2011 Reviewed(David)
30th December 2011
So, it's that time of year again, a time to indulge. Unlike the standard Chocolate OD-ing, however, this is the time which We Three (David, Ken, Chris) normally take to indulge ourselves in reviewing What's Happened In The Last Year, from our own personal perspectives. Hey, it's a tradition.
(We've been doing this since 2008 - Ken's musings are under the "20xx Remembered" banner (latest 2011 entry here), and Chris's words of wisdom are contained under the "Revisited" heading (latest 2011 entry here).
My previous write-ups are here: 2010 | 2009 | 2008
Teaching
Lots of stuff happened in 2010, class-wise...
Regular classes
I've been teaching for about 2 years now - and nearly 18 months' of regular weekly classes in Berkhamsted.
It's now gotten to the point where I have a couple of "generations" of "graduates" - that is, people who are learning, who have progressed and many of whom I would now class as competent-to-good social dancers. Which may not sound like much, but in a space of 18 months, I think it's an achievement; I've seen people who've attended several years' worth of other classes without any sign of actual progression.
I've continued to learn from teaching, but the focus of my learning has shifted. Instead of learning about dancing myself, I've been learning about the best way to teach. So after about a year of teaching regular classes, I developed the LearningTango Syllabus. I've also been learning, a little, about the business. Marketing, competition and the occasional dirty trick have reared their ugly heads - but so have cooperation, encouragement and enthusiasm, which more than make up for it.
The exciting news is that I'll be starting a new Tango night, with lessons and dancing, on Monday evenings, at "Club 19" in Southgate, North London. This is step forwards, and I've already learned a lot about running a "full evening" session just from a couple of tryouts. So I look forward to learning lots more in 2012.
Workshops
I've continued running regular workshops.
One notable one was the first "Day of Tango" in September 2011 - a joint set of workshops run by Learning Tango and Tango Victoria, in a single day. These were great - very successful, very popular and the attendees all seemed extremely enthusiastic about them.
We'll be doing another joint event on the 21st January, I hope it'll be just as successful.
Did I mention the notes?
The "library of notes" I've built-up over the past year have been very useful:
- Hopefully, students will find them useful as aides-memoire. I know that I personally tend to forget 80% of a class - if these notes help my students "only" forget 60%, they make the classes twice as effective.
- For me, these notes help me remember the topics, and most importantly how I teach the topics, so that I can provide consistency and (where required) revisions to the topics.
More than that, these have helped form the basis for the Learning Tango syllabus, which I shall use as the basis for the classes from now on.
Dancing
I tried something different this year - I learnt a little West Coast Swing (WCS). I'd been meaning to have a go at it for years, but the time never seemed right. I spent about 3-4 months learning some of the basics, and I enjoyed the interlude. I can now, more or less, do WCS socially, but I don't really have the time to spend learning it any further now.
Back with Tango, I had some great private classes, with Ricardo Oria, Guadalupe Garcia and others. I also spent a lot of time practicing - at some times I spent more time in practice than in social dancing - including several months at the Tuesday Radlett Practica sessions. Practicas are, for me, the best way to progress at the moment.
A few things I learnt this year, in no particular order:
- Step onto the front of the foot, and transferring weight fully on the beat
- Start to put the weight on the inside of the foot
- Using and playing with the V embrace - especially for Vals
- Getting fully comfortable with Milonga traspie
- Keeping my head up a little more to achieve a better axis
It's been a busy year. I expect 2012 will be more so...
- David Bailey, 30th December 2011