tango lecture by Karen Hilton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD4qh0p3eY0

Notes:
1. Tango must be a very accurate dance. The placement of foot, the arm needs to be accurate. 

2. posture/hold in the tango: In swing dances, man's right cuff is at the junction of the ladie's arm and the body. In Tango, it is the fore arm (one cuff up) that is at the junction of the ladie's arm and body. Consequently, the man's right arm and hand is placed in center of the lady's back, common mistake is too low. Lady's left arm is parallel to the floor.  The pressure from the right hand, left hand, and the diaphragm are all the same (say 7 out of 10), a common mistake is having 30 on the hands and 5 at the diaphragm (32:45).


3. Tango Stance: two flat feet, knees slightly inside the feet. This is tango stance. Move the two knees in unisance. Put the hands inside the thighs and feel the thighs working against each other.
Put hands on the outside of the thighs, then pick up the forearm and hands to extend to the front. Push elbows into the side of the body. make very short and very sharp turns. This is the feeling of turns in tango, it should be compact, and internal. (eg. tango telespin)

4. Body speed: the turns in tango is on the same level as there is no rise and fall. It's only left and right.  is coordinated from the knees to the center of the body (belly button, Qi area), (like a triangle) then up to the elbows, (like reverse triangle).

5. Foot speed: kicking cigarite box exercise.

6. Close Promenade step. Timing:, from the PP, the foot striket the floor at 1 (16:55 ask the question, 17:28 is the answer.). on the close step, lady is on the inside edge of the right foot, inside edge of whole foot.

7.  turning 5 step:  2 different timing variation: traditional timing(QQS&S), and a different one: QQQQS(21:51)
8. Spanish drag (27:12): the man's right knee is toward the inside of the foot, (in and under to give the girl a marvalous shape)

9. Quarter beat(29:41): Timing: Q&Q&S. Foot speed.

10. Fallaway reverse Slip pivot (35:15). Accuracy of the body line. Pay attention to the direction of the center. The center turns left, left for the first two steps, then turn right on the third step. Then left again to change positions with the lady.  Common mistake is to turn left the whole way through.

fallaway whisk

Just a collection of videos on tango Fall away whisk.

Hiltons' teaching video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_Hpf1slOXw
He said the man should put the left foot under the right shoulder but it seems that the later people (Luca, GP are not doing that any more).

Pino's demonstration. 1:36
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-FEJAJkzVA,

GG's version, with Anna,


GG's version, with Anastasia, 00:57
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlQ2RPWozSU

Luca and Loraine, 00:38
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqQtn10G4ns

Mirko Gozzoli & Edita Daniute, Tango

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlyuPB2VWvo


1. interesting choreography following fall away whisk .

2. example of big top at time 1:14-- 1:16.

3. Interesting choreography at 1:23 -- 1:28.

Note for Pino Tango Video

There are my notes for Pion Tango videos.

mod lesson pino tpp005 entries to pp
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iaVNG5NOL9o
00:11 -- progressive link, especially on back view of man
04:06 -- progressive link, see the demonstration of this.

mod lesson pino tpp006 promenade figures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Vkh2oUiqMc
1:00 -- side cross (i.e. skater lock), fallaway reverse slip pivot


mod lesson pino tpp007 figures of reverse turns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49jSmQzZz4M
01:05 -- open reverse turn, with lady outside. Notice the how timing of the first slow is timed with the movement.
03:32 -- Open Revrse turn from samefoot lunge ending: the timing used here is &QQS&S to end in PP. (&SQQ&S is how we do it?)

mod lesson pino tpp008 figures of natural turns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-FEJAJkzVA
00:07 -- Natural Promenade Turn.
01:36 -- Natural Promenade Turn & Fallaway Whisk. This shows the fall away whisk is proceeded with the natural promeande turn.
02:03 -- Natural Promenade Turn & Outside Spin.  ( in the routine at the corner from short wall to big top long wall)
02:21 -- Chase to Whisk ( in the routine, from first long wall to second short wall). Notice at the whisk position (02:27),
weight is split between two feet, and upperbody still poised toward forward,instead of backward.
And foot are diagonal toward partern (as much as possible while still maintain the whisk positiioin).

