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.