--- On Thu, 9/16/10, meaning of life <kushi_bu...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> have you all ever considered that some people enjoy dancing > a more open embrace? enjoy seeing each others faces as they > dance? enjoy sliding their bodies past each other? enjoy the > larger figures? enjoy the more dramatic dance permited by a > more open embrace? enjoy the athletiscm that a more open > embrace permits, even encourages? > > have you ever considered that starting slowly and allowing > a more open embrace, larger figures and a more > dramatic dance might improve your recruitment and retention? > especially among younger dancers? I agree that boundaries, wherever you set them, are a serious issue, and it's true that close embrace is just too close for some people. I don't have any problem with dancing in an open embrace. Maybe I usually prefer a close embrace but I don't have anything to gain by imposing on my partner. As long as we have good communication in the embrace, which is possible with open or close embrace, we have a good dance, from my point of view. I have to take issue with your suggestions about bigger figures, though. One can approach the essence of tango through figures, but that's definitely the slow way to do it. If you start out doing figures, you might never get beyond that, and I do believe there is much more to tango than just the steps. Perhaps open versus close embrace is a misleading way to characterize the situation. The things that seem important are the music, your partner, the pista, and the social experience of the milonga. Showing off at a milonga isn't really consistent with that. I can't really think of a catch-phrase to sum it up. _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l