The Tangosynthesis Blog
with Graham and Nathalie
Why is Tango So Hard?
19 Feb 2018 - by Graham
Something we see and hear a lot in tango classes is frustration with the rate of progress that people feel they are making. People come along for a few weeks and enjoy the lessons, but the more they learn the more they realise how much they don't know and they start to wonder what's going wrong. Simple things like walking become a challenge, and we start to hear things like "I don't think tango is my dance", and "I'm never going to get this" by the end of the evening. A lot of this comes from their experiences with learning LeRoc and the rapid progress most people seem to make when they begin to learn it, but is the comparison justified? Or is it only natural that we find learning tango harder than learning LeRoc? LeRoc is a dance made up of large confident moves, and the size [read more...]
What Makes a Tango Teacher
05 Nov 2017 - by Graham
In my last post I wrote about how I accidentally became a tango teacher and turned Jivebeat from being a Modern Jive club into a Modern Jive and Argentine Tango club. But there has to be more to becoming a tango teacher than standing up and teaching your first class, doesn't there? There must surely be a process to follow or an exam to take? Or is there? Unike LeRoc which has a recognised path to training as a teacher and obtaining a teaching qualification, there is no equivalent qualification available in the UK for Argentine Tango. You can train and qualify as a ballroom tango teacher through the IDTA or other similar bodies, but ballroom tango is not the same as Argentine Tango, and as there are more differences than there are similarities between the two dances a qualification in ballroom tango would be of no real use. [read more...]
The Accidental Tango Teacher
02 Nov 2017 - by Graham
Not many people can say that they became a tango teacher entirely by accident, but that's definitely how it happened in my case. When I first started Jivebeat, I assumed it would always be predominantly about Modern Jive, with maybe a few guest teachers brought in from time to time to demonstrate other dance styles or maybe teach a 'fusion' class. I had qualified as a Modern Jive instructor, and all my efforts were going into developing that style and working out our curriculum. But then one evening in Sevenoaks after a fun but small beginners' class, I asked everyone what they would like to do next. I offered them a more advanced Modern Jive routine, maybe some dips and leans, styling or musicality tops, or perhaps they'd like to try some Argentine Tango. And unanimously they all decided they wanted to try some tango. I had been learning [read more...]
Tango - A Dance Without Steps.
24 Oct 2017 - by Graham
Whenever you think about dance, you think of footwork. There are basic steps that define the character of every type of dance, from the simple “step back, then in†of LeRoc, to the “forward, side, together†of waltz or the “one, two, three-and-four†of latin. The steps are the first stage in learning a new dance. You begin by learning the timing and how to position your feet in the correct places, then when you’ve got the hang of that you start to concentrate on where to put your body to improve balance, posture, and styling and make the dance begin to flow. But Argentine Tango doesn’t have any of that. It is that strangest of things, a dance without steps. When you first start to learn the tango the temptation is to follow the steps that the teacher is doing and try to copy the way his or [read more...]
Our First Birthday
27 Sep 2017 - by Graham
On Monday the 19th September 2016, Jivebeat was born. At around 8pm I switched on my microphone, took a deep breath, and stepped up in front of a room full of people to give my first ever dance class. To say that I was nervous would be a huge understatement, but it wasn't the speaking to a group that scared me or even the teaching aspect as I had done both of those things many times before. No, the thing that I was most worried about would be how people would react to me as a dance teacher. Most people knew me as the taxi-dancer (beginners' coach) at the Ceroc venues in Bromley and Chislehurst, and if they didn't know me from there they probably remembered me as the slightly nervous new arrival at Ceroc Hayes after I relocated from Hampshire back into Kent a couple of years earlier. [read more...]
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