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.

Theme: Back crosses

You know we have a soft spot for back crosses - they're dancefloor friendly, they're musical and they simply look great. In this class, we saw a simple back cross, and then quicker ones with both legs to close the musical phrase before playing with cross and sandwich combinations.

Summary video



 

Beginners: Back cross

Leaders

  • As you step to the left, take a step that is bigger than your partner’s by dissociating to the right. You then need to change weight to be in cross system.
  • Step forward together. To lead the back cross, you need to push your axis a bit forward, to free the follower’s right leg. Once her leg is a bit behind her supporting leg, you need to take a side step to the right, slightly diagonal. This will create the energy that should lead your partner to do a back cross.
  • You need to think of leading the back cross, using slight transfer of your axis, and not dissociation. If you dissociate too much, your partner might start pivoting.

Followers

  • When doing the back cross, make sure you keep your whole foot on the floor. It is very easy in back crosses to end up with the small toe on the floor, which doesn’t quite look good. Think about the back cross as a move that comes from the hip, in a pendulum movement. Don’t just cross from the foot.
  • As soon as you do the back cross, you need to transfer your weight on the back leg.
  • To uncross, bring your feet as close to one another as possible.

 

Intermediates: Back crosses on the spot with both legs

Leaders

  • Use the same technique as for the first step and lead the back cross using slight shifts of your axis, forward and backward. The difficulty in this step is that you are not walking backward, and only rely on your torso moves to lead the back crosses

Followers

  • Same technique but with both legs.

 

Intermediates: Back cross and sandwich

Leaders

  • As you lead the back step, you need to quickly position your right foot next to your partner’s left foot so that she can sandwich your foot when you lead the back cross.
  • This step uses the same lead as the other two, but you might want to use a wider torso move so that the follower’s cross is a bit wider.

Followers

  • you should feel your partner’s foot next to yours and feel that his lead is slightly wider, to which you should respond by having a wider cross.

 

See you soon on the dancefloor,

Nati y Bruno