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: Size - Theme: Varying the size of steps

In this first class of our short term, we had a look at how to vary the size of basic steps, before moving on to how the leader and the follower can both take different sized steps whilst maintaining a nice connection. We saw one of our favourite tango salon step, a little cadencia, which is cute, playful and musical as well as a little square inspired by Osvaldo and Coca.

Summary video



 

Beginners/Improvers: Varying the size of simple steps

Top tips

  • Leaders: To indicate different sized-steps, first you must move very clearly: either you are taking a long step or a short step. Being clear in your own move and intention will give the follower a big clue. We also like to use different technique in the embrace to make this even clearer: lift your partner to indicate a shorter step or ground her to indicate a longer step.
  • Followers: In class, we always insist on the importance of sliding on the floor and delaying our transfer our weight. It’s because we always need to get 2 pieces of information from the leader: the direction he wants us to go towards and the length of the step he wants us to take. By sliding, we can make sure we understand both pieces of information and respond accordingly to the lead.

 

Intermediates & up: Little cadencia

Top tips

  • Leaders: Stay on the leg you’ve arrived on – let’s say you’ve arrived on your left leg. Then tilt left once to make your partner change weight and then once more to the left to make her take a small side step.
  • Followers: Try and keep your torso to your partner and take small steps in order not to pull your partner off axis.

 

Intermediates & up: Square with flat giro for the leader

Top tips

  • Leaders: Make sure that when doing your foot moves, your torso stays as still as possible so that your partner doesn’t get confused.
  • Followers: To do the square, every 2 steps you need to take a 90-degree pivot.

 

Homework

Top tips

  • Beginners & improvers: Practice different-sized steps alone and together. Build an awareness of your own transfer of axis and weight.
  • Intermediates & up: Leader, try to lead side steps to the follower without moving. Then try the opposite, try moving without her stepping. Being able to move independently from one another is the basis for the steps we’ve seen today.