Date:    Wed, 20 May 1998 19:58:47 -0700
From:    JC Dill <jcdillx@CONCENTRIC.NET>
Subject: Getting followers to take bigger steps


I was discussing this list with a lurker at a milonga a few nights ago, and
he mentioned his enjoyment of the thread where followers discussed how they
might motivate the leader to dance a simpler dance, and leaders gave
suggestions on how to phrase such requests.

He wanted to see if we could have a similar discussion about how leaders
could motivate followers to take larger steps.  He finds that some
followers never seem to take large enough steps that would allow him to do
any embellishments between them.  If he tries to really *lead them* into
*big steps* he feels that he is dragging them all over the floor, and
doesn't enjoy the dance.  His regular partner takes long steps, not overly
long but with enough space that he can easily embellish, do sacadas, etc.
She's shorter than average, so it isn't as if her legs were real long, as
if she always took huge steps and it was a measure impossible to meet.
While I am quite out of practice, he found that dancing with me was
enjoyable, apparently I take long enough steps too (I *am* tall, but I know
I don't reach anywhere near as far as I can when I am in better form).  So
his problem mostly seems to be with followers who take steps far smaller
than average.

Since some of these followers are close friends, not dancing with them
isn't really a possible solution (so this isn't one of those "phantom
problems" that FdM refers to).  This also means that verbal suggestions
must be *very* tactful.  :-)

Are there any other leaders who have encountered this situation?  Do you
have any advice for this leader on how to improve his dancing enjoyment
with these followers who are inclined to take small steps?

TIA

jc

Date:    Thu, 21 May 1998 06:29:20 EDT
From:    FRSASSON <FRSASSON@AOL.COM>
Subject: Fwd: Getting followers to take bigger steps


 In a message dated 98-05-21 01:54:44 EDT, you write:

 <<  He finds that some
  followers never seem to take large enough steps that would allow him to do
  any embellishments between them.  >>

 Tia:

 In my experience, the size of the steps depends upon:

 1.       How experienced is the follower !!!!!!

           A beginner, and sometimes an intermediate dancer, as a rule, will
take much smaller steps than an advanced experienced dancer.

 2.        How good the leader  is  !!!!!!!!!!

            In dancing with an intermediate to advanced tanguera for the first
time, if the leader is tentative in his steps, (Principally his first salida
or few steps). you can't possibly blame the follower for not doing what the
leader wants her to do.

            However, if the leader is definite in his "step demands", and
asserts his desires with a definite purpose in mind and movement, and on his
very first step, gives a good long definite salida, followed by several steps
with the desired length he wants his follower to take, he will instantly
transmit a feeling of confidence to his follower, who then, usually, will
follow in the length that she was shown.

             Too many times the follower is blamed for the inadequate purpose
of a weak leader.

              Of course, there are exceptions to this and all tango rules,
some times in cases where the follower is a "leading follower", one who no
matter what, wants to impose her will on the dance floor, but mostly when the
follower, even if she is an upper intermediate dancer, has not yet learned the
full tango language, and therefore, has difficulty in understanding the step
communication that the leader is imparting.

 Frank ( in Miami)

Date:    Thu, 21 May 1998 16:13:26 +0200
From:    Peter Niebert <niebert@INFORMATIK.UNI-HILDESHEIM.DE>
Subject: Re: Getting followers to take bigger steps


JC Dill writes:
[...]
 > He wanted to see if we could have a similar discussion about how leaders
 > could motivate followers to take larger steps.  He finds that some
 > followers never seem to take large enough steps that would allow him to do
 > any embellishments between them.  If he tries to really *lead them* into
 > *big steps* he feels that he is dragging them all over the floor, and
 > doesn't enjoy the dance.  His regular partner takes long steps, not overly
 > long but with enough space that he can easily embellish, do sacadas, etc.
[...]

First of all, a technical comment: this is a typical problem with
beginning followers, but it is not that they take to short steps; the
problem is that they do not follow the length of the step being
lead. It would not be right for the follower to taker a bigger step
than is lead to give the leader space for some kind of dangerous
gymnastics. For instance in a parallel step of both partners, the goal
is to move the weight together and to bring it to a parallel position
again. This explains one of the seeming miracles of Tango, that both
partners place there feet in complete harmony without looking on the
floor.

