1. Dance for her – The man dances for the woman,
not the reverse. Everything that you do
at milongas, you do for her pleasure. Your reward is her pleasure; her smile;
her wanting to dance with you. Es tango.
2. Embrace is measure - Think of her embrace
as a measure of your dancing. When she embraces you, she gives you something
precious, she gives herself to you – it’s up to you to decide what to do with
it. If you fail her, you will lose her trust - and her embrace. If you feel that she is disconnecting, that
she is tense, distant, that she is not comfortable in your arms, you’re
probably doing something wrong. That is her way of telling you that you are
dancing badly, that you are not dancing for her.
In my experience, there are women who are not
able to give themselves to the partner, who are not able to connect completely.
In my opinion, that is mostly because they learned to dance only with bad
dancers, so their default embrace is distant and cold. They dance only with their
bodies, not with their heart.
3. Connect – Usually, during tango, the
woman spends the whole time thinking or feeling the communication. That is the
most important thing to her – not your ability to make acrobatic figures, not
your ability to make fast movements with you legs. She will close her eyes, and she will dance
only according to the information that you are sending her. Your ability to connect with her is one of
the most important elements of good dancing.
4. Choose carefully – Before dancing you
should take a good look. Look at the dance floor – in my experience the best
dancers are those with the most passionate embrace, those who have connection
points with their partners in their chest (close to their hearts), those who
hold their arms around the neck of their partners, leaning on them. Choosing
carefully saves you a lot of energy and time dancing with bad dancers, looking
for the right one.
5. Follow her – Forget about “leader/follower”
thing, that is not tango. In tango there is only a man and a woman, not leader and
follower. The emotional drive of the
couple is the woman. So you will have to
follow her in every step. The choreography and interpreting the music is still
your job, but you do that with her emotions in mind all the time. If you feel
that she is tense, you will want to make simpler steps, to relax her, to give her
freedom, to take a breath. Learn to read
her emotions, follow her emotion-leading.
6. Follow her, again – Sometimes, even the
experienced dancers make mistakes. Don’t
ever allow to the woman to think that she is responsible for the mistake. First,
you try to follow her movement, so she will never notice that she is not making
the steps that you are leading her to. As one old milonguero said – If she
makes a mistake, I will make a mistake too. If that doesn’t help, if she starts to
apologize while dancing, you stop her and apologize yourself.
7. Dancing is precious – So, don’t waste
it. Dance only with women you enjoy dancing. Normally, you should, in all
milongas, dance a few tandas with beginners or with women that you have never
danced before. Think of that as your social responsibility. However, never
dance too many. First, you will get tired, and when people are tired they dance
badly. Second, they get all sweaty. So, when there is a chance to dance with the
perfect partner, you may be all messed up – therefore you ruin the beautiful
moments.
