This post was partly triggered off by this comment left by Tangobaby:
´One of my favorite teachers said that after a while you must stop taking classes because it will kill your dance. I think he meant that you can study too much and then the dance becomes more of a clinical experiment than an expression of yourself.´
I don´t know. I think it depends on what you consider a class, on what your are after learning, and, last but not least, on the teacher; a good teacher should also help you understand that study – in the technical sense – isn´t everything; expression and feeling can´t be taught in class, but they can be shown, transmitted – and that should be a part of teaching.
After a couple of months, when you´ve mastered the basic principles of tango, going to group classes is, honestly, a waste of time – unless you´re one of those people who go to class once a week but never to milongas – in which case you´re not likely to be reading this blog because it would interfere with the time assigned to tango in your life and make you feel like one of those tango-obsessed nutters – or unless you are a leader and want more figures (in which case I would suggest workshops).
Some time ago Tanguillo published a very thorough and insightful (and, incidentally, quite funny) article on how to choose your tango teacher, if you´re going to take group classes. I have rarely taken group classes (and, to be frank, learned little from the ones I took), but would like to expound a bit on the subject of private classes from my point of view.
Private classes are rather expensive, but if you can afford a group class once a week, you can also afford a private every five or six weeks, and that should suffice, provided that you dance a lot in between and that the classes are really useful. I actually find that I need that pause of several weeks for the new knowledge to sink in – especially as most of the things you need to learn after you´ve acquired the basics are in the head, so to speak, rather than in the body. It is a curious thing about physical activities that one can´t learn a move by just practising it physically; one must grasp the nature of a move mentally to be able to perform it – and once you understand the move, and only then, your body can execute it quite effortlessly – and this doesn´t go only for dancing.
Now what is it that makes a good teacher? In my opinion, a good teacher
- knows how to explain the meaning, the nature of a move (c.f. above), not by describing it, but by making you understand it. You know the difference between good and bad math teachers? Very much like that. The best teacher I´ve ever met would never say: ´Not like that, do it like THAT!´ ??? He would roll his eyes in thought every time, then smile and say: ´Don´t think about that move. Imagine that...(something seemingly irrelevant)´ – which would make me do precisely what he meant me to. That is teaching.
- knows how to encourage the student. I´ve had teachers who would yell at me ´What ON EARTH ARE YOU DOING with your feet?! Are you a dancer, or what?´ while they would later mention to someone else that I was very talented indeed. I know this is a way of teaching. It doesn´t shock me. From a very early age and until adolescence I did artistic gymnastics. We were a bunch of skinny 8-year-old girls, hopping gracefully around a ballet studio, while our coach would exclaim in disgust ´You look like a herd of elephants´ and ´Of course you can´t rise properly, your ass is too heavy after all the sweets you have eaten during the Christmas holiday´ (I weighed about 20 kg back then). I know this method, while somewhat harsh, may actually bring good results, and greatly improve one´s technique; yet I have always danced so much better after a class with someone who would treat me as their equal and encourage me to enjoy my dancing (with maybe that foot pointing a bit more to the side – yes, isn´t that beautiful now?) After all, that´s what it´s all about, isn´t it?
- I find that another desirable (and hardly ever mentioned) aspect of a good tango teacher is his/her ability to establish physical closeness with the student (esp. if they teach milonguero). In general this is an innate quality which some have and others lack. It´s about being a physical kind of person in contact with others, I think. I have observed that people who are more reserved in this respect often have difficulties dancing in close embrace (though why they should want to do so in the first place, given their nature, is a mystery to me). Anyway, for teachers this is a most helpful quality.
And, of course, a good teacher doesn´t teach steps, but posture, balance, axis, embrace and body movement technique.. I know, it has been said a million times by others before me, but should be repeated until there are no teachers teaching only steps left out there...
5 comments:
Hmmmm... I think you give very clever advices about what kind of things will have a good teacher. But... I have to disagree with this: "After a couple of months, when you´ve mastered the basic principles of tango, going to group classes is, honestly, a waste of time". If you have a good teacher, I really think not. If you have a teacher who is into details, who is following your progress, then it will be more "productive" take classes every week (and practice) than take private classes. Of course, if you can afford them every week, then no problem, but if not, you have to leave it until you feel ready to go deep into correct mistakes and subtle techniques. That was the case with my teachers at least, at least for some time I had lot of material to work on, just going to group classes. But perhaps I was lucky with that.
BTW thanks for the compliment to my article :)
Saludos de Buenos Aires!
Nice post, but I disagree with your point of view. I think you avoid lots of trouble, pain and suffering by taking privates first, so that you learn posture, music, elegance, connection and the embrace right from the getgo. Once you have technique, then you can go to occasional group classes to learn steps, if that's what you want.
Those huge beginners group classes are disasters. Why should you dance with someone who knows less than you do? So much better to begin with great fundamentals and corrections by your private teacher. Then you don't get comfortable with your own bad habits.
BTW, I just discovered your blog and am putting you on my Favorite Links list!
Hi!!! You know, I think I tend to agree with you on two accounts, and disagree in one.
1. I do think group classes are useful for a while, especially when they are held at a certain level. They are useful in many aspects--they force you to work things out with other students that may not be so knowlegeable and in this way they challenge your understanding of the move. Practicing with a teacher at first makes things so much easier, but at the same time it may make you work a bit less. In my view, it takes more than a couple of months to reach a state in which you can just jump into privates and forget these "growing pains".
2. With the above said... I regret that it took me too long to take privates. Opposite to you, I stayed in group classes for too long... and now I realize that, in retrospect, I could have jump started my learning and break many bad habits earlier rather than later if I had been smarter and taken that road before I did it.
3. Last but not least... I think I've been blessed with a few excellent teachers who have made me "feel" what I needed to feel... so that I could understand the concept. Some of them have gone to really large pains to come up with creative ways to make me "get it" and I'm extremely thankful for that...
Well - thanks for the comments! It´s funny to see how everyone has a different view on this - privates first, group classes later, group classes first, privates later, etc. - and it´s only natural, we have apparently all followed different paths - but they were still the paths of tango:) I guess there are more ways to get there than one...
One more thing about the group classes, Tanguillo - like I said at the start, I haven´t taken that many, so I may have missed some really good teachers who manage to pay individual attention to all students; if you say they´re useful, then so much the better. But I still think they might be, you know, a bit more useful for men then for women, if you see what I mean.. but then, of course, the men need followers to learn with:)
I think one challenge with some group lessons is that people take classes above their level, and the teacher can't or won't set a baseline of experience. I've never found a teacher yet who was able to address the needs of all students in a group class.
I stopped taking group classes a while back with my adored teacher because the class was full of leaders who could barely do a basic 8-count, yet were trying to do very advanced giros and back sacadas, which aside from the fact that I never was able to really experience the class lesson, I was leaving with bruised and, sometimes, bloodied shins! Other followers I know have stopped group classes as well for the same reason.
I've found a happy medium (for now) with private lessons when I can afford it, special workshops once in a while, and trying to find some leaders who don't mind working on some moves with me, even if it's in a milonga once in a while.
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