A delay, and then a speed up at the end, putting energy into hips to really get around quickly/sharply. It's a slow down, whip around kind of action.

As a reminder, embellishments are always dictated by the music and not done arbitrarily.

Next, the Leader leads Follower to do forward ochos for one or two enrosques. Then Leader leads Follower to do molinete around him while he does enrosques. The Leader leaves his hips behind, gets all twisted, and then lets go into enrosque, while continually leading the Follower's molinete with his upper body. The Leader can do his enrosque on any of the Follower's molinete steps, but the easiest is on her back step.

The question came up: How does the Follower know if he is leading a regular forward ocho (where she can do an enrosque) or a molinete (and if she does an enrosque here she will mess up his lead)?
Answers:
(1) Follower can do enrosque during the molinete, but she should do it without crossing in front.
(2) Follower can cross, but she has to do it quickly and make sure she does not transfer weight.
(3) When the Leader leads the ocho, the focus is on the Follower's axis.
(4) When the Leader leads the molinete, the focus is on the Leader's axis.
Bottom line: If the Follower does an enrosque during the molinete, she can do it successfully and not mess up the lead if she does the enrosque without crossing and/or not changing weight.

Next, we practiced weight changes in enrosque, replacing one axis with another.

The exercise we did by ourselves:
ocho
enrosque
weight change
step back

Next, we did another exercise by ourselves:
step right foot forward
cross left foot in front of right foot
pivot 180 degrees
pivot 180 degrees again
step right foot back.

We also tried this on the other side:
step left foot forward
cross right foot in front of left foot
pivot 180 degrees
pivot 180 degrees again
step left foot back.
Here, there is always a moment when you are sharing weight with two feet. It is important to have good technique with being on one foot and pivoting on one foot.

In the open embrace, we did Leader forward sacada of Follower's trailing foot during molinete forward step, into Leader enrosque, into Leader's back sacada on Follower's side step.

You can practice these things (enrosques, sacadas and back sacadas) wearing socks.

Follower can do air enrosque embellishments, but she needs to be careful how this is done.

Maestros concluded with a demo of what we learned to Tres Esquinas by D'Agostino with vocals by Angel Vargas.

Wednesday, February 25, 2009
CCSF Followers' Technique and Advanced classes with Chelsea Eng. In FT, the topic was turns. We began with watching a video of Florencia Taccetti on Turns. In class, we did our usual warm-up walking exercises, our floor exercises to strengthen our cores and increase torquing/foot and leg range of motion, and at the barre our molinete work, stepping side, and then pivoting to do an ocho. We also did linear grapevines, and then partnered molinete exercises. In Advanced, we continued our work on changes of direction/alterations, combining them directly into the molinete (side, and then forward step), with a Leader sacada of the Follower's trailing foot on her forward step, first trying it with his left leg, and then with his right leg. We did this on both the open and close side of the embrace, and with the molinete clockwise (on the alteration on the forward ocho step to the open side) and counterclockwise (on the alteration on the forward ocho step to the close side). We also reviewed the other changes of direction / alterations we learned in the last few weeks, really trying to remain in the line of dance (which was tricky!) in the midst of all this swirling around each other.

Come Join Me!

Thursday, February 26, 2009
La Pista milonga with lesson by Alicia Pons and Robert Hauk.

Friday, February 27, 2009
St. Aiden's Milonga with lesson by Alicia Pons and Robert Hauk (Walking Technique)

Saturday, February 28, 2009
All Night Milonga @ the Beat in Berkeley with lesson by Alicia Pons and Robert Hauk.

Sunday, March 1, 2009
Alicia Pons and Robert Hauk workshops @ Alberto's. (Body Language; Between the Steps Tango Happens; Tools for Creativity - The Ocho Cortado)

Monday, March 2, 2009
Alicia Pons and Robert Hauk workshops @ Cubberley in Palo Alto (Movement)

February 12-18

Thursday, February 12, 2009
Casa de Tango milonga @ Ukrainian Village Restaurant (140 - 2nd Avenue, New York City, $10 includes lesson) with lesson by Anthony Blackwell and Ye Ling Chen. The lesson was very basic and they had extra followers, so I sat it out. That was OK though, since I could sample the restaurant's food. Everything was reasonably priced, and they had piroshkis (Polish empanadas, anyone?!) for ~$6. I had a very yummy lamb shank dinner: small lamb shank with accessible marrow, kasha and kraut, for $11. It was very yummy and the perfect amount of food. It rib-sticking, unpretentious and tasted homemade to me (of course I am no expert on Eastern European/Russian cuisine). The lesson began with walking, first open, then in close embrace, and then adding the rock step. The Leader walks with his chest first, then the legs. The Follower reaches back with her legs first, and her body follows. Next were back ochos, with the Leader beginning with a side step, and then doing a full diagonal step forward. For the Follower, it is important that she collect before pivoting. She can practice ochos at home against a wall. For all dancers, homework was assigned: practice this everywhere (except in the shower) such as on the subway platform; you can throw down a hat and dance around it. I thought Maestro was an exceptionally good teacher. He is American, had a clear communication style, assigned homework, and had some great sayings/encouragement: to the slouching, hunching leaders: "Stand up and be who you are... you are a proud man!" "The longer you do this, the more subtle things become." As for the facility, it is in a separate room from the main restaurant, but there is full menu food service and full bar service. Lightingwise during the milonga, things were on the dark side (too dark to cabaceo from across the room). Music was in tandas with obviously American music cortinas. The only odd thing was that the organizers liked to take a lot of pictures, so periodically a flash would go off. Despite being the new tanguera in town, I was asked to dance by many good leaders. Lucky for me, it was also a Sadie Hawkins dance, so the other few leaders I really wanted to dance with, I actually asked. All but one accepted. I had an excellent time, and stayed much longer than I originally intended. I'd go again, probably just watch the lesson and have dinner there for sure.

Wednesday, February 18, 2009
CCSF Classes with Chelsea Eng. In Followers' Technique, the topic was "A Taste of Buenos Aires + Footcare, and Turns." We began with a handout on Foot Care & AT, which discussed culprits, preventatives, and remedies. It was a great handout, and maestra brought in examples of the products for prevention and remedies. For our classwork, we began with our usual walking exercises, and added a twist and ochos. We also did linear grapevine footwork to get us used to the molinete. We did our usual, essential floor exercises to improve our core strength and torquing range of motion. At the barre, we practiced doing an ocho and then a side step. In partnership we practiced molinetes, clockwise and counterclockwise.

In Advanced, we reviewed our work from last week on changes of directions/alterations. First we began with floor exercises doing forward ochos, then in place, then overturned retreating ochos. It was a good class because we needed the practice continuing to drill the concept. One interesting addition was where the embrace changed on the open side, where Leader does L behind his back with his left arm, and takes Follower's right arm with him so that they are close; then they both step forward Americana style to the close side (Follower's right foot, Leader's left foot).

COME JOIN ME!