standard lesson with Ikaika 6/19/2012

Today we continued to work on Tango.
1. We practiced staying in between foot from one step to the next.  Do this slowly first, then speed up the music.
2. on the skater lock step, need to pay attention to use the left foot before closing.
3. place foot, no swivels
4. we had the exercise of practicing forward step in tango, the standing foot has knee going down and lifting the free leg knee. free leg ankle extended as a result. 

standard lesson with Ikaika on 6/16/2012

Tango:

1. link. how did the guy indicate the direction and how much turn to have in the link: shift body weight over the foot.  Lady needs to pay attention to open right side around the left side, not open right side around the spine (which will turn the left side forward, and ruin the hold). In other words, my body should be like a normal door, with the hinge on the left side, not like a revolving door with the hinge in the center.
He demonstrated to me with Pilate ball on the rotation of the body. The body rotates because the force was applied to the side of the body (rather then the center of the body), this allows the body to rotate, right side going back in this case. but I still need to keep the movement of the whole body going back, it's not rotation in place, and the rotation should have left side as the axis, not the spine as axis.

See the Peter Eagleton video of tango on youtube (http://youtu.be/rJ3cWxpRji8). Notice how Brenda did the link with a precise foot placement, and at the end the foot are not really far apart.

2. close promenade: In the forward steps, I need to make sure to keep my left front pushed toward the man's left side. then roll on it to get back to close position. I need to step on the inside edge of the right foot on the closing step. This relates to the point of placing the foot, not swiveling the foot.

3. Fall away whisk: How did the guy indicate the amount of turn early:Before the whisk step, there is a pivoting link step after getting into close position. This is the same step as in the natural pivot turn. Need to do this pivoting action correctly, then a lot of the turns is already done here.

4. No swivels on the foot, place the foot with the turned in position on the right foot already when going backward.  Example, in reverse turn.
5. Remember to stack up the blocks in the reverse turn, especially in the outside partner step, don't shift the hip to the left and the upper ribcage to the right, keep it stacked up vertical, (almost feel like toward left). I have a tendency to shift the upper ribcage part of the vertical stack toward the right, getting it into the guy's space, and loose balance on the next step.   Also on the outside partner step, it's not the femma went outside partner, it's only the part below the knee goes outside partner.

6. on the walks back, need to place foot, and receive on the back foot, keep a pressure toward the partner in the upper body, don't leave from there.  don't change the tilt of the upper body to move back.  The movement in tango are place foot, receive with leg, place foot, receive by bending back leg, not by using upper body.

7. On the second half of the telespin step, I also need to try to place the right foot, not swivel it.



8. Questions: for some reason, I couldn't close completely in the close step.

standard lesson with Ikaika on 6/15/2012

Foxtrot:
1. I need to use the front foot to push back, not just throw the upper body back. Especially in  reverse turn, when I'm getting onto the heel turn, use the front foot for as long as possible till the heel to propel myself back, don't jump back using body weight, just let it happen as I push using the front foot.

2. On the reverse turn, the focus is not to get on the heel and stay on the heel, I need to keep in mind that I still need to keep the center of the partnership moving forward, so after I turned toward down line of dance, I need to shift weight from the heel of right foot toward the ball of the left foot, instead of pausing on the the heel of the right foot.

3. The lady can be active without disturbing the three aspects that should be controlled by the guy: a direction. b. timing, c. position. So can be active in the upper ribcage to head, can be active to respond to the shaping. But can not leave without keeping the frontal projection.

Tango:
1. when we have Try to keep the Achilles long, not the front shin part long. In tango, walking forward, the foot work is heel flat, not heel toe, so we never release the back foot to the toe, we pick up the foot when only ball of foot is still touch the ground. This keeps us from having a tendency to swing and rise.

2. Link: every walking step in tango is supposed to turn 1/16th of a turn. The last step of the link (i.e. the step I put down the left foot) should turn no more than 1/4 of a turn, so if link turns more more than that (like 180 degree in my example), the majority of the turn should be done in the back step on the right foot. Basically the guy should give me a signal on the amount of turn we need to have on the first step, then I need to make sure to read and finish the majority of the turn when I'm placing my right foot, when the turn is bigger, I need to do almost a contra check step.

3. Fall away whisk: read the turn from early on, so that the left forward step is already getting the turn.