Dancing Soul

Heels down or heels up?

A Facebook discussion going on about whether you should have your heels down or up for dancing tango made me decide to tell my pain-to-no-pain story about why I changed my technique to using my heels on the floor for Argentine Tango.

When I started dancing tango in 1995, no one told us what to do with our heels. Many of the teachers who came through were men who focused on teaching combinations of fancy steps. Although I was studying and taking notes every workshop I took, I have no notes on what to do with my feet from those first few years, except for Luciana Valle's advice to "lick the floor with your feet" which focused on articulating your step, but we seemed to mostly practice it walking forward, so again, I had few notes on how to walk backwards.

My first few visits to Buenos Aires in 1999-2001, I spent a few months dancing and trying different techniques.  I studied with Tete and Silvia, Omar Vega, Chicho Frumboli, Gustavo and Giselle, Luciana Valle, Jose Garafolo, Chiche and Marta, the Puglieses, Graciela Gonzalez, and Oscar Mandagaran. As usual, no two teachers said exactly the same thing, as many of them danced different styles. I ended up with a lot of material to teach in terms of patterns and steps, but no clear path in terms of walking technique.

Dancing in the milongas, I learned to get my heels down, so that I didn't spike other people, and so that I had better balance. This helped cut down on the toe pain and lower back pain that I got when dancing for long periods of time. However, I didn't really start changing my technique until I brought Oscar Mandagaran and Georgina Vargas to Portland and Eugene, Oregon, for workshops in 2008.

I started my private lessons with them telling them all the things in their technique that I wasn't going to do (not a very flexible student!). They patiently took their time to explain WHY they did each thing that I had been told not to do, and to dance it with me.

One of the things they changed about my dance was how I used my feet. They had me articulate through my foot, using natural walking movement, so that I was not tensing my foot, or popping up on my heels, or rolling out, but rather moving efficiently. When you walk backwards in "real life," you roll over your heel, letting your toes relax off the floor. Not only does this give you better balance and less work for each step, it allows you to really MOVE when you step, in a much more powerful way than pushing off your poor toes.

This new approach to walking removed my foot pain on the dance floor: I can now work an 8-hour teaching day and end up with tired, but not painful, feet. When I dance at the milongas, my feet hold up better than the rest of me: I go home because I am sleepy, not sore!

Another benefit to rolling through my heels and working my feet correctly was that people immediately commented on how much better my technique looked. Now when I go dancing in Buenos Aires, women touch me on the arm on the way back to my seat, and say, "Pretty feet!" and "Who is your teacher?"

 It took a grueling six months to start to retool my dance after dancing tango on a daily basis for thirteen years, but it was worth it! I constantly try to improve my dance, and study with Oscar and Georgina as much as possible, so that I can teach the technique as clearly as possible.

Oscar and Georgina's classes this week in Portland

I hope that ALL of you get to at least one workshop with Oscar and Georgina while they are here: these are the best teachers I've ever studied with, and after ten years of study with Oscar, I'm still getting new information out of each lesson I take with him and Georgina.

If you only come to ONE class, show up Wednesday night to the Density and Elasticity class at 8:15 PM at the Om Studio, 14 NE 10th (near Burnside, 1 block from Norse Hall). How you use your energy, breath, and balance in tango makes your dance either OK--or amazing. This class teaches you how to use your body like a spring-loaded, gliding, energy-filled tango machine. This is how you stay on balance, all the time, ready to explode into action! I've taken this class about five times, and each time, I learn something new to improve my dance.

BEGINNING LEVEL CLASS: I encourage anyone new to Oscar and Georgina, as well as beginning dancers, to attend the Thursday 6 PM class at the Om. This class works on connection and the embrace with a partner--something we can all benefit from!

FOLKLORE! The 7 PM class on Thursday will be either chacarera or zamba (the two dances we do here at milongas). Oscar was the national malambo champion at 19 (the men's percussive dance) and Georgina is an amazing folk dancer as well. Come learn from the masters these seductive, lovely partner dances!

REMEMBER: if you bring in the flyer for the workshops (or print one off of this blog), you get $5 off the price of the two Thursday lessons. Print some for your friends, and bring them along!

WEEKEND CLASSES: Noon on Saturday, the subject is different kinds of turns. Noon on Sunday, it's walking like a porteno: come find out why Oscar and Georgina's style of walking works better on the dance floor, and how much easier it is to look good doing it! Both of these classes are all levels.