Thursday, February 19
La Pista milonga & lesson by Homer & Cristina: Improvisation

Friday, February 20
La Tangueria de Oakland milonga & Lesson by Homer & Cristina: Back Volcada Explored

Saturday, February 21
CCSF Milonga

Sunday, February 22
Studio Gracia Natalia Hills workshop & milonga

Monday, February 23,
Either Orange Practica @ The Beat with lesson by Homer & Cristina: Leader & Follower enrosques or La Cumparsita Milonga @ Slovenian Hall with lesson by Natalia Hills

Wednesday, February 25
CCSF classes

February 5-11

Saturday, February 7, 2009
Marcela Guevara y Stefano Giudice Workshops @ La Pista. Turns Combinations: There was much technical discussion on the mechanics and leading the turn. Lead in upper body. Leaders need to know how to lead it. Never forget, if you don't lead it, everything will be so hard. From the turn you, can do so much; but if Leader stops, the Follower will stop. If Leader can always lead the turn, he can do many different steps (gancho, sacada, etc.), but if he stops, he will kick the Follower. Another concept: When Leader wants to lead the figure, he doesn't have to change his posture, and there is no need to change his way of dancing. He can open a little if he needs to, but when he's done, he needs to come back to the embrace. The sequence: Follower steps forward with her left foot to the right side to do an ocho. Then walk. Then turn to right. Leader does left foot sacada of Follower's left foot on her forward step, Leader does left foot sacada of Follower's right trailing foot on her side step. Follower does left leg barrida of Leader's right leg on her back step. Then she steps back again, pivoting, and Leader sandwiches her left foot with his right foot then left foot. Follower does right foot pasada over Leader's left foot. For the Follower's molinete, she needs to know how to control the step. The Leader leads, the Follower follows. List to the music, the music is an object. Don't worry about the step. The role of the Follower is to make the movement well. The Follower is the static element, beautiful element. For the Leader to lead well, he needs to be elegant. The Follower's goal should be to do the movement beautifully. There is energy and embrace changes when the turn starts. The Leader's sacada should be precise, always to Follower's leg with no weight. Next, we did the Leader's barrida, starting with the molinete counterclockwise, with Follower going back with her left leg, side right leg, forward left leg, with Leader left leg sacada, Leader right leg barrida of Follower's right leg. Only the position of the Leader's foot changes. It is important for the Follower on the counterclockwise molinete to do the back cross of her left foot/side well. To do this, there is a complete transfer of weight from the left leg to the right leg to do the back cross of the left leg. This is an extremely important concept, from Claudia Codega. In molinetes, there is a change of the embrace to open, but dancers should not change the shoulder orientation to each other. In the Leader's barrida, he does a forward sweep.

Workshop: Advanced Sequences 1: We did Follower boleo and sacada combo, and Leader's boleo (rare) and sacada. We began with the 8CB to cross, then clockwise molinete. On Follower's right forward step (with Leader's sacada of her trailing left foot), Leader leads Follower to do forward boleo of her left leg, then pivot her around counterclockwise to do a back sacada of her left foot through the Leader's two legs. Maestros discussed the concept of finding the triangle when doing sacadas. The receiver's two feet are two points of the triangle. The Leader does a sacada, and then his two feet become the two new points of the triangle, etc., etc. Bottom line in sacadas: Always find the relationship of the triangle. There is strong energy for the boleo/sacada movement. Follower's technique: After the boleo, collect the legs and have them closed, then pivot with legs closed, and then do the sacada. If legs are wide open and swinging out, it's ugly and dangerous. Leader does weight transfer when he cuts the boleo. The cut is where the movement of the boleo is led. Next we did Follower's back left leg sacada of Leader's left leg. The Follower steps forward, Leader does left leg back sacada of Follower's right leg. Here, the direction of the Follower's back sacada is diagonally back to Leader's outside left (not straight center to him). There is also a change of embrace so that dances are more side by side in the chest. Next, we added Leader's sacada into gancho of Leader's right leg of Follower's left leg. These movements are done with energy, where the music dictates it to be (not in normal walking rhythm).

Sunday, February 8, 2009
Marcela Guevara y Stefano Giudice Workshops @ The Beat: Changes of dynamic. Changes of dynamics can happen in two ways: in a musical sense, and in the direction of the dance, and also in the change of front of the Follower's relationship to Leader's. We began with a figure, Follower steps side right, left back ocho, right back ocho pivot (where Leader suspends Follower on her left foot to pivot around) right forward to closed side outside of Leader. Next, we did: Follower steps side right, side left, between leader's leg, pivoting to change direction, side right. This was basically a rock step. Leader steps forward with his right leg, open, then back with left leg. There is more dynamic when there is a change in direction.

Off-Axis moves. We attempted to do off-axis moves in a more normal tango, not necessarily a clown thing, meaning just do these moves when it makes sense. If you open the embrace up too much or too often, it loses the beauty of the tango. We began with the basic forward (in front of) colgada. Then we did the basic side (lateral) colgada. We did these coladas where Follower's weight is in her right foot and then she pasadas with her left leg. Then we linked them all together, a counterclockwise colgada forward, a counterclockwise colgada side (lateral), then a side volcada with Leader and Follower in about 90 degree angle to each other. To lead these moves, Maestro talked about the concept of polenta, where it would help the Leader in his body movements (strength, speed, security, and solidness) if he were to envision stirring a huge pot of polenta. There are many different ways maestros teach colgadas, one of which to recommend the sitting down of the Follower. Marcela y Stefano do not recommend that. They recommend Follower try to remain lifted and upwardly oriented in her chest in the colgada with just a slight bend in the hips. In the volcada, they recommend most of the weight being taken by the Follower's left armpit, and since they had no idea where our familiarity with volcadas was, they had us to an easier than normal volcada – the side volcada, so that any new beginners' backs were less likely to be hurt, especially if she did not know what she was doing.

Maestros were great. Rosa and Felipe did a great job hosting and translating (even though they also spoke some English). These were very fun workshops, and quality of dancers was quite good. The sequences taught were quite simple, and we had ample time to drill them over and over, and delve deeply into the technique of the lead.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009
CCSF Classes with Chelsea Eng. In Follower's Technique, we worked on ochos. The video was of Florencia Taccetti on the technique of the ocho. I wrote detailed notes on the clip, but in the rush to catch a red-eye, somehow the piece of paper slipped through my fingers. Oh well, maybe next week... In class we began with our usual walking and floor exercises, and then worked at the barre to strengthen our feet and better our balance. Then we worked on ochos (forward and back), plain and with embellishments, at the barre and in partnership.

In Advanced, we worked on changes of direction / alterations. To really work on drilling this concept, Followers did forward ochos, and leaders tried to catch them doing it, stop them by outstepping them (closing the option to complete the ocho), and then redirecting her to back step. We did this first toward the open side, and then to the trickier closed side. We drilled this a lot so that Leader's could really feel when the correct timing was. We also changed the foot placement of the Leader as well, and also tried doing this from back ochos. It was an excellent class.

I'm in the Big Apple until Monday, to go to the Valentina opening reception. I have a list of NYC milongas/practicas I want to go to, but who knows if I make it. Kohle and I have lots to do with the reception, cooking for for thank you lunch, etc. This time around I actually took the bus from JFK to Grand Central. It was super easy, and a mere pittance. I am kicking myself that I didn't do it in the past. D'oh!!

Ana de Nueva York

January 29-February 4

Friday, January 30, 2009
Soad Kader's art opening and reception at TangoVida. It was great to see so many of the local tango community come out and support one of our fellow dancers and artists, Soad Kader (www.studiosoad.com). Ney and Jennifer did a fine job hosting, with a yummy assortment of wines, cheeses, crackers and chocolates. The minimilonga was fun, took up half the space, and was enjoyed by 3-4 couples at a time throughout the night.

Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Late Shift Milonga with performance by Tango Con*Fusion. The milonga was fun, and quite well attended. Floorcraft was a tiny bit of an issue, but overall was pretty good. Food was as it usually is, supplemented with a chocolate cake to celebrate Tango Con*Fusion's 5-year anniversary. The water ran out, so I will have to make a mental note to bring my own Nalgene, just like I do at Allegro. Tango Con*Fusion's performance was wonderful, as usual, and the boutique great fun to shop at.

