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Sunday, January 24, 2010

A Different Approach to Learning

A few years ago a friend of mine (Just someone I used to dance with, not an instructor) commented that by learning open embrace I could fix a problem I was working on at the time with my posture and balance, guess what, it worked.
Everything I know about dancing close embrace I learned from dancing open embrace.
Everything I know about dancing open embrace I learned from dancing close embrace.
Everything I know about improvising I learned through patterns and emulating others.
Everything I know about dancing fast I learn by dancing slowly (very slowly).

On a different note,I watched a video produced by a very famous pair of brothers (the Maers) many years ago about learning to downhill ski, they had an interesting teaching technique. Basically because sking (and Tango) is an engramic activity (your brain learns to do it eventually without much conscience thought) it is very difficult to explain how it should feel, they thought it was a good idea to purposely do something "the wrong way" so that your body could learn by comparison what doing it the right way feels like (very easy vs. very hard, natural vs. unnatural, smooth vs. jerky, balanced vs.wobbly)

I have found this to be a very effective learning/teaching method.

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Sculpting Your Tango

"I choose a block of marble and chop off whatever I don’t need."
- Rodin (1840-1917), when asked how he managed to make his remarkable statues