Eric and I have been talking a lot lately about our cross-training and body conditioning efforts and how they impact our dance. This post is about conditioning your body, in which we explore various posture or movement issues and the exercises that will help correct them.

sometimes our bodies actually inhibit our good posture

While we are always finding ways to correct our posture, many times a day, everyday, we realize that sometimes our bodies actually inhibit our good posture, because they are weak in some places, too tight in others, and maybe even too flexible. Today we are going to look specifically at the lumbar spine (that’s the low back), since it is often the source of spinal postural problems and for many of us, pain.

So here is the region considered the lumbar spine, which naturally has about a 30-35% angle extending from the sacrum:

The natural inward curvature of our low back is technically called lordosis. Often, the lordosis is exaggerated, in which case, it is referred to as hyperlordosis. Most lumbar spine problems come from either a natural hyperlordosis, a deliberately exaggerated one, the over correction of lordosis, and pelvic misalignment. We’ll look at all of these more closely below.

Do you have any of the following problems?

Posture: Lumbar hyperlordosis:

Women, generally, have a tendency to let their pelvis tilt anteriorly, creating hyperlordosis, but men also possess this inclination. We see exaggerated hyperlordosis  very commonly in Argentine tango followers, as they seek the connection with their partner by displacing their ribcage forward and sticking their bottoms out to maintain their “axis.” Some followers even pursue and develop this look as a stylistic element. However, creating an exaggerated curvature in the spine is likely to create back, sacral, and knee problems, also reducing our ability to maintain core strength over time.

Causes of hyperlordosis can vary, but common ones include weak abdominal muscles and tight hip flexors.

Cross-training for hyperlordosis:

You will need to assess your body for reasons you might have hyperlordosis. Sometimes, all you need is to become aware of it, and correct it by lengthening your spine and adjusting your sacrum.

If doing this feels strained, you can do abdominal crunches (but not flat-back sit-ups, which can actually strengthen and tighten your hip flexors, rather than your abdominals) and stretch your lower back. Cat-cow stretches are good and relatively safe for stretching both your lower back and your abdominals. On a daily basis, find moments to make sure that you are toning your abdominals so you contain your organs (rather than letting your tummy hang out), but be careful of over contracting these. There is an important balance to finding stability and release, as always.

Stretching your hamstrings and your hip flexors can also be beneficial if they seem tight.

Posture: Flatback

Over correction or flat back:

Sometimes, we focus so much on having a straight spine, especially if we are highly tense, we will unnaturally reduce the lordosis in our lumbar spine. Since our spine sits at a slight angle on our sacrum, over straightening our back can be just as damaging to our intervetebral disks as lordosis.

Fatigue posture or hips forward.

Causes and exercises to fix fatigue posture:

(Medical disclaimer at end)

There is a real inequality in Argentine tango. There are almost always more women than men. How can we explain that? Despite what a lot of people say, men really have it pretty easy. Many teachers tell beginners, “all you have to do is walk.” Meanwhile, they are showing women how to do crosses, molinettes and ochos. Some men just stand there two footed, faking the lead for ochos while their partner works her bum off, staying on axis and powering through her pivots in spite of him… all in high heels, where one badly timed invasion of her axis could cause her free stilleto to slice across her big toe or impale her standing foot.

She has also practiced endlessly at home in 3″+ heels, mastering her spiral and free hip, just so she can do this dance with a reasonable amount of grace and beauty. The first time she drew her own blood with her stilleto high heels she learned the hard way that honoring her axis and moving accurately from her sacrum was very important.

How is it that the only true bloodsport in tango belongs to the women?  Even if the man is working at it, and not making the dance uncomfortable or difficult for his partner, can he do a front ocho? Does he do it with grace? Does he have a lose leg?  Can he do a front ocho while leading, and end with enough stability to move in any direction?  Maybe.

Has he ever drawn his own blood because he just practiced crosses and ochos for an hour and he momentarily lost his balance at a crucial moment? Has he continued to practice while the blood pooled, then dripped onto the sole of his precious high heels? Only to dab it dry and continue? Probably not.