Sunday, February 1, 2009
Ushering at Burn the Floor (playing at the Post Street Theatre through March 2009). While not Argentine Tango, it was a wonderful Latin ballroom show (that inspires me to go back to the ballroom). Strikingly, I noticed that all the dancers had hyperextended knees, which a surf on the 'net revealed is quite common among dancers, and is considered beautiful even though it can be dangerous. The dancing in the show was terrific, and I could see how a lot of the technique employed could be applicable and usable by Argentine Tango dancers. RECOMMENDED!

Wednesday, February 3, 2009
CCSF Classes. In Follower's Technique, the topic was ochos. The video clip was of Rebecca Shulman discussing three different ways to do ochos (with weight back, with weight centered, and with weight forward). After our usual walking and floor exercises, we worked at the barres on forward ochos, paying attention to starting the movement in our torsos and our hips and legs coming around as a consequence. We also worked on embellishing the forward ocho with tucks and amagues, also trying this later on in partnered exercises across the floor. Maestra reiterated the technical points of no sickled feet on the back foot coming around, and keeping the thighs zipped up together in the movement, like a pair of scissors; having legs that look like scissor tongs (with knees and thighs open and apart) is not good (read: vulgar and inelegant).

In Advanced/Production, we continued our work on the walking right turn, and learned a new sequence that was ocho cortado like with the Follower on the outside, and then the Leader turns her in to do check steps forward and back in Americana position (her left leg mirroring his right leg), playing with the QQ rhythm.

January 22-28

Friday, January 23, 2009
Homer & Cristina Ladas Advanced Seminario co-taught with Felipe Martinez & Rosa Corsico on "The Hard Side" (see the video at www.tangostudent.blogspot.com)

The purpose of this seminario was to explore doing things on both the open and close side of the embrace, and how they felt differently in terms of easy and difficulty, and to work on what types of adjustments we need to make in our bodies to execute the moves well on both sides.

We began with an exercise where the Leader stays planted in place, and leads Follower to do three steps around him in the molinete, then pivot her around to change direction, to do three steps around him in the other direction. For the pivoting change of direction, the Follower does a back ocho on the closed side of the embrace, and a forward ocho on the open side of the embrace. The Follower needs to be cognizant of how she has to hold her body and legs in pivoting. Followers often have trouble pivoting on the right leg on the closed side. It is important for the Follower to engage and work the supporting, standing leg. The Leader changes his left and right arm on whether he leads forward or back ochos on the open or close side, and there are different challenges of each -- it is important for the leader to not be static, and not block the movement. Leader needs to be open in the shoulders and grounded on the floor to minimize tension and potential for liming the space. As usual in the molinete, the Follower should try to keep her hips close to the Leader and not float away. Sometimes the arm relationship will feel funny. It is important for the Follower to maintain her spiral and not collapse on her right side, which would cause her to tilt.

Next, we did the same exercise, but added a more dynamic Leader pivot energy during the Follower ochos to lead her to do either (1) boleos or (2) rebound/switch step/rebote. Here, the Leader can let go of the contact with his right hand when she pivots/boleos/rebounds, but still use his arm and forearm for connection and contact. The Follower still holds onto the Leader to maintain contact and connection to the lead coming from his body, but she must not use him to keep herself in balance. For the Leader, he uses compression energy to get the rebound on the closed side. Our work showed that for the leader, this is easier to lead on the open side. To distinguish between the boleo or the rebound step, the leader must make sure the Follower's hips do not pass in rotation out, otherwise it will certainly be a boleo rather than a rebound. Follower needs to be fully on her axis on the supporting leg with knee slightly bent to get a nice boleo.

We tried doing these steps (rebound/switch step or boleo) in all of the ways and locations -- forward and back, open and close side. We found the back switch step to be the most challenging. Follower has a tendency to collapse in the right side of her body in the embrace; she needs to really engage her right lat to not do this.

We then danced to another song, working on boleos, rebounds and ochos, playing with getting more send energy and more rotation. It was noted that the Leader brings the Follower closer for the back ocho, and lets her out father away for the forward ocho. Felipe said the Leader has to anticipate the move (boleo or rebound) so he can lead it and know what's coming. If he doesn't think about it and she's already there, it's too late to lead a boleo or rebound/switch. The goal is to blend one step with the next so energy is maximized and there is flow to the dance. The Follower should let her hips amplify the energy she gets from the lead. Rosa reiterated that the Follower's upper and lower body needs to be connected through the center, which means that the core must be actively engaged.

Next, we worked on sacadas, both on the open side and closed side: Leader's back sacada on Follower's forward cross or back cross. For these Leader back sacadas, he needs to release his arms on the more open side. For the Follower, the embrace is movable. She needs to rely on her legs, not on her arms. Her arms are sliding in the embrace to make room for the Leader to get around. For the Follower's overturned forward ocho, she needs to keep her shoulders on top of her hips and ankles, because if they are ahead, she will fall into the step. Felipe noted that on the open side for the Leader's back sacada, the Leader can put his left hand and her right hand behind his back like in an L shape to get the dancers in the correct position so that their arms do not block each other, enabling the Leader to do a back sacada with his right leg.

Homer and Cristina showed us a step on both sides: Follower's forward ocho with Leader's back sacada. Here, while Follower does one forward ocho after another, the Leader simultaneously does one overturned back sacada after another. The Leader must do this over his axis, and it requires a lot of pivoting and precision on his part. There was discussion of back sacada technique. Felipe and Rosa do this differently (using a less physically challenging technique). Felipe recommends "looking for the triangle" -- whereby the Leader sets up the triangle so he knows where to step out to enter between the Follower's legs. Thus, there is no pivot, but a series of steps.

Again, Felipe reiterated on the Leader's back sacada technique, he needs to manage the embrace much more on the open side, to get Follower close enough, he needs to do an L with his left hand and her right hand. To get the hands in the correct position, he needs to change the hold of her hand, where the fingers go underneath, and he holds her hand from the top of it. In addition, he needs to release the close side of the embrace, so his right hands slides down her arm and looks for the connection, maybe in her left hand. For the back sacada, the Leader needs to get a lot of pivot, but if he is not physically capable of it, or does not have really long legs to step through, he can cheat on his back step by doing a back cross step. Still, the Leader must try to look at the Follower during the back sacada to maintain connection and a sense of where she is, and try to create his own spiral in his body.

Next, we attempted to combine what we learned to the Follower forward boleo using her left leg on the closed side, immediately into a Follower overturned left leg back sacada of Leader's right leg. If Leader's left arm does not have a lot of control, he will send (knock) her off her axis. If Leader is receiving a Follower back sacada, he must not jam her. He has to create space by going a little away from her. Felipe said Leader should try to create space for Follower on the step before, when she is doing the boleo. Homer and Cristina said you can create space by stepping away at the end. Either way, both said Leader should not jam the Follower and must create space.

Next, we did the Follower overturned back sacada. Felipe clarified his "looking for the triangle" technique for the Leader to set this up. The Follower's standing foot is one corner of the triangle. The Leader's two other feet make the other two corners to give her a place to go into with her overturned back sacada as Leader steps around her in a circle.

The final concept of the class involved doing a different type of sacada after the boleo -- the "fourth sacada." Here, the Follower does a back sacada, then immediately Leader does a back sacada, they continue to do this, on both sides.

The final, final concept of the class involved the Follower forward boleo, directly into a Follower back sacada using the same boleoing leg, to cause Leader to do an enrosque (pivoted forward cross), directly into a leader back sacada.

