Musicality 104

5th July 2010

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"It is solved by walking" ~ St Augustine

Here's a theory

Warning this is just a theory. An interesting theory, perhaps, but still just a theory.

Look at people walking down a street and you'll see a remarkable number of different ways to walk. This I think is one of the fundamental problems with the tango walk. There's a lot of ways you can do it. Unfortunately most of them are wrong.

Try doing a tango walk at half speed. And then pausing between steps. This places more sets of requirements onto the way that you walk. And in doing so reduces the number of possible ways you can do it. Add in traspie and walking at double speed and you reduce the possibilities still further.

Now do the transitions between the different speeds. How do you go from a pause to a traspie? Double time to half time? Now the number of ways you can physically do it is fairly small. Fortunately the human body is good at problem solving these kinds of physical problems. In theory, if you simply practice dancing to music and transitioning through the various ways you can walk and your walking will become increasingly better. After all, your body figured out how to get you walking in the first place.

Phase 2

Add in pivots and giros.

Again the body mechanics of being able to walk but still transition to pivots of various speeds further reduces the number of possibilities.

Added Bonus

Even if I'm completely wrong, doing this should significantly improve your tango simply because you're practicing skills that are useful for social dancing.

~ Christopher O'Shea, 5th July 2010

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