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CHAPTER 2 The different schools of tango teaching

Excerpt....."It may not be apparent to those beginning to learn to tango, but there are quite a wide variety of teaching styles and philosophies used. This should not surprise us when we consider the origins of tango and the influences of the dancing on the teachers, the teachers on the dancing and the music on the entire thing. We think of tango as a single entity but, even now, it is not. The perceptions of what tango is vary from place to place and from time to time.

In the beginning, Buenos Aires was small and quite distant in real terms from all those areas we now merely consider to be its suburbs. In each of these locations tango had its own style. The dancers moved little from place to place but the bands certainly travelled to make a living and brought back different things from their gigs. Those bands were like bees, pollinating as they collect nectar. As those smaller satellite townships were subsumed into the sprawling city over the first 30 years of the 20th century, what resulted was a cocktail of styles, all perfectly ‘legitimate’ within the remit of tango.

The differences were immense. Just think about it. Different dance floors – both floor surface and dimensions – led to different needs. Different dance floor traffic led to different embraces, as did individuals’ desires for closeness and intimacy of embrace or, on the other hand, for more genteel distancing. None of these styles was weak and easily subservient to any other and they all survived because they were legitimate and valuable. Who could criticise the orillero style of the docklands areas of San Telmo or La Boca because it differed from the styles of those dancers from Mataderos or Villa Urquiza? The same must be true for the teaching that both led the styles and, at the same time, was formed by them. I think it is reasonable, however, for us all to judge for ourselves which style of dancing we like and which style of teaching is most likely to allow us to dance as we want. I propose to nail my colours to the mast here and now on this issue in the hope that it will help some fellow dancers................"


"...Different teachers

I have always found it interesting to analyse the classes I have attended, and writing notes afterwards affords me a chance to consider what common features make a great lesson and why some lessons fail to impress. Why do some workshops seem to allow a great leap forward in our dancing? I think it may be a function of the depth of any given teacher’s own understanding of tango. Some teachers seem very self-confident while others come with so much expectation and hype because they are great dancers themselves. Some of these teachers, however, instruct by the ‘do it this way because I say so’ method and appear to have little understanding of the underlying logic of the moves. I am more attracted to the teacher who shows us a move in order to demonstrate a basic principle that may be applied to the entire dance. I’m sure I am not alone in being interested in the reasons why things work. I always want to know what is going on inside. In addition to that, I want all new ideas that are presented to me as factual to be cross-referenced to other things I already know to be true. I always want to know why, if I do a certain thing in a particular way, it should work naturally or why it has failed to be successful. Sometimes, understanding the reason for failure teaches us much more than when things go well. I really cannot approve of a teacher who says “Copy me” but can’t explain why that way works.

This is why I so respect the teaching method of Rodolfo Aguerrodi, nicknamed ‘el Chino’ (‘the Chinaman’). His deep grasp of the mechanics of tango has allowed him to design classes that will convey the understanding to us. When I fail to achieve a set goal in a Chino class, I am able to say so. When I do, he relishes the task of solving my problem. He never interprets a question as an attack on his authority. In any case, he is forever asking us: “Any questions? Any doubts?” and is quite disappointed when we have none for him. When you present him with a problem he watches you move and grasps, in an instant, the reason something has felt uncomfortable. It may be that, for example, I have failed to dissociate adequately and that, as a result, my pelvis is wrongly aligned to my partner. He spots it immediately because, over the years, he has boiled down the factors that make the dance successful to a handful of important issues. These usually relate to our individual posture, self-control and body alignment. Sure, dancing is an art, but underpinning that is a vast body of knowledge of mechanics, anatomy, physiology and logic. I admire a teacher who is capable of delving into those areas to help me expand my understanding and therefore my technique.

An alternative approach to the basic eight: the Aguerrodi system

There is another way of learning tango, which may sound simplistic to begin with but is actually harder to persevere with in the early stages because it does not appear to resemble the dance you see the good dancers perform. I can tell you from experience that it is harder to teach this way, too. When this system of tango is taught, it has the potential to frustrate the dancer who imagines he can learn a lot more quickly. Those who have mastered other dance disciplines may find it very hard to learn to walk properly when all they want to do is run as soon as they can. It’s like the cherry cake: the novice wants the cherries, but the basic cake structure is of flour, water and eggs, and you need both. Actually, a good cook can make much of the basic ingredients and use the cherries sparingly to good effect. This is true of the good dancer, who always walks elegantly and is balanced, so that the partner is free to dance without being pulled about. There are few things sadder than those who try to run before they can really walk well. None of us has perfect balance all the time; even the best dancers have off days. The difference is that the good dancer chooses carefully the moment to introduce something flashy; when, and only when, he is in complete control. He may plan a move, but be able to abort it if something unexpected happens. The same is true of language. We chat away freely but occasionally we begin a sentence and someone else starts to speak at the same time. We don’t just carry on. In purely practical terms we won’t be heard over the other voice anyway.

So, in my pretty limited experience, it is best to begin as you mean to end up. To learn how to walk naturally and elegantly in the arms of any person who will dance with you would seem to be the basic ingredient of this cake. Long before showy figures enter our minds, leaders have to develop a good, balanced walking style. They must also become very sensitive to the body position of the follower and, in particular, on which foot her weight rests at any time. For her part, the follower needs to learn the rather different way of stretching her leg backwards, as she generally walks backwards along the line of dance. The follower also has to learn both to disengage her brain from the steps and anxieties about what she is expected to do next, and walk into those areas the leader has made available. She must learn to read the signals that come from the leader’s whole body, but particularly his chest, and at the same time, once she has understood the indication of what is expected, listen to the music and interpret it in her own way."

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