As has recently been explained, lead-follow essentially works in these
three steps: (1) the leader indicates the (length of) the step, (2)
the follower executes the step, (3) the leader accompanies the
follower in the step.

Now, many beginning followers -- who really have not yet learned to
follow -- just pick up the direction, not the speed, not the length of
a step. They decide for themselves how long the step will be and even
a good leader cannot hinder them in doing so. If he is a good leader,
he has no chance but to accept the small step and properly accompany
her. So what happens is that the follower blocks the joint movement
from becoming big. The feeling of "draging" her over the floor maybe
is, because your friend tried to do a big step in (3), as big as he
wished her to do it, although she did not. That surely feels bad.

The problem with the "small steps" usually occurs in ochos and
everything built around ochos. Maybe the beginning followers have
balance problems with ochos and thus take short steps to catch the
balance. There is probably no way to avoid this, because ochos are
IMHO *not* a natural movement (a movement occurring in everyday life),
so how could any beginner have balance here from the beginning. So,
beginners just cannot follow ochos lead big. So they take them small
regardless of the lead and then get used to ignore this part of the
lead, which they originally could not follow.


 > Since some of these followers are close friends, not dancing with them
 > isn't really a possible solution (so this isn't one of those "phantom
 > problems" that FdM refers to).  This also means that verbal suggestions
 > must be *very* tactful.  :-)

Something is wrong here, I think. There are close friends, with whom I
do not want to dance. They *must* learn to accept this, or our
(forced) dancing will not be any good for the relationship. The
problem is how to tactfully tell her (an assumed close friend, who
wants to dance with me, but I do not want this) that it is better for
both of us rather to look for other dance partners and stick to our
other ways of communicating together! I wish I had a recipe for
that. I will not allow anyone to claim the *right* to dance with me
and I do not claim the right to dance with a particular person. Both
partners have to agree on each dance.

The situation is different, if I *do* like to dance with the woman
(today), but I notice problems in her dancing (same day). Then, it is
easy. By our dancing she will know that I like her and like to dance
with her and she will not feel badly criticised by any kind of
constructive suggestions. I do not recall a single woman, with whom I
enjoyed to dance for any kind of reason (for the argument: not because
of her skill, but maybe because of her musicality, or her heart), who
was not willing to accept suggestions, after we had a few dances.

There is a third possibility, that we have a bad day together (no
harmony in dancing or at all), although on other days it is
different. Then, maybe we stop to dance or get modest and do the most
simple things together to find each other. But I would not make any
technical suggestions on such a day.


 >
 > Are there any other leaders who have encountered this situation?  Do you
 > have any advice for this leader on how to improve his dancing enjoyment
 > with these followers who are inclined to take small steps?

Now, how to communicate the problem about small steps/small
ochos. Again, I assume that the problem occurs with ochos or giros,
but not with simple steps.

Let us say, it is a problem about back ochos in front of the leader
(for other problems, similar comments apply), i.e.\ the kind of
movement where the man takes simple side steps to the left, to the
right, to the left again ..., while she is taking backward steps and
turns in parallel to the position where the man places the foot, take
another backward step in the other direction, turns, and so
forth. Obviously, this movement can be repeated indefinitely, and it
can be executed in small up to very big steps, or it can be executed
with an overall forward movement (with lighter ochos of the woman) or
even a backward movement of the man (with stronger ochos of the
woman).

To explain the problem (that she is blocking the lead in her backward
ochos) to her I would play around with variations on this kind of
movement (smaller and bigger ochos) and -- to give her a control of
the "right" feeling -- alternatively joint side steps of both partners
to the left, to the right, and so on ... . Both movements should
essentially have the same feel, dynamics and so forth.

This kind of exercise almost always works very well to eliminate or at
least diminish the problem.

After explaining the problem, doing this exercise a few times, I will
dance with her another dance or two and afterwards truthfully tell her
that it feels better now.



