Most tango teachers have what I call their fetish body part or parts, the part of your anatomy that they believe its especially crucial to use in the correct way, to hold in the right position, to relax or tone, a body part that they tell you to focus on during practice, which they might be always shouting encouragement at in a lesson, like a sports coach or a fan at a football match as if to say Go, hips! Show them, sphincter! Ive variously encountered teachers who focused on the pelvis, chest, elbows, ankles, glutes, psoas, rib cage, solar plexus, abs, inner thighs and even vagina, pelvic floor and perineum. The Semites teacher, while hes only a mild body part fetishist, does have a special fondness for the leaders left and followers right hands and believes the way you hold hands on the open side is especially crucial. My own teachers place a lot of focus on the toes of the trailing leg. I firmly believe that positioning and moving the upper back (at around bra strap level, where the shoulder blades and lat dorsi muscles are) and what I usually call the groin (or inguinal) creases efficiently is key to smooth dissociation and a stable but relaxed dance. And Ive also introduced a few people to their own iliac crests (pleased to meet you). And, yes, I feel a certain maternal pride in showing you my favourite body parts. Theyre my babies. Arent they cute? I actually find these focuses on body parts quite helpful in some ways. They promote awareness of the body without having you micromanage every last millimetre, which would surely be a fast route to the funny farm. And, after all, all your body parts are (hopefully) attached to each other. You cant move your perineum across the room without transporting everything else with it. So perhaps, often, if one thing is in the right place, everything else will be too. Just as, if you take hold of a cup with your hand, your arm will probably automatically do the correct and most efficient things to make that possible. It may not matter which body part you focus on. There are many routes up the mountain. And, clearly, at some point, you need to trust your body, even that crucial or annoying part, that droopy head or jutting hip or curled-forward shoulder, to do its thing on its own. You cant babysit it for ever.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 14:56:14 +0000
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