Put some sport into your tango: Practice. Work. Sweat. Bleed.

This is a challenge to all you men out there. Put some sport into your tango. Do molinettes and ochos slowly, work your inner spiral, free your hip, let your free leg flow. Practice self-led front and back spiral boleos. Move gracefully with pretty foot articulation. And if you can, do it in a nice pair of Turquoise or Comme Il Faut high heels. Consider this as crosstraining for balance, grounding, axis sensitivity, a free hip, and pretty footwork. If you think you’ve got all this down, doing it all in high heels for an hour will be a humbling experience.

High heels are like an unforgiving race horse. They are fast and responsive and they will throw you at the first sign of ineptitude. Doing these movements on balance, with power, and ending in a stable place, ready to move in any direction, is a challenge. A challenge that, if you succeed, will make your dancing in flat shoes noticibly better and easier. You will have more stability, more precision, more spiral, and– I promise you– your partners will notice.

Notes on finding high heels

Finding high heels that fit might be a bit difficult, especially if you have a bigger foot. As a general rule, women’s shoes are 2 US sizes bigger. So a US men’s size 9 is a women’s size 11.  For me, that is is a 41 in Comme Il Faut (Men’s 9). Turquoise shoes seem to run one smaller and I’ve onle seen up to size 40.  42 is usually the largest size available, although I have seen bigger sizes at DNI. If you are afraid of the stiletto, DNI also makes some nice lace up practice high heels which many women love. A banded toe box is going to be more likely to fit than a peep toe, and it will provide plenty of stablity. If a regular heel cup is too tight, a sling back will work better, but be aware, a friend of ours claims that a sling back is what separates the girls from the women. Slingbacks just don’t provide the security of a full heel.

Practicing in High heels.

Practicing in high heels will do a number of things for your dance that you may just not do on your own. Those shoes are pretty and you are going to want to do them justice. You can’t just drag your foot around flat footed anymore. You are going to need to find some grace in your footwork.

If you think it doesn’t matter because you’re a man, think again.  Watch some videos of great tangueros and you will see pretty footwork. In high heels, your foot will already be pointed, but you are going to have to be careful of that high heel. Point them more, or the first time you trace your toe around your other foot to a cross you are going scratch the hell out of your standing foot.

That heel is going to make you think twice about putting your foot down.  Likewise, standing two footed is just not going to be quite so accessible, and it’s not pretty. Be as pretty as your fancy high heel shoes are.

Another difference you will find is that relaxing your free hip and leg may be just a little easier once you find stability on one foot. The actual pivots are also easier, since high heels are fast, but really try to keep your pivoting heel down, just grazing the floor.

Your range of axis is going to be a lot smaller.

This is not going to be easy. Just walking could be hard for you. Your range of axis is going to be a lot smaller than you are used to in your flat shoes. Being solid on the ground is going to be both harder and easier. Smaller footprint means more pressure but less leeway, which requires more accuracy.  Wearing hight heels will also make your foot tired if you are placing your weight over the balls of your foot, rather than over your arch. Pay attention to using your whole foot, including your heels to stabilize and move yourself.

Stand  with your weight evenly distributed between your heel and the ball of your foot. When walking, be very aware of where your weight is on your standing foot, make sure it settles in the middle of your arch with each step. To pivot, bend your knee slightly  to unweight your heel. It is not necessary to lift it off the ground, since there is very little friction because it covers such a small space.

In all practice, be sure that each movement or step ends with stability, your weight spread evenly from the heel to the ball of your foot so that moving smoothly in any direction can be easily accomplished. This is what we expect from our women and it is what we should expect of ourselves. Practice standing, play with your axis, move your sacrum and spine forward and back, and side to side. practice changes of weight, letting your free hip relax and drop.

Transition to practing forward and backward reaches as smoothly as possible. Let the movement ripple outward from your sacrum, let your hip start your reach forward or back. As you move your spine back and forth through your line of gravity, imagine a vortex swirling around your spine. Let your hips and legs internally rotate as you move through the center of it all and open, or externally rotate, again as your reach extends forward or back.