Our conclusions: What's difficult or easy for the Follower may not be difficult or easy for the Leader with respect to the sides they are dancing on. For some moves, the open side is easier, for others, the closed side. For some moves, the Leader might think the open side is easier, others the closed side. The Leader really needs to manage the embrace and what he's doing with his left and right hands and arms when he does back sacadas. Our experiment in co-teaching was to give instruction differently from each other, sharing our perspectives, and saying it in a different way from each other that might resonate better with the students and give them a different, more complete viewpoint.

To Canaro's Organito de la Tarde, Homer & Cristina did a partial demo with some movements, focusing on the initial setup for the framework for the class concept of executing different moves on both the close and open side of the embrace for both the Leaders and Followers.

The milonga was fun; it wasn't super crowded since there were six other milongas that night (we are very blessed in the Bay Area) so there were no floorcraft issues. Cristina, as usual, did a fabulous job catering. There was a veggie platter, a cheese platter, crackers, sliced fruit, blackberries and pomegranate seeds in a ginger sauce, a hot artichoke and spinach quiche-like dip, a roasted pepper and eggplant dip, and yummy Indian rice pudding.

Saturday, January 24, 2009
Homer & Cristina Ladas Intermediate Intensivo on "The Hard Side." (see the video at www.tangostudent.blogspot.com)
We began with the same exercise as yesterday, with the leader standing and leading the Follower to do three steps of the molinete in front of him, then pivot her around using a forward ocho or back ocho to do the molinete the other way. We discussed which side was easier or more difficult, and some potential reasons why (see yesterday's notes).

We worked on the Leader's technique, an exercise where he avoids using his right hand in leading ochos (though it is OK for him to use his arm). Here, the Follower still maintains connection and contact with the Leader with her left hand on his bicep. Like yesterday, maestros reiterated repeatedly that the Follower should keep her hips close to the Leader, and actively try to maintain her spiral by facing the Leader as much as possible. The Follower needs to be on her axis, with no lean forward, chest up, nose back, and joints stacked on top of each other.

Then we worked on the rebound/switch step/rebote. Here, the Leader uses stop compression in the embrace, using both his hands. Follower's arm connection to Leader is equally distributed among both her arms (50% each arm). When does the Leader lead the Follower to do the switch? Before the point of no return. If the Follower's hips go past a certain point, it will be a boleo, not a switch step.

We did one dance changing between ochos and switch steps to feel and to understand the change of embrace from open to close, and to understand the different physical demands of the open side versus the close side, and the energy intention of the soft switch versus a quick switch, with the Leader's experimenting with the amount and speed of compression in the arms and the energy in his spine.

Next, we did a series of linear switch steps to the easy (open) side (Leader goes left while Follower goes right). (The hard side is for the Follower to go left, Leader to go right.) Basically, it was a series of short forward step, pivot to face each other, short forward step, pivot to face each other, etc., with Leader snapping his hips to get good rebound energy to stop Follower. We experimented here with tight weight changes with feet together or looser weight changes with more open steps. One creative idea: Anything done in a line can be done in a curve or circle, counterclockwise or clockwise. So then we played with this step, with Leader doing small, tight pivoting in place while Follower steps around him in tight switch steps, and then the Follower doing small, tight pivoting in place, while the Leader steps around her in tight switch steps. The difficult thing about this is that sometimes the Leader's left hand pumps the Follower's right hand or he may use his right hand as he attempts to force her to pivot. If he does this, the Follower cannot feel any rebound energy. To remedy this, the Leader can practice this by himself, holding his left hand up as if it is sliding across a wall while he does a series of tight pivots linearly. This "wall", this plane between the Leader and Follower, is important since that is where the rebound comes from. So here, the Leader's left arm and Follower's right hand need to be on a straight line, with no push or pull.

Next, we worked on the ocho and blocking the ocho to rebound her back, in addition to working the boleo. Again, if the rebound energy is too late, you will get a boleo. The Leader's right arm and forearm are used to lead, but not the right hand.

Since our boleos didn't look very good, we all did some exercises to work on the technique so that we could get high energy for snappy boleos. The dancer plants his left foot, while trying to whack his butt with his right foot (thigh is lifted). Here we were to rotate our hips to do this, but not pivot, so we could get a whipping motion, striking the floor like a match to get the whacking sound on our left butt cheek. For the feet, point them and turn them out when it leaves the floor, and be sure foot doesn't sickle. As always, soften the knee of the supporting standing leg. Follower needs to be ready to take the rebound.

Next, the Leaders attempted to lead a back ocho after the Follower's front boleo on both the open and close side.

Next, we did Leader and Follower back sacadas, working on the hard side and easy side. For the Leader, it's a stretch on the back sacada of his right leg of Follower's trailing left foot on the open side of the embrace. On the close side, Leader does back sacada of his left leg of Follower's trailing right foot. In doing sacadas, chest needs to remain up, and there is a breaking of the embrace on the close side. Importantly, we quickly practiced changing the embrace with respect to the Leader's left hand and Follower's right hand, whereby his thumb goes on top of the back of the Follower's hand, and then he reaches his other fingers underneath. This type of hold is common in ballroom, and this change in hand embrace is necessary for the Leader to get her hand behind the left side of his back as his left arm does an L behind his back to do his back sacada of his right leg of Follower's trailing left leg on the open side of the embrace. When changing the hand embrace, the Leader leads her to pivot, and should try to do the hand transition in the middle of her step.

When doing the Leader's back sacada on the close (easy) side of the embrace, there is a transition of the Leader's right hand down Follower's back. Here, the Follower's arm must not be underneath the Leader's arm; it can be over or on top of/ on the outside of Leader's arm.

We discussed but did not have the time to do any rebounding off boleos into back sacadas.

Maestros did a demo of what was taught to Di Sarli's Viviani.

Monday, January 26, 2009
The Beat Orange Practica with lesson by Homer and Cristina Ladas: "The Decarean School" (see the video at www.tangostudent.blogspot.com)

We began dancing with two songs by Julio de Caro: Tierra Negra and Anibal Troilo, to introduce us to the Julio de Caro sound.

Next, we danced to segments of four songs: D'Arienzo's El Flete, de Caro's El Monito, Canaro's La Melodia de Nuestro Adios, and de Caro's Mi Dolor. We then discussed the comparisons and contrasts among the different orchestras (staccato, a way of straining instruments, more soloists and when they happen, the wobble, the variación -- de Caro created the formula for solo improvs -- "variaciones").

The first element of de Caro's music that we explored was Pausing and Breathing. We attempted to stretch our dance movement though the shimmy or two-foot ideas (with our weight on two feet and legs open). Here, we attempted to work on articulation of the hips in an unconventional way, where the hips are more separate from the torso, playing with the concept of different ways to articulate our hips, and the flexion in our knees, in both linear and side articulation. It was noted that this move was somewhat bluesy. We did this to de Caro's Mala Junta.

We continued our discussion of de Caro's music: how there were shifts, that it was rich in variación with lots of unaccompanied solos, the element of "whistling", how de Caro's music was known more for innovations than playing virtuosity, the use of his specially made violin-coronet, the music's playfulness, sometimes the strong beat is missing, during which you can switch into pitter-patter mode.

The second element we explored in our dance was the planted two-foot pivot. Here, the Leader takes two steps forward, plants the Follower while her left foot is back and right foot is forward, then the Leader walks around her clockwise; her upper body follows his, maintaining connection, until all of the weight transfers fully to her forward right foot, at which point his continual motion around her causes her left leg to free so she pivots all the way around on her right leg. One option to this is that the Leader can change direction both ways clockwise and counterclockwise, forward and back, to unwind the Follower the other way.