----

There is another problem about small/large steps:


Beginning and even intermediate dancers of both roles often try to
avoid large steps in a certain direction because of fear. Many
intermediate followers have told me that it is much more difficult for
them to walk forward (while the man is going backward) than
backward. The reason is that they fear to injure the leader, because
they have to take a step where he is standing *now*. Beginning leaders
have the same problem in walking "into" the woman. So watch them twist
their spine in the attempt to be in front of the woman at the level of
the chest for leading them, while they try to place their legs to the
side of the woman for not kicking her.

This is a psychological problem, and it can be solved by
rationalisation that the partner will not be where I step and by the
experience that properly kicking the partner while walking into
her/him is not all *that* bad (sounds bad, but timidly avoiding ever
to touch your partner while walking into him/her will never solve any
problems). Also for this reason it is essential for both partners to
practice with moderately soft shoes.

Likewise, beginning followers and many leaders are fearful of
executing (large) backward steps. There have been many comments about
the harm of taking a backward step against the direction of dance. But
the problem is not so much the direction of the backward step, but the
fact of going backward, where you do not know, what is going on. And
we fear to kick somebody by going backward

Followers eventually learn to trust the leaders and thus to believe
that there is space, where they are lead. Leaders eventually learn to
know the situation around them well enough to know and use the fact
that nobody can be behind them. But the psychological problem of the
fear remains for both.

Again the solution is to find out that bumping into somebody is not
*that* bad. This is not to tell leaders to step backwards in a
direction they do not know about! Not at all! But sometimes, they will
be wrong and they will bump into a couple, which came unpretictably
out of nowhere at the speed of sound.
The lesson to learn is that there are ways to almost eliminate the
danger of injury, e.g.\ by keeping your feet close to the ground and
by being ready to instantly stop and redirect a foot that unexpectedly
touches something.

There are many exercises to overcome fear and to learn trust, in
dancing and many other disciplines. Here is a particular exercise for
walking backward without fear, which I have learned from Amira
Campora: Place some chairs on the dancefloor (which is filled only
with people doing the exercise -- and chairs), let the people almost
blindly walk backward with the only aim to take big steps backward,
but not to avoid contact with any chair or any person. So they will
bump into chairs and into other people. As this happens, the goal is
to instantly react by stopping and/or redirecting/reversing the
movement. The lesson learned by our brain (department of trust and
fear :-) is that we survive this exercise without bad bruises and so
do the other guys too.







-- Peter

Date:    Thu, 21 May 1998 10:50:31 -0700
From:    Bruss Bowman <Bruss@QMACS.COM>
Subject: Re: Getting followers to take bigger steps


/*
He wanted to see if we could have a similar discussion about how leaders
could motivate followers to take larger steps.  He finds that some
followers never seem to take large enough steps that would allow him to
do
any embellishments between them.  If he tries to really *lead them* into
*big steps* he feels that he is dragging them all over the floor,
............................
Are there any other leaders who have encountered this situation?  Do you
have any advice for this leader on how to improve his dancing enjoyment
with these followers who are inclined to take small steps?
*/

I struggled with this problem for a long, long time.

Leader's embellishment of followers steps ( sacadas in particular )
typically occur in within part of a turning element.

Michael Walker was the teacher who best explained the problem set to me.

The issue is one of sensitivity or quality of both lead and follow.  The
key ( to me ) is to break down the elements of the turning lead into two
distinct parts;  1. The pivot 2. The step.  This idea remains the same
in forward, back and side steps.   As you practice leading/following a
turn to the right or left break down the pattern into the smallest parts
and pause at the end of each.

For example:
Describing the followers steps
1.      Forward step
2.      Pivot
3.      Side step
4.      Pivot
5.      Back step
6.      Pivot
7.      Side step
8.      Pivot
...........then the pattern repeats.

Note: It is imperative that the follower track her feet during the pivot
element and that she does not step until lead to do so.

Once both the leader and the follower can really distinguish the
difference between the lead for the pivot and the lead for the step then
leading the size of the step becomes almost elementary.  If this
sensitivity on both partner's parts doesn't exist then trying to coerce
"larger" steps will be an effort in frustration for both people.

