Planning your tango trip to buenos aires part two – learning tango

Ok, so I do not feel that I am by any means qualified to tell people what to do and not to do as far as tango teachers go. Personally, I have heard a lot of really bad stories about some teachers and problems people have had in BA, but I have not had those problems, so take this post with a grain of salt. By the end of the part 1 blog and this one, you should be able to find a place to stay, and pick some teachers to have lessons with.

First, find a couple of teachers you want to have lessons with, either before you go to BA, or soon after getting there. The first time I went to BA, I did two lessons a day for 15 days, never regretting anything, other than how much I ended up over my budget (the more classes I had, the more I wanted, they are that good). I did the same thing the second time I went, but in the end, I believe I would have gotten more out of the second trip if I had backed off and stuck to one or two lessons, every other day, which is my plan for next trip.

A lot of the complaints I hear from people coming back from BA about finding good teachers are as follows:

1.       Class pricing, a lot of the teachers’ start their pricing at 100.00 USD, then negotiate down.

2.       Lessons from couples, I have heard good and bad from this, the good is one partner watches and the other dancers, the bad is, the student ends up watching the two teachers dance most of the time.  

3.       Everyone in Argentina teaches tango, so it is really hard to find good teachers. The really good ones are hard to get classes with, and are really expensive.

4.       I just don’t know where to start, there are the magazines, but they really don’t help at all in telling me who the really good teachers are.

My experiences where very different, due in part to the fact that I had a teacher from Seattle in BA when I went that was able to help me find someone that in turn was able to get me great a few great teachers. Unfortunately, after lessons with the BA teachers, I really felt that my Seattle teacher had been more or less cheating me out of really learning tango, but that is just how it goes sometimes.

So, what made me think that the lessons I got where so good? Well, to be honest, after my first two lessons, I really didn’t think I was learning anything, and was not all that happy. Then after the third lesson, I remember heading back to my apt. and when I walked thought the door, my head touched the ceiling lamp. It was like I had grown an inch or more overnight somehow. After that, I started to notice that I could much more easily get my follows to read my moves.             Here is the small list of things I was being taught:

1.       How to use my chest, up and out, and always starting my walking from my chest, not my feel.

2.       How to stand, believe it or not. Stand tall, slightly forward, chest out.

3.       How to walk, leading with the chest, and stepping to the music, first in regular time, then mixing it up a bit, faster and slower, but still with the music.

4.       How to feel what my partner was doing without having to look

5.       How to walk backwards.

6.       Lots and lots of drills, most of which help with staying on my axis. I think a lot of people don’t realize just how important this is.

By now you might be thinking, wow, so what about the steps? How can you tango with learning the steps? Well, I was very surprised to discover that learning the steps really does take a backseat to the rest of tango. If you can’t lead small clear concise steps that are easy to follow, then it doesn’t really matter how well you know the steps.

Now, to be clear, I was very much a beginner when I got to BA the first time, and even though I had been taking up to 10 private lessons a month in Seattle, no one had ever shown me anything but steps, and I can tell you that after 4 months of learning steps compared to 3 weeks of this technical stuff in BA, I was a much better dancer after the three week run.

I do not believe I would have been able to learn tango in three years if I had not gone to BA. So the point I am trying to make? If you teacher doesn’t bother to focus on your chest, your walk, and drills, and is only focusing on steps, you might want to try another teacher. From now on, the teachers I am taking lessons with in BA will in fact spend the first 30 minutes working on drills, and then we can walk and finally dance. That being said, this works well for me, and might not be what you are after.

I will vouch for my teachers, Andrea Mansilla being my favorite, but the others as well as being worth every dime. They charge me 50 an hour per lesson, but do package deals as well(note, even though you are getting package lessons, still pay each lesson after the lesson, this goes for all teachers). I have not had to ever neg. with them, and to tell the truth, I feel the price for what I am getting is really cheap.

So where can you go to find teachers? Get a recommendation from people that have been to BA and had great experiences. Head to the local tango salons where they teach at! I only know of two, Callao 86 on the fourth floor, and 1886 Alsina, both downtown. Once in, there are tons of teachers that have their cards out for you to take. You can also use the B.A. tango magazine, many good teachers advertize there. My rule of thumb is, try and get three classes with the teacher, as I do believe it takes that many to get started. If you are seeing strong results, keep going, if not, change and try someone else.

Watch out for the ones that say things like, wow, you are really getting better, when in fact you are not really leaning anything other than the steps, more so if you are only learning one step a class, or less. A good teacher will always be reinforcing your upper body movements, as well as the steps.

That is it for teachers, my next post, where to go and practice what you are learning, the ins and outs of milongas and practicas.