Followers should take their time coming to their axis on this move (go ahead and hang out). She can easily practice this by herself, transferring weight as she rotates around one side to another. For a more advanced Follower technique, she can play with the way her body moves as the Leader walks around her, letting her knees go so that they open up the hips, where there's a delay of movement from one joint to another. Generally, the hips turn first, then the knees follow. However, sometimes there is a movement where both knees are turned out.

For the Leader' technique, it is important that he lets his right hand go (just like for all big pivots or big ochos), still providing a frame in which the Follower can move, but not restricting her body rotation, as her rib cage has to be free to have maximum torsion without any hand pressure from him. At the point of where the Leader plants the Follower, he actually stops short of the middle as the Follower's foot starts to put the weight down. For the Leader, it is important that he walks around close to the Follower, and that he attempts to walk around the standing, pivoting leg of the Follower. The Leader should envision an invisible circle that he has to walk around the Follower, using her right leg as the center of the circle as his goal. If he walks too far away, he will pull her and she will fall.

Next, we attempted to focus the energy on the release to try to lead a boleo at the end.

Next, we changed the ending into a volcada instead of boleo. The trick was that the release of energy is farther away when the volcada is led.

We then tried it in close embrace, and also changed the ending to a shared single axis turn, or the two foot shimmy out to resolution.

The concept of strechiness can be found in many orchestras (Troilo, Pugliese, Donato, Laurenz). About 80% of de Caro's music is instrumental, with only about 20% having vocals.

To conclude, we danced to two de Caro songs: Derecho Viejo, and a milonga, Saca Chispas.

It was noted that de Caro was so interconnected with the musicians of the time, that Piazzolla wrote a tribute to de Caro. Pugliese was such an admiring student of de Caro that he dedicated a whole album to him.

Maestros did a demo of what we learned to de Caro's Anibal Troilo.

Shared class materials were from:
http://www.todotango.com/english/creadores/jdecaro.asp
"History of Tango Music" masters thesis by Pablo Aslan
A page from the coffee table book called Tango (picture of de Caro's orchestra, and he with his violin-coronet)
A tango diagram of orchestras and composers "Cuadro Relacionador de estilos orquestales"
Maestro's handwritten class outline

Wednesday, January 28, 2009
CCSF Classes: In Follower's Technique, the topic was Posture, Core Strength, and Walking. Maestra had a handout (Health and Fitness for Life). The video segment was Rebecca Shulman on Posture (Bridge to the Tango series). Rebecca spoke about breathing and how it expanded the rib cage in three different directions: up, to the side, and forward. The ribs filling automatically helps keep the belly in. She also talked about the concept of improving posture by improving our breathing, and how good breathing and posture increased the space between our rib cage and hips. To use this in our tango, our breathing helps us get lift first, and then we can go forward with our chest. The rib cage and arms are related, and Rebecca recommends dropping the elbow so it points down to the floor, and keeping the back of the neck long. After the video, we did some walking exercises, with the tuck and rulo embellishments, and practiced the concept of catching the end of the beat and using all of the music in our movement. We did our usual floor exercises to increase core strength, torsion range of motion, and leg flexibility. At the barre, we continued our work on walking, and walked backwards this time (using Piazzolla's Buenos Aires Hora Cero).

In Advanced, continued our work on the sequence we learned the first day in class ("sequences around your partner"): 8CB to 5 (cross), Leader's legs are crossed in the back (right leg behind left). Then Leader simultaneously unlocks himself and the Follower from her cross. Follower steps forward clockwise with her right leg, Leader does right leg sacada of Follower's trailing left leg. Then Leader pivots Follower around, so she steps forward with her left leg to sacada Leader's right leg. Leader crosses behind (weight change), pivots as she steps forward with her right leg, and goes in to do a sacada with his left leg of her trailing right leg, pivots, and spirals back out to resolution (Follower steps back with her right leg). Then we revisited the ending we didn't quite get the first week, Maestra had us work on an exercise to help us get just the ending, where Leader leads Follower to do a forward ocho to the open side, outstepping her to his left side, so that as she steps down on the open side, he changes her direction by pivoting her clockwise so she takes a back step out to resolution. Here, the Leader can't let the momentum die, otherwise it won't work. This exercise helped immensely in solidifying what we were trying to accomplish in the last part of the sequence.

COME JOIN ME!

Friday, January 30, 2009
Milonga & Artist Reception for Soad Kader @ TangoVida
Diamond Heights Milonga

Saturday, January 31, 2009
The Late Shift with Tango Con*Fusion's 5 Year Anniversary (with cake, performance, and boutique).

January 15-21

Friday, January 16, 2009
Monte Cristo Milonga with lesson by Cecilia Gonzalez and Donato Juarez: Parada and Pasadas. We did a regular parada and pasada. Leader's right foot meets Follower's right foot on closed side of the embrace. Weight transfer. Leader goes back to give Follower room to rotate and do her pasada from the closed side to open. Technical points: Don't be too tense with the arms. Leader's right foot goes toward the center of Follower's foot to give her room to pivot. If it's too near the heel, she can't pivot. If it's too close, she doesn't have room to move. Next: Leader right foot steps back, Follower left foot steps back outside partner. There is a change of direction to other side. Leader does forward ocho while Follower does back ocho. Leader's left leg paradas (with weight change back to front and around); Follower does right leg pasada to the close side of the embrace as she stands on her left supporting leg. Follower forward ocho to resolution. Technical points: Follower always bends knees. Next: Follower back ocho to close side of the embrace. Leader's left leg "sacadas" Follower's left leg. Next: Leader left leg steps forward outside (Follower right leg steps back); Leader's right leg steps forward (foot can be a bit angled in to help with what's coming next), while Follower left leg steps back. Leader pivots counterclockwise on his right foot (foot turns to point toes into 10:00) to do a back sacada catch with is left leg of Follower's left leg. Leader does reverse pasada with his right leg, stepping back over Follower's left leg. Follower does pasada with her right leg (standing on supporting left leg) from open to close side of the embrace. Technical points: Leader needs to relax the embrace as he pivots around in the back sacada catch, and the Leader's feet touches the Follower's foot, but not too close because she needs room to pivot. Next: Leader right foot steps forward, Follower left foot steps back. Leader left foot forward parada while Follower steps right back. Leader's left leg; Follower's left leg. Leader pasadas with right leg clockwise. Follower's right leg steps forward. Leader sacadas with his left leg the Follower's trailing left leg. Leader sacadas with his Right leg the Follower's trailing right leg. Since the class was extremely crowded and the students very intent and enthusiastic about trying out what they learned, Maestra emphasized that as dancers, we are part of the community of Argentine Tango dancers at the milongas and in class, so it is very important that we pay attention to floorcraft as we are part of a shared bigger picture. Despite her emphasis, the floorcraft at the milonga afterwards was unruly.

Saturday, January 17, 2009
Cecilia Gonzalez and Donato Juarez workshops.
(1) Milonga: Looking Beyond Traspie. Indeed we did. We worked a lot on pivoting around each other and changes of direction, Follower forward sacadas and Follower boleos in the context of milonga.