Interestingly enough, for years I felt that the followers were not
taking large enough steps for me to be able to work within.  Of course
it couldn't have been my leading. ( this is sarcasm for those that don't
know me! )  Over time as the quality of the turns became better I've
found that my own "over stepping" ( aka Godzilla steps...Thump, Thump,
Thump....ahhhhh  ) and incorrect placement of step are actually more of
a problem than small steps by the follower.    For those of you that
have been to the incredibly crowded dance floors of BsAs you know that
for survival your steps must be VERY small and that there are dozens of
leaders that are able to embellish the night away with the framework of
these small steps !

I would recommend working on the quality ( sensitivity ) of your turning
and walking elements and step size will take care of itself.

Best Regards,
Bruss

Date:    Thu, 21 May 1998 14:03:21 -0500
From:    "Stephen P. Brown" <Stephen.P.Brown@DAL.FRB.ORG>
Subject: Re: Getting followers to take bigger steps


     Frank wrote:

 >In my experience, the size of the steps depends upon:


 >2.        How good the leader  is  !!!!!!!!!!

 >Too many times the follower is blamed for the inadequate purpose
 >of a weak leader.

 >[I]f the leader is tentative in his steps, you can't possibly blame
 >the follower for not doing what the leader wants her to do.

 >if the leader is definite in his "step demands", and asserts his
 >desires with a definite purpose in mind and movement, and on his very
 >first step, gives a good long definite salida, followed by several
 >steps with the desired length he wants his follower to take, he will
 >instantly transmit a feeling of confidence to his follower, who then,
 >usually, will follow in the length that she was shown.

 Yes, a leader who finds recurring problems with many different followers
 should look at what he is doing.  I would shift the emphasis, however,
 away from the leader's steps to how he marks the follower's steps.

 The leader establishes the length of the follower's steps not with the
 length of his own steps but by how much and when he shifts his and her
 weight.  If a leader takes a long step but is late in shifting his own
 weight or does not shift his own weight by a much as he steps, the
 follower is receiving an instruction to take a shorter step and with
 different timing.

 My regular partner, Susan, describes the best leaders as being still.  By
 this, she means that he has completely shifted his and her weight by the
 time a step (not figure) is completed.  In particular, his weight is not
 lagging behind, and then catching up with step.  Such stillness greatly
 reduces two common problems that are often blamed on followers: stepping
 too soon or quickly, and taking steps that are too short.

 Let me offer an example of how the leader's shift of weight affects the
 follower's timing:

 During a workshop in San Francisco a few weeks ago, Fabian Salas taught
 an inline barrida where the man does a cross-foot basic, and then sweeps
 the woman's right foot straight back with his right foot.  If the man has
 failed to shift all of his weight onto his left foot during the preceding
 step, the woman will tend to take a short back step with her right foot as
 he attempts to bring his right foot forward to touch hers to begin the
 barrida.

 A leader's attempt to bring his foot up faster will not work and could
 result in an injury to both of them.  The key to making the follower wait
 for the leader is for him to completely shift his weight onto his left
 foot during the preceding step.  Then the movement of his right foot does
 not mark any step for her.

 The idea of a confident step is one in which the weight is completely
 shifted, and there is complete stillness before the next step is marked.

 --Steve de Tejas

Date:    Fri, 22 May 1998 00:58:14 -0700
From:    TangoMan <tangoman@HOOKED.NET>
Subject: A cure for "shortstepitis"


On the question of short steps and how to correct the problem, I'd like to
suggest the following concept which applies to both men and women when
walking backwards.
There is a natural length for the back step and it results from keeping the
leg straight rotating from the joint at the hip instead of bending the knee
as we do in normal street walk. Most cases of "shortstepitis" are caused by
swinging the lower leg from the knee. A side effect of this is that there
will be a lot of upper leg bumping as the upper leg has not gone with the
lower leg in search of the back step.
Try to have your body weight firmly loaded in the support leg, bend the knee
enough to feel properly balanced and stretch the other leg as a unit
(without bending the knee and using the joint at the hip as the rotation
point)looking for the floor behind with the metatarsus (the ball of the
foot), keeping the heel off the ground. At this point shift enough weight so
the body is basically in the middle. When your partner advances, elongate
the leg, set the heel down, bring the whole body weight to that leg and
repeat the previous sequence with the other leg.
There exists a possibility that if the man does not how to mark a back step,
then the lady is out of luck if she is being held tight by his right arm (no
place to go) against her back.
Tangazos,

