Learning Tango

Learning to dance Argentine Tango is an ego-buster for sure.  You will feel clumsy, embarrassed and altogether awkward about dancing breast to breast…at first.

Later you will love the connection of heart-to-heart embrace and the unspoken language of movement in harmony with the music.

Private lessons are a must if you want to refine your dancing as quickly as possible, finding teachers is usually the hardest part.  While there may be no shortage of people offering to teach, it is crucial that you be alert to the nuances of the dance style of the teachers you are interviewing and be sure that their particular style is something that you would want to emulate.

There are some who teach flashy, grandiose moves as part of their repertoire and others who appear to float together in unison with hardly any extraneous movement of arms and legs. Both have their place and you need to be sure that you are comfortable with the style that your teachers will want you to mimic.

Another great way to learn is to watch film footage of dancers who are proficient.  Similar to sports hero’s who use visualization as part of their training, it is helpful for dancers to have a recorded image in their mind of what “elegant dance” looks like.  When you have seen it over and over again it becomes like a software program in your mind that you can recall during your training and notice whether you are experiencing the same fluidity or not.  And once your body learns what it feels like to move in efficient, graceful patterns – well it just becomes a habit.

Speaking of habits, remember that habits are very hard to break, so when you are learning Tango you must develop the best skills otherwise practice doesn’t make perfect, practice makes permanent! Again, choose the best teachers you can find and then emulate their every nuance so that you learn right the first time.

When teachers are in short supply (after the festival is over and the Argentines have gone home) you can still refine your craft by watching video of dance performances and lessions.  When I first started dancing I had 2 lessons in Mexico, then when I went back to my home in the U.S. I couldn’t find any that were as accomplished, it was so disappointing!

I found a movie about the history of Tango and watched it repeatedly.  Later when I attended my first Tango Festival, my teachers were shocked to learn that I had only had 2 lessons.  Why?  Because I had developed an understanding of the musical rhythms and some semblance of the posture and movement by watching exceptional dancers over and over again.

I found that to be one of the biggest lessons I learned in my dancing studies.