Try to keep your weight in the center of your arch

Begin to walk. Use your heel. Push off and roll through to the center of your foot allowing your body to unspiral and spiral through the step. Practice backwards and forwards and then add in side steps. Start practicing crosses, both sides, front and back. Make sure the cross happens because of the movement of your sacrum and spine relative to your line of gravity. Practice tracing your toe around the front and back of your standing foot.  Practice smoothly moving your reach front to back, to center, to side, to center, to front, to back, to center.  Try to keep your weight in the center of your arch. Relax your free hip and leg as much as possible, let your body spiral, and move from your sacrum outward.

Practice the molinette around a stool, or a circle or square on the floor. Square your hips to the room and only let them face directly at 2 opposite walls (angles and the other walls are not allowed except during the actual pivot). Do the molinette with 4 steps to start. That will give you a forward step and forward pivot, a side step, a back pivot and back step, and another side step. Do it in both directions equally. Do it with all front pivots, all back pivots and also alternating. Every step should end in a stable place, where moving smoothly in any direction is possible. Practice moving back and forth through a pivot. Notice that each pivot is actually 180 degrees.

As you become more stable, start mixing in ochos by taking a forward step to a forward pivot, and rather than taking a side step, take another forward step to another front pivot. Or take a back step, take a back pivot, and then another straight back step. Use ochos to reverse your direction around your molinette’s circle. If you need some inspiration, watch Juana Sepulveda dance with Chicho. Her pivots are textbook! They are beautiful, and her heel never leaves the floor during a pivot.

There is far more to practice.

This is just the beginning. There is far more to practice. There are nuances to the basic movement that need to be learned. There are stationary spiral exercises for balance and fluidity, there are enrosques, and lapiz movements. There are molinettes and ochos with crossed foot pivots, there are self-led boleos which can turn into enrosques. Practice our TangoBreath vinyasa flow for a full workout covering everything or just parts of it.

Just keep practicing! Practice in socks or ballet slippers (it’s surprisingly difficult, even without heels). Then, practice in high heels. It will definitely make you more aware of your axis, and it will most certainly make you appreciate all the women you dance with that much more. Even better, they will respect you. You’ve danced in their shoes. You can do ochos, and over rotated pivots in high heels, and just maybe, you’ve felt the pain of your own stiletto slicing, impaling, scratching or bruising your own foot.

Even if you never try practicing in heels, you should at least practice. The man’s part of Argentine tango is not missing anything. Everything that is required of the women is required of the men. Men should be able to do beautiful molinettes and ochos with a powerful internal spiral, all while being supremely grounded and stable with the express purpose of giving our partners the best dance possible.

Here’s another challenge from the ministry of silly walks. This walk is all about pressing into the ground and relaxing at the same time. It is similar to a previous challenge the ‘Silly anesthetized walk’. The swagger silly walk is here to help you feel how to walk in a relaxed way that is powerful and well connected to the ground. The swagger silly walk brings in the upper body to create a much more holistic and natural walk.The swagger silly walk is only silly if you want it to be, but making it silly can truly help your understanding of how your body moves holistically. In truth, a very refined version of this silly walk is how we should all be walking everyday, everywhere we go.

The swagger silly walk.

Find your good posture, ‘Fine Tune your posture’,  and start walking. As you walk focus on pressing into the ground with each step. Pay attention to how your weight presses on the bottom of your foot and how the pressure moves across the bottom of your foot.

As you become accustomed to this walk, begin paying attention to how your leg takes your weight as you land. Imagine the pressure of your weight beginning at the bottom of your foot and feel it move up your leg and into your hip. Pay attention to how your hip feels as it engages.

