Dressage is a much older and much more established discipline than tango. We have local, national and international governing bodies which write rules and promote commonly held training beliefs. In dressage, we have common (although not universal) agreement of what elements are most important to learn (and in what order) in order to be successful. Those skills are ranked in a "Training Scale". I don't think we will ever have anything similar in tango. But, I wonder if there is something which could be learned or transferred to tango.
The training scale is used as a guide for the training of the dressage horse (or any horse, for that matter). Despite its appearance, the training scale is not meant to be a rigid format. Instead, each level is built on as the horse progresses in training: so a highly trained ("Grand Prix") horse would work on the refinement of the bottom levels of the pyramid, instead of focusing on only the highest level. The levels are also interconnected. For example, a horse who has not mastered the higher skills may show faults in the lower skills. You can view the training scale at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dressage#The_Training_Scale All of the skills on the training scale would appear to be transferable to dance (with perhaps the exception of collection). The skills are rhythm, relaxation (or suppleness), contact (which I think many people refer to as connection in tango), impulsion (which could be forward movement, correct use of the joints and muscles and focusing of the mind), straightness and collection. Although I don't think we could come to unified agreement, I think a discussion of basic, fundamental skills and how they build upon each other, or inter-relate would be interesting. In particular, for teachers, I think it is important to be thoughtful about what skills you teach first, and when the student is ready to learn other skills (and how you revisit more fundamental skills once high skills have been learned). -- Lisa E. Battan www.battanlaw.com _______________________________________________ Tango-L mailing list Tango-L@mit.edu http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/tango-l