So…when do you start teaching?
A few nights ago at this milonga, I was hanging out at the bar area, cooling off from a tanda of D’Arienzo. A tanguero with whom I had never got acquainted or even exchanged names asked me this question during a conversation. I was bit surprised .
Haha…I am still learning. There are so many things to learn. It is fun to learn new things, to understand myself a bit more… And there are too many responsibilities that come with teaching.
“So you just want to enjoy it.” he then said. “Oh yeah!” I smiled.
It’s happened to me quite a few times lately: people, often strangers, ask me either if I am a teacher or when I start teaching…TANGO!
At Berlin tango festival, a couple of women asked if I was a teacher at the afternoon practica, where I danced with them in my flipflops.
A fellow tanguero friend said to me a few weeks ago: You should dj more often and teach. The music you play and the way you dance shows a lot of sensibilities. People should learn about this side of tango…
A mother, after watching me dancing with her beautiful daughter who was taking her first tango steps at an outdoor milonga, said: ” Are you a teacher?… You have very good technique, I can tell.”
…
About a year ago, the thought actually crossed my mind. At the time, despite uncertain of other aspects of the dance, I was pretty sure that I was ready to show others what a good embrace and posture were. I consulted a wise friend of mine. She encouraged the idea, but advised me to gain some more credentials and experience first.
You should spend a few months in BsAs. Learn everything that you could from your master. Ask them if you could be a teaching assistant. You should be an apprentice before a maestro… but I have no doubt you would be very good at it(teaching).
After that conversation, I reexamined my motive. Do I really want to teach tango?
Most of my intention at the time I was thinking of teaching tango was to build a name for myself. Though a part of it was that I wanted to share what I had learned with others.
Realized that, I put the thought away and started to dance around the world and continued my studying with Javi and Andrea.
One night a few weeks back, after dancing with my first teacher in the milonga, I asked her when we were walking out of the venue: ” I am dancing pretty well now, no?”
You are great. It is in you now.
“What do you mean?” I was bit puzzled.
The dance is in your body. It is no longer in your head. You don’t think about how to dance any more.
A friend of mine, who has been touring and teaching around the world, danced a tanda with me at the afternoon practilonga at a festival. At some point when I had a long pause in the music, she stopped the dance, looked at and said:” Wow, you are super zen.”
There are some other comments from different tangueras and professional dancers that compliment my dance.
The interesting thing is: all these happen after I stopped trying.
When all your instruction has left the country and it’s not viable to bring anyone else in. At least that’s what happened to me.
But seriously, isn’t this part of the problem. That every decent dancer becomes a teacher and the cohort of quality dancers that aren’t teachers remains tiny.
I could understand that in a community which is not big enough to support professional, the more advanced dancers take up the responsibilities to grow the community or just to keep it afloat. And of course, where I am, teachers are a dime a dozen. Therefore, it is nice to be a really good social dancer but not a teacher. That makes me special.
Congratulations!
In a small community like mine, teaching is almost an obligation. (Fortunately, it can be both fun and rewarding) If one does not teach, there will be no-one to dance with…
One of the things I appreciate the most when traveling to BsAs or other communities is to be able to walk into a milonga, pay at the door and just dance and have a good time like everybody else. No teaching, no organizing, no politics. Only tango.
A few friends have told me that teaching actually had helped them to grow as a dancer. And I could understand the part of no-one to dance with.
Hi Tp, I enjoyed your new post as always. I want to give the feedback that as a long-time reader, I see your long-term goals
as being ‘admired’ as a ‘teacher’ and ‘performance dancer’ and less and less as a ’social dancer’. This goal also seems more in keeping with the fact that you didn’t grow up in the culture that originated this form of Tango and its dance. It wasn’t something that you were surrounded with from childhood and it was something that was presented to you in the form of ‘Stars’ who arrived and gave ‘classes’ and ‘performances’..and so, your particular perspective..as a ‘teacher’ soon you will learn the down-side of ‘teaching’ and having to dance with dancers that you ordinarily wouldn’t want to dance with and having to ‘work the room’..would you give up your ‘real job’ for trying to make a living at ‘teaching’? I recently saw an interview with a Milonguero who said that in the ‘old days’ we didn’t have ‘teachers’. We just went to each others home, turned on the radio and danced.
Thanks Mario. On the contrary, my goal is to dance well as “social dancer” and enjoy the dance. I have no intention or qualification to teach, for the reasons that you stated.
Gifted dancers who circulate, and help, and encourage are so valuable. There is a gentleman in my community who has been dancing a very long time. When he and a few friends needed more practice time to work on a few things, he set aside time to help us all practice (and so he could practice a few things he wanted to work on as well). There is another tanguero who has been a teacher (not just of tango, but of many dances) that devotes a large amount of time coaching and helping and encouraging beginners in practicas. Both of these tangueros make a point to dance with beginner followers and encourage beginner leaders. Neither of these men currently teach tango. But what they do is hugely valuable. They keep the community growing.
It is great that dancers in your community are open to suggestions or advices. I did have a few bad experiences that my two sentences of suggestion was impatiently dismissed by intermediate dancers. Now I am disinclined to offer any unsolicited assistance.