Alberto

Date:    Fri, 22 May 1998 04:16:09 -0700
From:    Jim Lane <jiml@HALCYON.COM>
Subject: Re: Getting followers to take bigger steps



Peter Niebert <niebert@INFORMATIK.UNI-HILDESHEIM.DE>:
>For instance in a parallel step of both partners, the goal
>is to move the weight together and to bring it to a parallel position
>again. This explains one of the seeming miracles of Tango, that both
>partners place there feet in complete harmony without looking on the
>floor.

Although it's clearly important for partners to take appropriately
sized steps with each other, I disagree that this explains the miracle.

Another thing that I was taught long ago is that, as a lead, I must
always be completely aware of my partner's balance and weight.  In
a tango dance position, if I close my eyes and my partner takes a
step in any direction, I should be able to place my foot next to any
part of hers just by feeling her balance.

Jim

Date:    Fri, 22 May 1998 13:31:52 -0600
From:    Tom Stermitz <stermitz@CSN.NET>
Subject: Re: Getting followers to take bigger steps


>I was discussing this list with a lurker at a milonga a few nights ago, and
>he mentioned his enjoyment of the thread where followers discussed how they
>might motivate the leader to dance a simpler dance, and leaders gave
>suggestions on how to phrase such requests.
>
>He wanted to see if we could have a similar discussion about how leaders
>could motivate followers to take larger steps.  He finds that some
>followers never seem to take large enough steps that would allow him to do
>any embellishments between them.  If he tries to really *lead them* into
>*big steps* he feels that he is dragging them all over the floor, and
>doesn't enjoy the dance
....
>Are there any other leaders who have encountered this situation?  Do you
>have any advice for this leader on how to improve his dancing enjoyment
>with these followers who are inclined to take small steps?

I usually stay away from instructional posts. It is too easy to get lost in
words. I never read those long, complicated ones.

I find the topic of step length to be very interesting, however.

It is easier for a follower to learn to step short than to start with short
steps and learn to step long.

Nice, long beautiful steps should be taught from the beginning. If your
teacher doesn't do that, then I strongly advise you to find another
teacher. It is so fundamental, that such a shortcoming definitely indicates
an inexperienced teacher.

In ballroom dance you deal with this differences in step length also, but
perhaps only at a higher level of skill. In tango you are forced to deal
with intense lead-follow issues including step length much earlier in your
development.

I have a deceptively simple excercise that I use frequently:

Lead simple backward and forward walking with long and together steps. Vary
the pattern. Change the the foot that goes back. Vary the rhythms. This
excercise is even more distilled to its essentials if the follower puts her
hands on the leader's chest.

I say deceptively simple because most people are running around taking
regular long steps without ever using the together step, except at the
tango-close resolution.

The practice forces the follower to do several things:
--Learn to connect step-length with the leader's chest movement.
--Wait at the half-way point since she doesn't know where it is going.
--Slow down her stepping, instead of guessing and racing to land her foot.
--She habituates to the alternating footsteps of tango, as opposed to the
follower's right-foot lead of Ballroom dancing.

<<The last point is one of my biggest pet peeves after the DBS. You go to
certain communities of Southern California (which shall remain nameless),
and the ballroom presence has habituated the followers to always step bask
with their right foot. If I go forward, she uses her left (undoubtedly
DBS-conditioning). This is simply wrong, yet I have even seen a teacher in
LA instructing that one SHOULD step back with the left. We have some of
this problem in Colorado also.>>

Anyway, it is easier to start with the long-together pattern than to play
with long and short.

Tom Stermitz