Every week, you’ll find on our blog class notes and a summary video from our Wednesday and Sunday tango group classes.
These video and notes are meant to help our students remember what they’ve done in class.
Dimension: Speed - Theme: Fundamentals of changes of speed (and fun, quick steps)
To start our new theme, we focused on musicality, and studied 2 little steps that are really nice to mark the end of the musical phrase. For intermediates+, we saw a version of the baby ocho and the corte, which can be used on rhythmical orchestras or to mark the end of musical phrases.
Summary video
Beginners & improvers: End of the musical phrase
Top tips
- Leaders: To go forward in double time, you need to gently lift your partner to indicate the change of speed and shorten your steps. In two quick steps, you should cover the same distance as one step on the beat.
- Followers: Try and not jump and bob when speeding up.
Intermediates / Advanced: Baby backward ochos backward and “needling” to the side
Top tips
- Leaders: Use very small dissociations for the baby backward ochos and make sure your left foot steps on the beat and the right foot on the half beat. If you focus only on when the left foot steps, you might find it easier to keep the beat.
- Followers: For the baby ochos, keep your feet touching and do not let your heels open. For the “needling”, get into the corte and move both legs together as a block.
Homework
Top tips
- Leaders: On your own, try and identify the end of the musical phrase and mark it by going faster on 7&8. Try to do this exercise on different orchestras as they don’t all mark the musical phrasing in the same way.
- Followers: Practise the “needling” step which is a bit of a strange move.
See you soon on the dancefloor,
Nati y Bruno
