Tango Foundations course, Week 3 class notes

1st February 2010

Week 1 Notes | Week 2 Notes | Week 3 Notes

Dissociation: do the Twist

This week's technique was "dissociation". This is a "twisting" or "winding up" effect, where your upper body twists in one direction and your lower body twists in another.

Walking along, we naturally dissociate, moving our arms / shoulder in oppostion to our legs / hips - we did a brief walkaround to demonstrate this. So the trick is to recognise this natural movement, and to use it within dancing to power our pivots.

Exercises

Walk along, swinging arms and shoulders naturally - and look at this motion in the mirror. Understand how this walk is natural and where your arms / feet are.

Now, do it whilst walking backwards...

"Shop window" - repeat this but imagine there's a shop window you're walking past - pivot to look at the "window" and again see how you do this.

Key points:

  • Dissociate all the time - for walking and for pivoting.
  • Dissociate to the side of the forwards foot (when walking forwards or back)

Using Pivots: "Ochos"

Building on the pivoting work last week, we looked at ochos, and at switching from forwards to back ochos and vice versa.

Exercises

Leaders, without moving your feet:

  • Lead an "outside" pivot (as last week), then lead a backwards step. This is a back ocho.
  • Lead an "inside" pivot (as last week), then lead a forwards step. This is a forwards ocho.

Extension: put two or more of these "pivot+step" combinations together.

Key points:

  • Leaders: always lead the pivot first, then the step. Don't try to do both at the same time.
  • Leaders: the step is in the same direction as the pivot.
  • Followers: pivot first, then step. They are two separate motions - don't rush into one before the other.
  • Followers: keep your chest facing towards your leader (that's the "dissociation" thing).

Ochos in dancing

We then worked on adding ochos to our dance as a natural part of the dancing, integrating them with our normal walk.

I demonstrated a sequence example to show how this might work:

  • Leader takes a sidestep to the left, follower sidesteps to the right.
  • Leader changes weight, follower does not.
  • Leader pivots to the left, follower pivots also.
  • Leader takes another sidestep to the left, follower backsteps.
  • Leader reverses pivot (pivoting to the right)
  • Leader takes a sidestep to the right, follower backsteps
  • Leader pivots to the left, follower pivots also.
  • Leader takes a sidestep to the left, follower backsteps.
  • Leader pivots to face, then changes weight (again, follower does not)
  • Carry On Walking (leader starts off on the left foot).

So basically you have a three-ocho sequence which you can put into your dancing.

Changing ochos

There are two simple ways to change from a forward ocho to a back ocho and vice versa.

  • Reverse the pivot: lead a pivot in the reverse direction, then lead a step in that direction.
  • Reverse the step: lead a step in the reverse direction, then lead a pivot in that direction.

Easy :)

Exercises

Lead forward ochos, using the sequence learnt earlier, then reverse into back ochos using both the "reverse pivot" method and the "reverse step" method.

Extension 1: do all this, but continue walking at the end of a set of back ochos.

Extension 2: as above but reverse again into doing forward ochos.

More

For more information

- David Bailey, 1st February 2010