Fandango de Tango Looking Back 4

Lesson 4
Steps

Taking eighteen classes in five days, you’re bound to learn a step or two. That’s how many combinations I memorized: two.

But that’s not the point. I never go to class to learn combinations; I go to do them. Sometimes, being dragged through the paces, I wonder why I bother.

Fabian Salas explains…

The idea that a follower can blindly follow any step is a fiction. Remember when you were a beginner, learning the cross?

No, Fabian says, a follower is like a computer. First you need to download the software, then you can use it.

There’s something offensive in his simile, I suspect, but his point is well taken: If a follower doesn’t know how to execute a move, or if a lead asks her to do something foreign or nonsensical to her, chances are she won’t get it right. She’ll resist it or do it badly.

Think of volcada. What follower in her right mind would go along with that?

I am a pretty good follower, and I still can’t respond to the lead to step forward into the man’s step. Stan does it often when we practice, and I never get it right on the first try. Might a class help?

A class gives a follower technique to use in executing a step. The concentrated repetition with many leads forces the follower to develop sensitivity to the lead’s cue regardless of how it is executed. Most important, a class gives the follower permission to take the unfamiliar, perhaps uncomfortable, step.

Yes that’s right, the teacher reassures her. With every repetition, the follower gains sensitivity to the cue and refines her execution.

By the time class ends, the follower has filed both the cue and the move in her muscle memory. A few sessions at home with a broom or a partner, and she’s ready to take her cool new move public!

In a milonga, a considerate lead gives a follower only two or three chances to pick up on a cue. Then he spares her the misery of missing the step. I never want to miss a lead’s cue. Far better to go to class (18 classes in 5 days!) and be dragged through the paces umpteen clumsy times, so when the move comes up in milonga, I’m ready.

Don’t ask me what steps I learned at Fandango de Tango. Lead me and I’ll show you.