Intermediate/advanced classes will happen Saturday and Sunday at 1:30 PM. On Saturday, the subject is Vals and musicality. On Sunday, the subject is elegant social dancing, putting together some sweet new combinations for us to add into our daily dancing.

ADVANCED class: You asked for advanced classes, where you could work on harder material, delving into the technique more in-depth, Portland, so SHOW UP PLEASE! 8 PM Monday night at the Om. And yes, you can bring a partner and not change partners that night, although you know my opinion that changing partners helps you learn faster ;-)

All of the advanced dancers and teachers who showed up last time for beginning classes, thank you for being great models of how to keep learning, even after decades of dancing. I hope to see you again, and spread the word!

Using the toes: making little steps as luscious as big, dramatic steps

After a few nights of dancing in Buenos Aires, I had a new goal: learning to make each step beautiful when it was small. I knew that my regular and large steps had really progressed in technique in the past few years, but I felt that my teeny tiny steps in the milonga weren't feeling fabulous. I had plenty of partners, but I felt something was not working within my own body.

Oscar and Georgina told me (I prefer my lessons in Spanish, so this is an estimation): "Don't worry! Everyone learns technique in regular size steps first, then in bigger steps. The hardest steps to do well, are small steps." Then Oscar grinned, and said (as usual), "No vacation! Come on, let's work!"

The new information was about how to use my toes. I had worked hard to get my weight back, evenly shared by my heel and the ball of the foot. I had relaxed my toes, ankles, knees and hips to get a smoother, sexier, balanced walk. But I wasn't finishing my steps completely. As I pushed through the floor to take each step, I was not following through with my toes. Looking at the videos from my lesson, I had to agree: my toes looked dead!

Structure of the foot

The way that the foot and leg are built, the body needs to use a bunch of muscles, not only to propel the body through space, but to maintain balance when on tiptoe (stiletto heels, anyone?)! The muscles that flex the smaller and big toes pass along the inside of the ankle, and support the medial arch of the foot and are important in the propulsion phase of walking. There are also smaller muscles that do not cross the ankle joint, that aid in propelling the body forward; these also flex the toes. If you grab a book on anatomy and look at how the foot is constructed, it makes sense that, if the toes aren't engaged, the body can't move as efficiently or strongly.

There is a lot of foot anatomy information on the internet, so I'll leave detailed pictures and explanations to the doctors (and leave it out of here, in case you don't want to read in detail!). Suffice to say, when you look at the lever system that makes up the foot, it becomes obvious that the toes are essential to movement.

This last little movement of the toes is what completes the propulsion of the body from the location of the last step, to the new location in space. If the movement is not finished, the body needs to spend energy and time to finish arriving at the new location. If the toes are used correctly, as the last step in the push off-extend leg-send body-land on balance sequence, the body arrives ON AXIS and ON BALANCE, every single step.

And voila!

This would explain why my dance has progressed so much since I stopped having my weight on my toes! By moving my hips back slightly, and balancing over the arch of my foot, my dance has become much more elegant. Also, I have come to expect that a night of dancing creates tired feet, rather than painful feet!

Looking at my new work, of using my toes to finish each step, I could see what had not been working before: I had been arriving on my balance a micro-second late for each step. What I noticed about using my foot and toes correctly, was that I always ended up the same distance away from my leader, no matter how big or small the step was. Part of improving my timing, was to improve my reaction to the leader's requests.

As my time in Buenos Aires went on, I found that I could work my feet correctly without spending all my attention and energy on my toes (there were a few nights where my partners told me I was a great partner, but where I knew only part of my brain and body had actually been paying attention to the leader!). My small steps began to feel like a real dance, and I started to use my steps in a different way: I practiced arriving a tiny bit early, and touching the free foot to the floor softly, so that the movement felt more rhythmic. I could now choose to move more slowly, more romantically; or more rhythmically; or with a strong adorno, like a tap. I now have a much broader ranger of "flavors" for my dance.

I gradually started attracting more discerning partners, and began to field requests to dance a second tanda. One night, I was asked to save the next milonga tanda for four different men. Ack! For the first time in my fourteen years of dancing tango, I had Argentine men APOLOGIZE for their level of dance. Strange, but it felt good to be the one reassuring them that I had enjoyed the set.