As you become familiar with the feeling of your hip engaging, imagine how your sacrum connects your hip to your spine. Imagine your spine stretching upward from your sacrum.  Now as your engagement enters your sacrum imagine your other hip disengaging, relaxing and dropping. Let the relaxation flow down your leg to your foot, as it swings forward for the next step. Be careful to push off into your steps rather than fall into them. This is very important! Do not fall into your steps! See our other challenge ‘Launching instead of Landing’.

Walk with this visualization for a while.

Walk with this visualization for a while. Let the engagement of the ground travel up your leg into your hip and as your hip engages let the other hip and leg disengage and relax. If you wish to exaggerate this it can be quite fun and is much easier if walking down hill letting gravity pull your relaxed leg in front of you.

Once you are comfortable with this walk start pressing purposely into the ground with the whole side of your body. I think about driving into the ground from my shoulder down, Susannah doesn’t like that visualization but likes to think of settling into the ground from the shoulder down. The feeling should be of settling and compression with that side of your body feeling very connected to the ground and the space between your hip and shoulder being slightly compressed. Meanwhile let the other side of your body relax and hang from your shoulder. The space between your hip and shoulder being somewhat elongated because of the dropped hip.

Don’t give it too much thought, just relax and let it happen.

Let your body spiral naturally, your arms swinging in a relaxed way. You may find that your shoulders will move in a circle like when paddling a kayak backwards. Don’t give it too much thought, just relax and let it happen. You will find that your shoulder is at it’s bottom point as you press into the ground with that side of your body.  Your shoulder will rise up and forward as you push off and relax.

You may have a bit of a swagger, but that’s ok.

Most simply, just think of pressing into the ground on one side, and as that side of your body engages, let the other side relax and the other hip to drop. Keep your spine stretched upward and your shoulder blades flat on your back.  Exaggerate this walk for a bit and then try to relax and bring it all back in so that you can still feel it, but so that no one  would ever suspect you were doing anything other than having a slow, relaxed and confident walk. You may have a bit of a swagger, but that’s ok.

 Try to make it a smooth holistic movement.

Play with this walk, try it out when you are walking from one place to another through out your days. Feel your connection with the ground as you exaggerate it, power through it, make it subtle and super refined or make it super relaxed, try to make it a smooth holistic movement no matter how you are doing it. Have some fun and play around with variations to feel how your body moves in a holistic way as you walk. This silly walk is a much more natural walk than the ‘silly anesthetized walk’ and it carries even more importance in regard to tango. Mastering the swagger silly walk will most definitely help refine your dance in ways that are too numerous to count.  Just how relaxed yet powerful can your walk be?

A Saturday Workshop and a Victorian-themed Milonga!

We are so very excited to be offering these two new classes and just as excited about the elegant “Victorian Ball” milonga the same evening! We hope you will join us!

Saturday, March 9th

1:30 – 3:00 PM  Expansion and Contraction: The Dynamics of Breath Applied to Tango

3:30 – 5:00 PM  Increasing your Spectrum: Combining Principles of Expansion and Contraction with Axis Play to Create an Even More Dynamic Embrace.

8:30 PM – 1:00 AM ”Victorian Ball” Milonga

CLASSES

Expansion and Contraction: The Dynamics of Breath Applied to Tango Movement.  1:30-3:00 PM

Through exploring and applying the dynamics of breath, we will develop stability, musicality, control, and release in our dance. Progressing from the qualities of individual movement to the dynamics of the embrace with simple vocabulary, this class will help you find both the power and relaxation you need to be expressive in the dance. This class is especially great for followers who are searching for their voice and leaders who feel constrained by limited vocabulary or feel stagnant in their dance. All-levels.

Increasing your Spectrum: Combining Principles of Expansion and Contraction with Axis Play to Create an Even More Dynamic Embrace.  3:30-5:00 PM

This class will expand on the concepts explored in the first class, to incorporate even more variety and expression into your dance. Combining the principles of expansion and contraction with small amounts of axis play can increase your dynamic range of expression within the embrace. This class will focus on small movements that combine axis play with the expanding or contracting breath to create a dance that is more dynamic within the embrace yet subtle on the outside.

