Thinking about collection is bad for your tango
“Collection” was eliminated from our tango vocabulary for many reasons.
I’ve written about collection in other articles, “Moving with your line of gravity” and “How we think affects the way we move”, so it is no secret that I don’t like what thinking about collection does to our dance. When we started developing our TangoBreath vinyasa, “collection” was one the first things we eliminated in our teaching and in our descriptions of Argentine tango movement.
We wanted to avoid “collection” for many reasons. One of them is that it is completely unnecessary. We never mention it in our TangoBreath vinyasa class, yet everyone, complete beginners and advanced dancers alike, all do what “collection” is intended to instruct. Their feet pass each other nicely in every movement. Another reason to discard “collection” is that it is mostly harmful to our development as dancers. We do mention it as something that happens as a result of well executed movement, but collection is not something to which it is necessary to give any thought. A beginning tango dancer has enough to think about already. Later on, it will be essential to think about what it means to have pretty foot movement. But that is a topic far beyond collecting.
When someone talks about collection in tango terms, what they are saying is bring your feet together between steps. It definitely looks better than having your feet apart. Our objection is that it causes us to think about our feet. There are more fundamental and effective thoughts with greater impact on our over all movement that will also, as a side effect, cause us to collect our feet.
I was curious about the meaning of collection, it could have been a really useful term. Let’s look at what collection means. One definition is, after all, to “collect one’s self”, which could be very helpful in thinking about movement. Here is what Merriam Webster has to say about the word collect:
Definition of COLLECT
transitive verb
intransitive verb
It is a stretch, but maybe collection had a better meaning when it was first introduced to the tango lexicon. Instead of “collect your feet,” could it have been “collect your movement around your new axis”? That would be much better. I have found no evidence that it has carried any meaning other than “collect or put your feet together”. However, the first definiton for the transitive verb could have a correct useful meaning in tango. If someone tells you to collect change the definition in your mind to be “Collect yourself around your axis”. Take your feet out of the idea and the thought.
Collection, it turns out, is a description of a symptom of well executed movement.
If collection is just a symptom of proper movement, what is so bad about naming it and thinking about it? There are many reasons, but here is a short list.
- Collection can short circuit proper movement by emulating it: the feet come together but the center of movement and line of gravity may not.
- Collection becomes a goal in every movement.
- Collection becomes a place to stop and wait, sabotaging any subtle movement that may happen when a dancer’s center of movement is near their line of gravity.
- Collection is about feet, not movement.
- Collection creates muscle memory, habits and thought patterns that can persist for years, stunting the growth of any tango dancer.
- Collection makes it difficult to have pretty movement in any dancers feet.
- It takes attention and thought away from the body’s movement as a whole.
The habits created by early training to collect are hard to break out of.
Dancers must learn collection as a side effect of proper posture and movement.
A dancer must learn to let their center of movement pass by their line of gravity like a comet passing close to the sun.
Since there are pre-requisites, this will not happen overnight. A dancer must learn to relax and drop their free hip and leg. They must learn good posture, they must learn the relationship between their center of movement and their line of gravity so they can fully arrive at their new line of gravity, with their relaxed hip, leg and foot in tow.
Although a huge exaggeration, this is a good example: watch any good runway model strut down the catwalk. Their feet go in a perfect line, one directly in front of the other, each one represents the location of the next line of gravity. Their center of movement is at the center of their sacrum. It traces an S curved line all the way down the catwalk and back. It moves closely around each line of gravity, first to one side, then to the other as the free leg passes through.
Even as the model stops and turns, places her feet apart, and then starts to move back up the walk, her movement passes close to her line of gravity bringing her free foot closely past her center. Notice, too, how these models free hip drops, letting their trailing leg extend before they move past their center to their next step.
When the time comes, the door to having pretty feet in the dance will be wide open.
Related posts:
While we encourage comments, we have regretfully moderated one comment for being somewhat inflammatory and confusing. This article has been read by a great number of people from all over the world, and it seems to resonate well.
The content for this article is written from conversations and experience in many communities and with many teachers. It is not a criticism of either.
Our intent in this article and all of our writing is to provide food for thought. Ultimately we are all simultaneously students and teachers, we are all responsible for own dance, and our own learning. A discerning and thoughtful teacher and student are the best to have.
In the case of collection, as a teacher, it is difficult to know which student will take a single statement of “Collect, bring your feet together” to heart in such a way that there is a huge sucking noise anytime their feet come apart. On the other hand someone else may hear the same thing 100 times with no effect at all. It is up to the teacher and the student to find what works best for them.
Our hope is that our articles will inspire thought and insight to help everyone be more thoughtful and discerning students of Argentine tango.
Hello Sergey, I agree that it is very important to determine what should be corrected and in what way. I do believe that there is a difference between someone emulating symptoms of
a holistic movement and someone who actually has holistic movement. It is fairly easy to see when someone is collecting their feet because they have been told to do so verses letting their
feet pass as a result of moving through their line of gravity. The quality of their movement is completely different from someone who is moving holistically and letting their feet pass as a result
of how they are moving in their body.
The difficulty is in reaching someone who has trouble conceptualizing the ideas which will result in proper holistic movement. In that case, telling them to collect their feet may give a momentary
result that seems closer to the desired result, it is a short cut of sorts. The problem is that it could have lingering side effects and create habits which must be unlearned later on. It is much
more difficult to unlearn something than to learn it correctly the first time. In our experience, the time it takes for a student to learn how to pass through their line of gravity with a relaxed
hip and leg is not so much that it causes any real difficulty. The ideas required for proper movement are so fundamental that we do not want to clutter them with ideas that serve only
as a quick fix for a problem that will go away soon enough. We feel that the understanding acquired in learning how to move holistically in such way that collection happens without thought is so
significant that teaching a shortcut is a disservice to our students.
Something else to think about: Where does a step begin and end? When the feet are together? When I am walking I think of the place where my feet pass as the middle of the step. A place I would not stop, a place I am
passing through. Certainly as we come to rest our feet settle next to each other. But that place is a moment that is equal to all the other slices of moment in every step.