The First Step

27th January 2011

(Originally The White Ghost Step, 10th June 2010)

"Watch that first step, it's a doozie!" ~ Groundhog Day

Introduction

One of the hardest things I found in tango was getting the first step of the dance to work. Which is particularly annoying as it makes a substantial part of your first impression and frankly it's rather hard to lead tango if you can't lead the first step.

There's two basic choices - either step forward with your left or step to the left. Stepping to the left is the simpler of the two to lead, but as soon as you complete the step you find yourself in an awkward position. Frankly if you want to use what I'm about to suggest, you don't want to deal with being in that position.

Stepping forwards is harder, but leaves you in a much better position.

So how can you make that first step easier?

Well simply put, cheat.

How to cheat

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life so. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something." ~ Henry David Thoreau

Different teachers have different ideas on exactly what "being forward on your foot" means. I'm going to use it to mean "ball of foot" here simply because I think everyone will agree with what that means. You can then adjust it to whatever it actually means in the way you're taught.

When you begin a dance, the follower will be slightly forward of her axis. This means that you have to transfer her back to her axis before she can take a step.

Let's assume you've started in close embrace and you're on the ball of your foot. Physically how are you going to move her back that distance without falling over? (See below)

A Solution

Try this. Instead of starting on the balls of your foot, start on your heels.

Transfer you weight forwards until the follower is on her axis (feel free to ask her to say out loud when she's done this if you're not sure). Where is your weight falling through your foot now?

Say it's falling through your instep. You now know that to do this transfer you're weight is going to move from your heel to your instep. You want it to be on your toes (in this example), so with a bit of measuring, experimentation etc, you work out that you want to start the dance with your weight falling through your instep, so that when you've transferred the follower fully onto her axis you're now on you're the ball of your foot where you want to be.

Obviously you need to do this adjustment using whatever part of the foot you want your weight to end up on when you're actually dancing.

This should make leading the first step much easier.

A Better Solution

A solution that avoids then need to do this is to walk to the woman as if you're doing a tango walk so you embrace with your weight slightly forward on your foot as normal. When you embrace, to start the dance simply lower slightly and project your torso forwards slightly as if you wanted to lead a planeo.

An experienced follower will project her foot backwards at this slight lowering. You can make it more obvious by turning your torso slightly to the left as well. Now her foot's back, the dynamics have changed and you can step forwards.

The problem comes when you're dancing with women who aren't experienced enough to do this, or frankly you're not that confident in leading walking yet, or your balance isn't that great etc. For these cases the above "cheat" is a nice fix. Just remember when you get better or dance with more experienced women, there will come a point where you no longer want to do it.

~ Christopher O'Shea, 27th January 2011

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