(2) Ganchos: Get it right! Technical aspects in depth. We began with one dance doing all the ganchos we knew. First gancho: In cross system, we began with the Follower back ocho. Leader steps to the side. Follower does overturned back ocho, back step right leg. Leader "sacadas" with his right foot, the Follower's right leg, with his heel a little up and knee bent and rotated a bit. Follower does gancho of Leader's right leg with her left foot, with her hips facing away from Leader. Next, we tried doing this on the other side, where we needed to open the embrace a little bit to make this work. Here, it was especially important that the Leader really lead the overturned back ocho so the Follower is near and goes around very close to him. The Leader lets the shoulders open on the close side of the embrace to lead the Follower's overturned back ocho easier. The Leader's embrace changes, as Leader's left hand goes in close to his shoulder when he leads the Follower to overturned back ochos on the open side of the embrace. Next, we combined two ganchos in the line of dance with the idea of leading ganchos to the outside of the dance floor, so there is a Leader pivot in between each gancho. The Follower steps forward with her right leg, then a Follower left side step pivot, stepping back with her left leg to do a back gancho with her right leg of Leader's left leg on the open side of the embrace. Next: In a 45 degree V embrace, the Leader's right leg meets Follower cross (no weight change for Leader, but weight change for Follower because of cross). Leader arrives to his axis, transfers the energy to release Follower's right leg, then he brings her back into him to gancho his extended right leg as they face each other on the close side of the embrace. Technical points: In the gancho, the Follower's knee points down. She must always be on her axis and maintain connection while doing the gancho, and when she does the gancho, she should have the same energy as what the Leader leads (not overdoing it or underdoing it). The ganchoing leg movement is from the thigh/hip joint (not just below the knee). The supporting standing leg is bent. The Follower's thigh makes contact with with the Leader's thighs. Leaders should not wait to for the gancho; they must lead it.

(3) Ganchos for Men and Women. New, exciting (and challenging) combinations with ganchos. In close embrace, Follower steps side right, Follower steps left foot forward, leader steps back left and turns hips. Leader does right leg gancho of Follower's forward stepping left leg. Dancers are at 90 degrees to each other, with their hips touching. Follower does back ocho, going forward and back, with Leader (not when Leader goes side to side) on the open side of the embrace. Leader leading the intention of the boleo turned this Follower overturned back ocho into into back linear boleo (gancho) through Leader's legs. For Follower's technique: She should pivot with her feet together, then let the leg go straight back at the last moment between the Leader's legs.

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Cecilia Gonzalez and Donato Juarez workshops.
(4) Giros in Combinations (i.e., sacadas). Techniques absolutely necessary for lever level of tango. Follower did counterclockwise molinete: back left, side right, forward left, collect. Leader's part during this time: he does his weight changes, etc., and he also steps around the Follower (he does not stand in place). Pivot to change direction to clockwise molinete: back right, side left, forward right (Leader does left leg sacada of Follower's trailing left leg), small side left (like a collection) to resolution. We spent a lot of time on this, specifically the timing and trying to staying the line of dance and our floorcrafting. Follower must not be too stiff. Next: Follower steps back left (Leader forward right), to clockwise molinete: Follower does back right (Leader forward right to take space Follower leaves), side left, forward right (Leader left leg sacada of Follower's trailing left leg). Next: Counterclockwise molinete: Follower Back left, side right, forward left, side right, back left. First ending: back ocho reverse to other side back, side. Second ending: collect, turn her to do clockwise molinete forward right, side left, back right, pivot back into line of dance.

(5) Sacadas for Him & Her. Indispensable technique. From the normal system walk, there is a stop and pivot. Follower does forward ochos while Leader does side steps, back into normal system walk. Follower counterclockwise molinete of forward left, side right, while Leader does pivot on his right leg to do back sacada of left leg of Follower's trailing left leg. Next: Follower does back ochos, to the left and to the right, while Leader steps opposite to where the Follower is. This was tricky. On the closed side of the embrace, after the weight transfer of her back ocho lands on her right foot, she does overturned back ocho so her left leg sacadas, going back in between leader's legs. Follower's technique: She needs to pivot a lot, but not twist the spine more. Her right arm needs to be free, not blocking the range of motion, to have maximum pivots. The leg that sacadas (enters) is weightless, and then after that there is a transfer of weight (so you don't kick through or cause pain to the sacada receiver). From the close side: Back ocho. Overturned back ocho. Follower left leg sacadas in between Leader's legs. Leader and Follower back sacads in the context of turning and swirling around each other. Open the steps so he can enter.

(6) Planeos and Sacadas. Beautiful complex combos for men and women! First: Men's Planeo as Follower molinetes clockwise around him. He does the amague needle of his right leg while standing on his supporting left leg, into a reverse rulo into a right leg sacada int Follower's trailing left leg. Second: Follower Planeo: From Follower forward ochos, as she steps left toward the open side of the embrace, the Leader projects the energy intentional diagonally and down, so she does an exaggerated ocho of her right leg way out behind and to the right side, then Leader lets the energy back up at the point of Follower collection. It is not necessary for the Leader to go down too as the Follower goes down, but he can. His goal here was to try to just lead her energy intention down while he remain upright. Third: The relationship of dancers was similar to the Funny Volacada, only the angle of lean is with Follower forward. Follower steps forward left as dancers are in 90 degree angle toward each other. Leader oversteps her so Follower if off axis, with body tilted forward. Her right leg is free, so it falls forward and then leader leads it to cross in front of her supporting standing left leg. For the leader there is no twist of hips. For the leader to lead this, he just needs to overstep to the outside of her to get her right leg to be free, and then side step to the his right to get her free right leg to back cross in front of her left leg. Fourth: This was an away outside planeo, using colgada energy. From the Follower ochos overturned forward ocho, Follower steps forward with her left leg, while Leader steps outside and diagonally forward (parallel to hers) with his left leg. This sends the energy intention of her right leg out, then it comes back in to cross in front of her left leg. There is a weight change to pivot around so her weight is now on her standing supporting right leg (basically, this whole right leg out to pivot then change weight to stand on right leg is a needle [aguja]), then her left leg does back sacada between Leader's legs. To emphasize again: The embraced has to be relaxed here, otherwise movement will be blocked. We then linked this last "planeo" to the Leader's needle/rulo/sacada "planeo" during Follower clockwise molinete.

Quite frankly, I was a little disappointed with these workshops (so it was kind of agony transcribing my notes). The workshop titles seemed to emphasize technique, yet there was little discussion of the any in-depth technical aspects. Mostly, maestros taught very interesting steps/sequences, many that I had never done or thought of before, but some were the standard same old, same old (Leader's back sacada, anyone?!). One interesting thing I noticed about Maestra's teaching style (Maestro spoke in Spanish so Maestra translated), was that her language and verbiage is different from what I am accustomed to. So it was more difficult for me to understand her audibly even though she spoke fluent English. In describing what went on in class, I have used my verbiage, not hers (especially for the planeo class...it seems she calls lots of moves planeos, even though I would have labeled them agujas [needles], volcadas, colgadas, rulos, exaggerated ochos, etc.). That being said, I did like maestros' communication energy -- they are very calm, their voices melodic and soothing, with a very patient cadence. And kudos for them for reiterating ad nauseum the importance of floorcraft and being in community with other dancers, so point your boleos and ganchos outside so none of the other dancers on the floor will get hurt.

Studio Gracia Milonga. I missed the lesson by Negracha y Diego, but had a fantastic time at the milonga itself though it very crowded, and floorcraft was an issue at times. Regardless, the milonga was great fun and I had a truly splendid time catching up on dancing with many of my favorite leaders. There were many folks who were celebrating their birthdays, so the birthday vals was quite crowded. We had two large cakes to celebrate. Negracha y Diego did two dance demos. We attempted to do Chacarera, but Diego was not happy with the Chacarera song the DJ played. Negracha y Diego will be back in the SF Bay Area in May. Woo hoo!! The Bay Area tango community is truly blessed to have such talented maestros visit us so often and for such extended periods of time.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Studio TangoVida. In Fundamentals, we worked on walking: forward, back, with partner. We also worked on leading: how to do it, where does it come from, specifically how to move the Follower's legs. It is important to think of the legs as starting from the rib cage. To help us understand this concept, we did partnered exercises: Leaders held on to Followers' rib cage and moved her right land left with his torso and hands. We moved Followers side to side, then side to pivot around left and right. Then we walked and did a fast shakey shakey (pivot). The trick to getting her to stay on her leg and pivot was to give her a slight lift. Then we walked in the embrace, forward, side to side, and paused.