Practice, practice, practice!

As I have started to do my foot and leg exercises that Georgina gave me for strengthening my dance, I've noticed that I can dance for longer and longer periods with good technique (duh!). I'm going to start a follower's technique class, based on these exercises, in the next month, so stay tuned if you are interested in working on improving your dance.

Elegant walking in tango

My teachers, Oscar Mandagaran and Georgina Vargas, have a sinuous, elegant, sexy walk. They call it "walking like a porteno" but I call it "walking like Oscar" to avoid all the arguments about how portenos do and do not walk. In Buenos Aires, everyone agrees that there are many different ways to do tango, but here in Portland, we seem to spend a lot of time arguing about the one way to do something . . . 

In Tango Fundamentals, we've been working on this walk a lot, but many questions have come up that I think are more easily answered here.

1. How many "tracks" do I use for the "porteno" walk?

Don't you hate the "it depends" answer? In this case, there are two tracks for dancing, but the leader is on one, and the follower on the other. Compared to the "two track" walk, the leader is actually slightly offset compared to the follower, but not enough to be leading to the cross. As each person walks in a straight line, each person steps in front of him- or her-self.

This walk works best in a slight V embrace, close embrace, but not square to the partner.

2. Why is this better than two-track walking?

This walk is simply more elegant than what I see on the dance floor most of the time. Two-track walking is not wrong, but it doesn't look as nice. I'm not going to walk up to you on the dance floor and ask why you aren't doing this ;-) Your walk is a personal choice; mine is to do the walk this way when possible.

There are as many ways to walk in tango as tango dancers. The reason I teach the version of tango that I teach, is that this style uses the body efficiently, and reduces injuries, as well as allowing me to dance for hours with less fatigue and foot pain.

3. But what if the person I'm dancing with tells me I'm not walking right?

What I am teaching you is not what "everyone" is doing in the tango community. You will find people who think that different=wrong. You have two alternatives: improve your dance, or conform to local habits of dance, whether or not they are good dance choices. I like to think that, in a few years, we will all be dancing better and more fluidly, and many more people will be doing this style of walking. I've noticed that all of you who are in my classes look more elegant and balanced. I get a lot more comments about my good dancing since I've switched to this style.

By the way, when I am offered unsolicited advice on the dance floor, I respectfully suggest that I will ask for feedback when I want it.

4. What is all this about contra-body motion?

Part of walking like a porteno is using natural body locomotion. When you walk, your body uses a slight rotation around the spine to help shift the weight of the body from leg to leg. You can see this if you walk and pay attention to how your arms swing gently as you walk. When your right foot is going to step forward, your body rotates slightly to the right BEFORE you step; when you step with your left, your body rotates to the left first. When you step backwards, your body twists away from the free leg.

Using natural contrabody motion also allows you to stay connected to your partner. If the leader is stepping forward with the left, s/he rotates counter-clockwise before stepping. The follower steps back on the right, also rotates counter-clockwise to the left. That means that both people move together, allowing both more freedom of movement AND more connection in your walk.

5. Why do I have to move my hips to make this walk work?

When you walk down the street, your hip releases slightly to help you shift weight from one foot to the other. The hip shift moves your weight directly above your support foot without grabbing with the muscles that surround the hip--more mobility, less work! This is an active, lifting movement, not like doing the "bus stop." This is one key part of having a lithe, sexy tango walk.

To find the right amount of pelvic movement, stand in front of a mirror. Locate the inside edge of your hip joint with your fingers, and move your pelvis until that point is over the center of your foot. Each person will have a different amount of movement here, as a woman with wide hips will move differently than a woman with narrow hips or a man. Instead of copying the look of your favorite dancer, take time to figure out what is right for your body.

6. Why did you tell me to stick out my butt?

Many people stand with their pelvis tilted forward, but the femoral joint (hip joint) works better if the pelvis shifts back further. This settles the femur into the hip joint and helps use your bone alignment for balance so that you use

7. How can I find out more about my body and how it moves?

There is an excellent reference book, designed for the average person, that shows the bones and muscles of the body, as well as explaining what motions the body can perform at each joint. I HIGHLY recommend Anatomy of Movement by Blandine Calais-Germain (ISBN 0-939616-17-3 for paperback). It has great pictures and lots of information without being overwhelming.