Imitating Steps vs. Developing Skills

Beginners often think that if they can do the steps, they can dance tango. That's why they only focus on imitating steps. As soon as they have memorized a step, they move on to copy another step. They believe in that way they can learn faster and be able to dance tango sooner.

What they don’t know is that what makes a qualified tango dancer is not the number of steps one knows, but the behind the scene skills upon which the steps are built. These basic skills include musicality, embrace, posture, connection, the ability to use the torso to lead/follow, switch between parallel system and cross system, the ability to return to the home position in a timely manner, flexibility, lightness, balance, stability, walk, salida, resolution, cross, pivot, dissociation, ocho, molinete, gear effect, cadencia, rock, traspie, synchronization, and slow motion. These are the building blocks of all tango steps. Those who have a solid grounding in these basic skills can dance beautifully with few simple steps. Those who lack these basic skills, their dance looks incoherent and awkward even though they may know a lot of fancy steps.

The purpose of teachers teaching steps is not only to teach steps, but more importantly, to teach basic skills. For example, the teacher instructs the students to use dissociation in ocho because dissociation is a key skill not only in ocho but also in many other tango steps. Students, however, may not understand that. They imitate the ocho movemment by crossing one leg in front of the other leg and leave out the hard work of swiveling the hips. Instead of taking the pain to develop a skill, they take a short cut to get quick results. Consequently, although they may have dabbled at many steps, their basic skills remain poor.

Another purpose of teachers teaching steps is to help students overcome bad habits, such as bending over, leaning back, bowing the head, curving the knees, breaking the embrace, using arms and hands to lead/follow, grasping hold of the partner to do steps, etc. Until students break away from these bad habits and develop good habits that meet the requirement of tango, they cannot dance tango well. But students may not understand that. They focus on imitating steps but pay little attention to correcting their bad habits. Consequently, although they may have smattered many steps, their old habits remain, and their dance is still not up to the standard of tango.

The eagerness to succeed is a big obstacle to learning. Students must understand that it is not the number of steps they know but the basic skills and good habits they have developed that decide the quality of their dance. Instead of focusing on copying steps, they should focus on laying the foundation, so that what they learn in each step becomes a building block for the next step. By proceeding in an orderly and gradual way, by diligently practicing basic skills, by carefully following instructions and paying attention to technical details, by taking pains to do drills, and by laying a solid foundation, they can achieve twice the result with half the effort overall. That is the only way to become a qualified tango dancer. (See Tango Is a Language (I).)