In Dramatic Tango, we worked on a very simple parada in the close side from Follower clockwise molinete. Follower steps side right (Leader side left); left leg back ocho, back right, side left, front right, Leader rotates Follower, Leader paradas with his right leg, Follower pasadas with her left leg. Optional pasada embellishments: Knee Up with or without air circle or air bat side to side, caracia down other side. Maestro spoke a bit about the "variación" in tango music (specifically Pugliese, Troilo, and Laurenz, but it happens in a lot of other composers' and orchestras' music too) -- which is when the bandoneon comes in; here is where you should save your best "showy" moves.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009
CCSF Classes. In Followers' Technique we did our usual walking, barre, and floor exercises, focusing on perfecting our walks and weight changes, and adding tuck embellishments, as well as focusing on getting liveliness and animation from our trailing foot. In Advanced we worked on a lot of walking exercises with and without partner, with the tuck embellishment, and the right turn.


COME JOIN ME!

Friday, January 23, 2009
Homer & Cristina Advanced Seminario co-taught with Felipe y Rosa on "The Hard Side"

Saturday, January 24, 2009
Homer & Cristina Intermediate Intensivo co taught with Felipe y Rosa on "The Hard Side"
Gustavo & Jesica Hornos workshop & milonga in Sausalito

Sunday, January 25, 2009
Jorge Torres workshops @ Alberto's:
1:00-2:30 p.m. Surprising Changes of Direction
3:00-4:30 p.m.. Fluid Turns in open and close embrace
5:00-6:30 p.m.. Dramatic & Dynamic Energy for social dancing
Studio Gracia Chinese New Year's Milonga

Monday, January 26, 2009
Orange Practica @ The Beat with lesson by Homer and Cristina Ladas: Decareay School of Music.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Studio TangoVida

Wednesday, January 28, 2009
CCSF classes with Chelsea Eng -- time is running out to add... be there or be square

Scouting Tour (January 8-14)

Thursday, January 8, 2009
Milonga Roja @ La Pista, with lesson by Homer and Cristina Ladas: Organic Leader's Back Sacada

We began with one dance, trying to do lots of turns and Leader's back sacadas so maestros could see where we were skillwise. Apparently, it did not impress them. ;o)

For Leader's back sacadas, the molinete (turn) technique is very important. So we began with Followers doing counterclockwise molinetes, the goal of which was that the Follower take big smooth steps around the Leader, and employing good technique during her reach, collect, pivot, and weight transfers. Follower should always be behind Leader, and make steps as even and smooth as possible. For the Leader, there is a pull lead in his left hand (as opposed to a push lead). This Leader's left hand pull lead is important because for the organic back sacada, the lead is also from the pull of the Leader's left hand (as felt by Follower's right hand).

ORGANIC LEADER'S BACK SACADA FROM LINEAR GRAPEVINE
For the organic back sacada, we began with the Leader doing a linear grapevine pattern of FWD - SIDE - BACK (big pivot) (and here where it should be a SIDE step) BACK SACADA. The Follower takes big, equal steps, especially on her side step, where she receives the Leader's back sacada. For the Follower, her steps are BACK - SIDE - FORWARD - SIDE (on this side step is where the Leader does his back sacada through her legs). The Leader must really engage his left arm lead so that Follower feels his pull during his back sacada (this was emphasized repeatedly throughout the lesson). At the point of the Leader's back sacada, the Leader lets his right arm go to give Follower room to get around because he is coming into her space. The Leader's back sacada might not be directly on the line (but should be very close to being in line). You can also try this on the other side (pull would be from the opposite arm).

For Leader's technique, he can practice the grapevine pattern alone:
-Walking in a line.
-Practicing the pivot: for the pivot he should keep his spine very straight to keep his axis, and not tilt his head forward or back or in a strange way as it will throw his balance and posture off.
-Working on his upright posture and straight forward walking and solid foot placement by imagining he is on a balance beam in the Olympics.
-This grapevine pattern is more difficult to do alone because we give each other balance when we dance together.

For Follower's technique, she must keep her spine straight, chest up, have no forward lean in her posture to create space for each other, but not be too far away from each other.

Because we weren't getting enough torsion when we attempted to do the Leader's back sacada, we did some muscle memory EXERCISES to work on our pivots and hip rotation:
(1) The Turn Game: We were to do molinetes (turns) with each other, and on the BACK step (of FWD-SIDE-BACK-SIDE-REPEAT) we were to see who could pivot more (the goal was to get lots of pivot in our hips).
(2) The Walking Game: Followers did maximally overturned back ochos while Leaders did maximally overturned forward ochos; then we switched roles with Follower doing maximally overturned forward ochos and Leaders doing maximally overturned back ochos.

Then we went back to trying the original liner organic back sacada from the grapevine. We improved and went onto the next back sacada:

4-STEP SHORTENED ORGANIC LEADER'S BACK SACADA
For the Leader:
(1) Leader steps side left (Follower steps side right) as if he is getting on the balance beam.
(2) Leader right foot steps straight forward
(and) Leader pivots, with hips coming around 70% of the way, and right hand needs to let go and drop. At this point the Leader's left hand compresses in to stop Follower from stepping, because any pressure will make her step to the side too early.
(3) Leader's does back sacada with his left leg as his hips pivot around the rest of the way (30%)
(4) Collect.

For the Follower:
(1) Follower steps side right
(2) Follower left foot steps straight back
(and) right foot collects
(3) Right foot steps side right, curving around Leader
(4) As Leader does his organic back sacada, her left leg peels away as a consequence to exit.

We can do this in close embrace, but Leader must let Follower go to her axis by letting go. Leader lets go with right hand, while left hand stays fixed.

For the exit when Follower receives the sacada, there are options for her free left leg:
(1) She can do a floor fan, which opens out and away, fanning with the arch on the floor, and fan out with either the toe or heel on the floor.
(2) She can receive the sacada and have her leg peel away with her knee up, raised but keeping her leg close to the Leader's body. Her toes should be pointed down to the floor, and she should not open up her hips, but keep them close.
With both of these options, the Follower needs to be strong and supportive in her standing leg so that the free leg can be articulate (and she has more control over the movement and aesthetics of what the free leg is doing).

For the Leader during the sacada, his heel should be where it normally is when walking backward. Since many leaders do not walk backward at all, as a reminder he would use the same technique as Followers use when walking backward: Stretch the leg back, don't lift heel too high, and don't bop up and down, but try to have body remain on one constant level.

Maestros concluded with a demo to DiSarli's Nada with vocals by Alberto Podesta. tangostudent was not there to film it, but another student did. Hopefully he will forward it so we can post for all to see... or hey, maybe if someone would underwrite the cost of a digital camera, I'd have incentive to learn how to take the footage as well. ;o)


I didn't stay for the milonga, as this new job and the commute has really wiped me out energywise. But my brain is more fully engaged than it's ever been, and I am thrilled and excited to be learning so much. It's only been 4 days, but things just feel really RIGHT, and it sure as heck beats waiting for yet another axe to fall on Wall Street.