A SPECIAL CATWALK MILONGA

“Victorian Ball” Milonga

8:30 PM to 1:00 AM

With Lisa Jacobs
BYO

Private Lessons

As always, we are available for private lessons.
Please contact us to make arrangements.

PRICING

Image Credit (Timelapse photo of nude dancer): http://www.shinichimaruyama.com/

You Come. We tailor.

Due to the success and popularity of our highly-personalized classes, we are now changing our immersive beginning classes to advanced/intermediate courses, in which we decide what to teach after students arrive to class. This allows us to focus on the needs and desires of everyone who attends.

As always, every class will incorporate body and movement awareness exercises, sensitivity and connection in the embrace, and deep explorations of concepts within the dance.

Followed later in the evening by a Practica (a time to practice what you have learned, to try new things, to get and give feedback, and to dance in an informal setting). Visit the Practica page for more information. 

Saturday, April 13th is Canceled! 

But, it will be rescheduled! Stay tuned for announcements, or sign up for our mailing list. 

1:00 PM – 4:30 PM

The West Asheville Vineyard, 717 Haywood Road

$40.00

For information about what shoes to bring to class, please visit our About Shoes page.

Questions?

Contact us by email, or call us at 919.632.1742.

Registration

Join us for our practica on the third Saturday of every month!

Located at the West Asheville Vineyard, 717 Haywood Road, right next to The Hop in West Asheville.

SATURDAYS

February 23rd — March 16th — April 20th

7:00 – 9:30 PM

$5 at the door

Practica is intended to be a time where you can work on what you are studying, incorporate new concepts, and give and get feedback from other dancers. In a practica setting, it is appropriate to stop and talk about the dance and work things out (if you will be interfering with the line of dance, you may step to the outside or to the middle of the dance space). A practica is also a wonderful time to get to know members of the community, if you are just starting out or are new to Asheville.

The West Asheville vinyard is a comfortable place, with comfortable chairs and lighting.  And it a has a really nice dance floor.

Eric and Susannah will be available during the practica to assist and provide feedback.

Questions? 

Email us or call us at 919.632.1742

See how your posture stands up with this simple awareness challenge!

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Testing our core posture – TangoBreath the study and practice of Argentine tango movement and dance.
Sometimes it’s good to test our posture, to see how it stands up to shifts in our center of gravity.

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How solid is your “good” posture?

Occasionally, it’s a good idea just to check where we stand, literally, in our bodies– how solid is our “good” posture, and how does our body compensate when we throw in strange elements, like high heels?

We might be diligent about maintaining what we think is good posture, only to later find out we weren’t using our bodies efficiently to support that posture. A good test is to see how our core responds when we shift our center of gravity. If it is strong, our posture will not be phased, but if it is weak, our body will compensate by contorting.

Here’s the posture test

I recommend finding a mirror, and standing so you can see yourself sideways.

Find your normal posture, and simply lift your heels off the ground, so you are balancing on the balls of your feet. Pay special attention to your hips. What happens?

If your pelvis tilts forward and your upper torso leans back (image a, anterior rotation), your spine is curving to compensate for your new center of gravity. Bend your knees to bring your heels further off the floor, then straighten them. Do your hips tilt more when this happens? It this is the case, it’s likely you are not maintaining your posture with core strength. Try fine-tuning your posture more often, and pay special attention to your sacrum and tailbone, since they are a major keystone in the body, where your pelvic bones and spine meet.

If, however, when you stand on your toes, and your spine and hips stay in the same position (image b, neutral pelvis), but just shift forward slightly, you’re in wonderful shape! You will find that when you bend your knees and straighten them, your torso will remain in a stable position. Whatever you are doing is working, so keep it up!

We have another awareness challenge. This one is from the ministry of silly walks. Find balance and stability, your free hip, contrabody spiral and a relaxed comfortable walk by experimenting with this new silly walk.

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Silly anesthetized walk
The silly anesthetized walk is to help you find stability and engagement with the ground while relaxing and finding a ‘loose leg’.

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