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Posted by on Apr 8, 2013 in Article, Practice | 0 comments

Practicing in high heels will make you a better man.

Practicing in high heels will make you a better man.

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.

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Posted by on Dec 18, 2012 in Beginning, Challenges, Concepts, Posture, Practice, Uncategorized, Visualization | 0 comments

Silly Anesthetized Walk

Silly Anesthetized Walk

In tango, a relaxed yet stable walk is very important. It turns out that the same walk in our everyday life can help us be more engaged in the world around us. Feeling our strength in the ground and relaxing through our steps while standing tall feels really good! We can feel much more aware of our selves and the world around us. Relaxing into the walk can be difficult, but luckily we have the ‘Ministry of Silly Walks’ to help us! This is a very silly walk, so maybe you just want to do it at home, unless you don’t mind looking silly, in which case feel free to do this walk wherever you like.

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Posted by on Nov 21, 2012 in Beginning, Challenges, Concepts, Posture, Practice, Visualization | 0 comments

Changing Weight and Settling

Changing Weight and Settling

Here is an easy challenge to get a feeling for changing weight and settling into one foot and relaxing the other. It is so very simple, and yet so important. Changing weight and settling is what we should be doing with every step we take. We cannot stress just how important this is, or that you should practice it wherever you go. If you think about it every now and then throughout your day, you will find yourself doing it more and more frequently until it just becomes the way you shift your weight. The end result will be a more relaxed and stable posture and better tango.

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Posted by on Nov 15, 2012 in Beginning, Challenges, Exercises, Posture, Practice, Uncategorized, Visualization | 0 comments

Fine-tune your posture

Fine-tune your posture

Body awareness challengesThis is a greatly expanded version of an exercise that we gave as prerequisite homework for our recent classes. Learning how to fine tune your posture is key to creating posture awareness which is very important in tango and in life. This also ties in nicely with a request for an awareness challenge from a friend in Turkey.  Our friend had observed that after a shoulder adjustment, his hips and sacrum would sometimes respond in an unhealthy way. While this is far more than an awareness challenge, it does provide more comprehensive posture exercises to help bring awareness to the possible interactions that may occur as we adjust different aspects of our posture.

This is also one of the primary exercises I did many times a day when I felt my job situation deteriorating last summer. A timer on my computer told me to stand once an hour and this exercise is the minimum of what I did then and every other time I stood up from my desk. Doing this exercise many times a day can do wonders to correct the bad posture caused by stress, sitting too long, or time spent hunched over a desk or computer. Even better, do this exercise combined with a few stretches or even some exercise. Maybe a few sun salutations, some Bulgarian squats, or some push ups. Try it– your body will feel better and so will your mind!

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Posted by on Jul 26, 2012 in Announcements, Asheville Events, Beginning, Past Events | 3 comments

Immersive Beginning Tango Class

Eric and Susannah of TangoBreath are excited to announce a new immersive beginning tango class!

This is the perfect opportunity to dive into this dance if you have been curious. And this is the class for you if you have been wanting to have an intense, working review of the heart of this dance — core movement, good posture, and refined body awareness!

This 4-hour class would cover essential technique in Argentine tango to prepare you to attend milongas (social dances) and practicas in a much shorter time than a more traditional series. We will also be inviting experienced dancers in our community to participate, so that you will have the opportunity to work with individuals who can give you personalized and knowledgeable feedback during the class.

Sunday, August 26th

1:00 PM – 5:00 PM

The West Asheville Vineyard, 717 Haywood Road

$40.00 pre-registration
DEADLINE FOR REGISTERING: Friday, August 17th

We need to have a minimum number of participants to offer this class, so we encourage you to pre-register or contact us soon, if you are interested!

Additional IMPORTANT information:

We structure our classes in unique ways in order to delve into deep studies and explorations of our bodies and the material. Since we want you to get the best experience and assimilate the most from this intense class, we will have some required exercises and material before the lesson. We will provide all of this material to you two weeks in advance.

Registration

Immersive Beginning Tango Class $40
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Posted by on May 17, 2012 in Challenges, Practice | 1 comment

Spiraling in and out

Spiraling in and out

A less commonly considered spiral

Most of the time when we think of our spiral energy as it relates to tango, we consider the torsion that happens in our torso, as our hips and ribs twist in opposite directions. However, there are many other “spirals” that happen in our bodies, and we would like to draw attention to the spiral that happens in our legs as we take a step.  Understanding how the leg articulates at the hip joint during our walk can also transform our dance.

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Posted by on Apr 2, 2012 in Challenges, Concepts, Posture, Practice, Visualization | 0 comments

Sinking into our standing leg

Sinking into our standing leg

Aligning our whole body, sinking into the ground through our standing leg

For those who come to TangoBreath, you have heard us often recall the image of Michelangelo’s David.  We talk about sinking into the standing leg through the whole side body and dropping, or relaxing, the free hip.  Much to our delight, when we were in Tuscon, Murat and Michelle Erdemsel showed a picture of David in one of their classes on alignments! They also shared a picture of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus, which provides us a connection to the feminine form.

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Posted by on Mar 10, 2012 in Challenges, Concepts, Practice, Visualization | 0 comments

Finding release in the pelvis

As a continuation of last week’s challenge, Finding stability in our pelvis, in which we perceived subtle engagement in the area between the sacrum and hip joint, we are going to concentrate on releasing this same area. Balancing the internal dynamic between engagement and release is important to achieve our greatest flexibility, strength, and resiliency in our joints.

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Posted by on Feb 29, 2012 in Article, Concepts | 1 comment

A reflection on learning and teaching Argentine tango

A reflection on learning and teaching Argentine tango

Asking ourselves about our roles in learning and teaching Argentine tango.

Eric and I have been busy writing articles for this website and are enthusiastic about sharing our thoughts and explorations. We thought that now would be a good time to reflect on why we approach our learning and teaching in the way that we do and our goals in writing what we do.

We have been so grateful for the positive feedback from around the world and would like to thank everyone for having open hearts and open minds when reading our notes, since they are sometimes a bit unconventional. We are constantly seeking to find innovative ways of coming to a noble dance, while honoring its foundation and canon.

We also understand that some people who read our articles, but have never attended our classes or who do not know us personally, might be skeptical.  We often contradict very common modes of tango instruction. Our goal in writing these articles is not to say that there is a right or wrong way of learning and teaching tango. Indeed, it is quite the opposite.  We feel that being exposed to a variety of teaching approaches is crucial in becoming a well-rounded dancer. It is very likely that the synthesis of several different instructors teaching the same thing, each in different ways, finally creates the connections that a student needs to learn a concept.

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