Friday, January 9, 2009
Tango Magdalena Milonga in Oakland. This was a milonga only, no lesson beforehand. I was curious about this place since it's relatively new (the studio has only been open since February 2008), and was recommended by Maestro Shvarts. The space is in a charming building where you have to walk up to the third floor. If you park on the side of the street where the building is, you need to move your car by midnight since there is street cleaning (it's better to park across the street). The ballroom is small, but cozy and comfortable. The hosts, Jean-Pierre Sighe and Bianca Blesching, are very warm and gracious people, and danced with everyone in attendance. Jean-Pierre is a tremendous dancer in terms of musicality, life in his feet, and solid embrace and connection. The milonga was not crowded (a pity), so the dancers could really go all out and not worry much about floorcraft (a plus). The floor is softwood, I believe (or at least a very soft hardwood). The food was simple, but elegant, ample, healthy and satisfying (blueberries, oranges, apples, persimmons, cheese, crackers, chocolate truffles, fruitcake, cookies). There was wine and water. This was an unpretentious, friendly milonga, and I am glad I went. I had a good time, despite the low number of dancers (who were thankfully reasonably skilled). Music was mostly traditional, with a nuevo and salsa tanda thrown in later in the evening. Check it out!

Sunday, January 11, 2009
Cafe Cocomo Milonga with lesson by Christy Cote and Adolfo. I skipped the lesson, but heard the tail end. Maestros taught walking, the embrace, the 8CB, the molinete, the ocho cortado and an interesting turn variation based on the molinete. The milonga itself was quite fun and extremely well attended (including lots of local and visiting maestros and folks from the C&C CITA 2008 group). DJ Polo did a nice job as usual. The food was more ample than usual, with the addition of a brownie dessert and more nuts to the usual spread of salami, ham, saltines, cheese, olive dip and tomato dip, and pretzels.


Monday, January 12, 2009
La Cumparsita Milonga with lesson by visiting maestros Cecilia Gonzalez and Donato Juarez: Boleos. They went right into the step: Leader steps side left (Follower steps side right), Follower steps back left (Leader forward right), Follower back ocho, Follower back boleo with right leg, collect. For the boleo, the idea is to first let the Follower's body go, continue the movement with hips, and at the last moment the leg goes up. During the boleo, the Follower's supporting leg is bent. For the Leader, he goes longer on the side step. On the forward step, he turns a little so the intention to turn is already there. The Follower feels the transfer of weight. The Leader accompanies her in the steps, so she feels the turn. Basically, he walks around her to make the energy circular. Next, the Leader steps right foot forward, the intention is with stepping circularly. Then he does a side step in the same direction, then returns, then collects and walks out. This is a regular with boleo. Note here the embrace is suspended, but the Leader doesn't push. Next, we did a variation, changing the ending: Instead of the Leader stepping side left (and follower doing the back boleo after that), the Leader does a back cross step with his left leg to lead a contra boleo. Then Leader steps side right. Maestra noted that boleos should always be done to the outside of the dance floor to not hurt other dancers. It is important to take care of the other people around you and not hurt other dancers when you are doing boleos. Floorcraftwise, first you do the pivots, then the leg gets sent out so that you are taking the space you are leaving. Technical notes: the Leader should be sure to lead the pivot of the Follower. Follower's boleoing free leg needs to be relaxed; the most important leg is actually the bent free standing leg; the boleoing leg should be articulated from the hip (not just the knee); the boleoing free leg is behind the standing leg, and goes around the supporting leg. Leader should try to collect before he goes backward. Next, we did forward boleos: Follower does forward ochos. Then Leader and Follower steps right with right, with weight on the same leg, or left with left, with weight on the same leg. On the close side of the embrace, Leader turns follower clockwise, Follower does front boleo with her left leg. For Follower options: (1) The left leg goes down to the floor on right side of right foot to collect to other side (left) of right foot, or (2) just return (collect) to the left side of right foot. Next, we tried the other side: On the open side of the embrace, the Leader turns counterclockwise, the Follower's right leg does boleo as the left leg is supporting standing leg. Our homework is to try to be in front of each other and to practice these movements to the left and to the right. The Leader's hips face the Follower (don't overturn his torso); Torsos should mostly be facing each other; the Leader produces the boleo.

January 13, 2009
TangoVida: Beginner Technique. The studio at TangoVida has been rearranged, so now there is even more dance space. Maestros decided to do a Beginner Technique class since the levels in their other classes started to spread out and they decided a return to the basics were in order. Maestros noted to be a good dancer, you need three things: Rhythm 50% (can be learned); Technique 25% (can be learned), and Elegance 25% (which can't be learned [ed. note: I disagree]). Elegance is the way you carry yourself. We began with maestro's usual musicality clapping exercise, working on strong beats (1), the syncopas (1-2, 4-1), tiempo, doble tiempo, contra tiempo. Next, we practiced walking on the beat. Maestra noted that the head and hips are the heaviest parts of the body, and that the goal in walking is to get the thighs behind the butt. Next, we walked in the shopping cart hold, then in the embrace. Then we did the 6-step box (from the Leader's perspective since I led): (1) side left outside, (2) Forward right outside, (3) forward left inside, (4) side right inside, (5) change weight, (6) back right inside. We also practiced adjusting the step doing side changes to the Leader's right side.

TangoVida: Dramatic Tango. We did a very basic Leader parada, Follower pasada step. I attempted to lead. Leader steps side left, does weight change, Leader does another side left step while he turns the right side of his body counterclockwise (to wind her up and free her back left leg), then he steps with his right foot in a curved in manner to stop her right foot. She sandwiches his right foot, then steps over with her left feet. She has options for embellishments in her pasada: the half moon on the floor before stepping over, the raise up of her knee as she steps over, the caracia on outside of her right leg. This was much trickier to lead than I realized. I had trouble cranking her up to free her left leg, and getting her to stay on her right supporting standing leg.

January 14, 2009
CCSF Classes: In Follower's Technique, we didn't do any floor exercises since it was the first day of class and many students weren't dressed properly to get down on the floor. We did our walking exercises, worked at the barre, and did a new connection/sensitivity exercise with rubber bands. It's great to be back. In Advanced, we learned a new sequence, based on the topic of the night: bodies turning, swirling around each other. 8CB to 5 (cross), Leader's legs are crossed in the back (right leg behind left). Then Leader simultaneously unlocks himself and the Follower from her cross. Follower steps forward with her right leg, Leader does sacada of his right leg to Follower's trailing left leg. Then Leader pivots Follower around, so she steps forward with her right leg as Leader steps back with his right, then they pivot around again to resolution into line of dance. Follower optional embellishment: Tuck front after the cross but before stepping forward with right leg before Leader's sacada of her trailing left leg. Then, maestra changed this figure to incorporate more sacadas: In the Follower's forward step, she sacadas Leader's right leg as he goes to the left side (clockwise). Th Leader crosses behind (weight change), pivots as she steps forward with her right leg, and goes in to do a sacada with his left leg of her trailing left leg, pivots, and spirals back out to resolution (Follower steps back with her right leg). After this maestra changed the figure again, specifically the ending, and this is where my brain melted in terms of trying to write down and describe what I saw. No worries though, I am sure we will review it next week.

COME JOIN ME!
Thursday, January 15, 2009
TangoVida

Friday, January 16, 2009
Monte Cristo Milonga with lesson by Cecilia Gonzalez and Donato Juarez

Saturday, January 17, 2009
Cecilia Gonzalez and Donato Juarez workshops (bring your own skilled partner).
The Late Shift with lesson by Ney Melo and Jennifer Brattt

Sunday, January 18, 2009
Cecilia Gonzalez and Donato Juarez workshops (bring your own skilled partner).