Separating Lead From My Movement

Let's see how this Tangotation thing works (http://www.easytango.com/dance/Tangotation)... yesterday in DNI we did two really great figures to work on separating the man's lead from the woman's movement. Something like this (nice that Blogger allows you to use tables even if the WYSIWYG doesn't)....

First Figure

#	Lead	Follow	Comments
1	LF	RB	Lead and follower don't transfer weight completely (medio peso)
2	RB	Nothing	Man moves right foot back and to his left, but his hips (and most importantly his torso) stay locked forward. Hip-hopish
3	Nothing	RF	Man and woman are turning clockwise, getting in line with the man's back foot
4	Nothing	LF	Pivot ends and woman is on LF facing the man. Man has to wait until woman completes this pivot, that could take a while.
5	LS	RS	Move out for two (básico)

Hmmm... that wasn't too bad but I wonder if anyone will actually understand the figure from these notes. Although that's really not the point: the point is that I can remember the figure from these notes.

And then we did the figure the other way around, basically: again, the point is the same, that the lead plants the follower in her medio peso and then moves around a bit and then brings her with him. That was Cristian and Carolina's class, and they're always great. Plus, Pedro is a bit verde, but he does help out with the classes quite a bit.

So I'll be trying out these different kinds of notation from time to to see how they work for different figures, and to see if I can start developing some kind of vocabulary to work with.

Now the most important point that Cristian made last night was a really nice one: the man starts out by learning structures and by marking them brusquely to the woman. Later he starts to lead them in a softer fashion. The main point is the man has to have the structure that he wants to lead clear, because otherwise it's very uncomfortable for the woman (she is either paralyzed or does any movement out of nerviousness).

And my point: later, by varying the rhythms, combinations and other stuff (angles and height, for instance) the man starts to truly improvise the dance. When he can truly connect with the song, his partner and invent new stuff, he's a good dancer. And when that happens and the couple looks great, he's a great dancer.

Cold and Sunny in Buenos Aires, and just like last year, I can't figure out how to make my calefacción turn on (yes, I've read the instructions). Huge tango night ahead: DNI, then Copello, then Villa Malcom (probably, but there's also a birthday party I should get to... this is a busy period for Argentinians, with a lot of birthdays and so forth).