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CHAPTER 14 The Axis

I hope by now you understand roughly what I mean by the axis, but to make it clear again, imagine a rod passing down through your body to the ground, absolutely vertically. It is this imaginary line that we can use to represent the completely balanced body. If you were standing on one leg that line would pass through the ball of the big toe. If we stand with our weight evenly balanced on both legs, the line would touch the ground between our feet. Why bother to think of it? Well, in tango, perhaps even more than other partner dances, I found that my technical progress seemed to stem from the “Aah! I see….” moment that arrived once this was explained to me.

New leaders have a lot of concepts to grasp. For example, the whole new idea of ‘forgetting’ one’s own body in favour of tuning into your dance partner’s body is quite a culture shock for some of us. I know many people who tango that never get it and one or two who deliberately reject all advice to dance in any other way than to place their feet, both in time and space, irrespective of unity with a partner. I am fascinated on one level to watch some couples who come to practicas, performing weird and wonderful gyrations that only they can possibly understand by rigid adherence to choreography. There is so little understanding of lead, follow and connection that they might as well be line dancing. Actually, what they do more resembles ballet than any social dance. Don’t misunderstand me here. I am not saying this is wrong. They clearly enjoy themselves this way and you can't get much better than that. I just feel that what makes tango unique and is the point of it for me- and many others - is the business of improvisation and serendipity. I mean, how would it be if we met at a cocktail party, only to speak lines written in advance by a playwright? Would we enjoy each other’s conversation, having to remember them, and their cues, and not really finding out about each other? I doubt it. Actors call that work.

In order to be more likely to stay fully connected, it helps if both leader and follower sense the axis management of their partner. By this I mean three things that really matter when dancing a fully improvised dance socially.

1. Where is your partner’s axis?

2. Have they fully arrived, totally balanced at their new point of axis?

3. Is there any sense that they have already committed themselves to a next move?

From a follower’s point of view, there are few worse things than being manhandled onwards before you have completed the last step. The leader’s version of misery involves partners who don’t follow and who never stop still for a second. All leaders can do under these conditions is predict what their follower will do and dance around them as best they can.

Over the years I have attended many classes and have registered the frustration of some pupils who came expecting to learn some new trick and found themselves being asked to practise slow axis control exercises over and over again. I have even seen two couples walk out of such a class. From what I saw in the warm-up dancing, they really needed these skills. They had learned enough ‘choreographed flash’ to last a lifetime but they didn’t look good doing it. I have come to the conclusion that most tango dancers, myself included, would be better occupied on a weekend, practising at home stepping backwards onto one foot than attending some workshops for which they have paid considerable amounts of money.

Many dancers have the most fun in classes when learning new tricks. Teachers must realise that and, in all fairness to them, they have a living to make. Many tango teachers would be very poor if they kept pointing out, class after class, how terrible our balance was. Many of them have survived hours of brutal repetition in dance classes themselves. All but a few of them appear to know that we ordinary folk are motivated differently.

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