Todays #Tango Truism 827: (poetic but practical advice for every level of lead) Leads do not force, they cant, its a message silly! (see #826) This has been said before, and it will get said again and again until you get it through your Lead/ER head. Leading is not about forcing the Follower to do anything. And while you think you are not, trust that you are in fact pushing, pulling, etc...constantly. Nor is it about using resistance or asking for resistance from your follower in order to feel them, or employing/using tension, pressure, or compression in any way, shape, or form on any level anywhere at any time in a dance...ever! Yet, unfortunately, you feel you must resort to it when things are beginning to devolve in a dance. You dont need to do that. Fortunately for you there places in the dance where you can literally reset what youre doing, theyre called Musical Pauses. Which is one reason why you want to pay attention to whats happening in the music and not just wander around the floor until the noise...errr...music stops. Its also a reason why patterns, figures, and forms dont work in the long term because they dont allow for true adaptation that fit within musical phrase. Copying someone elses patterns is a lot like copying someone elses homework, you learn nothing and usually fail the class! Because when it comes time to actually employ that knowledge to solve a problem, you wont be able to do it. To be a Lead is a completely different mindset, a different way to thinking, and a radical departure from anything that youve done before, because it means guidance without the use of your arms (compression and pressure), it means shepherding without the use of a stick or a pole (rigidity, tension), and it means inviting without shouting (force), but rather whispering (thinking) very...very quietly to the point of not using your voice at all but rather a thought. This is orders of magnitude of the least of amounts of physical tactile presence than you have ever thought possible, just enough to establish that you are there, and no more. It then means asking (intention) Can we go here ? and pointing that way (with the slightest of weight movements), and then, this is the important part ☯ listening for the response of the Follower, and no matter what that response is, working with it and still asking Can we go here ?. Listening is the proper way to Lead. ©2014 Tango Truisms. Commentary: It would be really cool if you shared this far and wide. Please. With every lead you dance with. Please.
Posted on: Sat, 13 Dec 2014 15:00:00 +0000
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