Still Rocking On, But Very Little Blogging

I have some amazing findings, and while I haven't blogged much about my tango -- or anything else -- I'm still in the thick of it. Though I could do more, of course...

First: even the simplest exercises, like doing quarter turns in both directions on one foot or the other, pay off! I've been spinning around in my apartment for a while -- I think that the mirror doesn't even help, because if you fall over you're out of eje -- and it's really working. This comes up in classes or practicas just about every day: some small kind of turn. If you don't have "balance," they won't work. The good news is that you can develop balance.

Second, I've decided that practicas and milongas are quite important for me now. This may represent a change of phase, or rather just be my backing off to a middle position. I'm definitely emphasizing group classes first, and practicas second. I don't take private classes though I can't give you any clear reasons as to why. But anyway, the emphasis is still on classes, where I spend most of my tango time. Second emphasis is on home practice alone. And the third most important thing is practicas.

I'm mostly heading to Practica X on Tuesdays and Tango Cool on Fridays. I also like the practica at Spell Cafe on Sundays, but there are so few people there that it could just as well NOT work out.

Third, I've decided that I'm using the tags wrong for Blogger which explains why I get no hits.

Fourth, I've decided that writing down figures is totally not worthwhile, especially since all the stuff I learn now just repeats. I did a lot of list memorization in Italian and very little in Spanish (I admit, I had already learned Italian) but I think that in the end you learn to speak with a decent vocabulary anyway. Sorry about the analogy, but the point is that if I need vocabulary, I can start memorizing figures now. For the time being, I need to focus on technique and general stuff and not get caught up in memorizing figures.

Fifth, today I had an amazing aside with Mariel from DNI who basically showed me why my leads to not work with women who have no body control (and probably bigger women, too): because my leads are way to big for the woman. She wasn't talking about my movements but rather about my right and left arm and their lateral distance from the woman. She totally changed my abrazo. I'm pretty excited to try it out, which I'll do tomorrow in class and then later at Practica X.