When I was a kid working in a radio station, it was always me who was supposed to show the new guys the ropes. "Get them going FAST, Keith!" As I got older and achieved some prominence in my profession, I was always taking people under my wing. So, I've been teaching a long time.
In the 90's, it became formalised teaching when I was an adjunct-professor of broadcasting at Humber College, the biggest in Canada. Then I went private and began teaching performance to professionals.
Just to say that teaching - sharing - quickly passing along - has always been a love of mine.
I became more comfortable with the word "coaching."
It was Buckminster Fuller from whom I learned that the word education comes from the Greek word "educo" - "to bring out from within." That's it!
Good teachers don't "pour knowledge" into an empty glass, as Bucky would say.
Well, we all take tango lessons to learn how to get going. We learn from whoever we learn from and learn whatever we learn.
Mostly, it's a good idea if we start all over now and again and correct all the stupid things we learned. This is certainly what happens when we take private classes with a real dancer.
Well, since I'm not making my living from teaching Tango, I see no reason to withold the good info from students so they'll pay more for privates (the way it works).
That's one thing making me different. Another is that I am a purely social dancer. It's THAT that I want to give.
I don't show "steps." In doing so, you are talking to the head and mind memory. You are making it a conscious exercise. Wrong.
I show body position; how to move; MUSCLE memory. How to move inside the music. (Yes, I teach about the orchestras and the music forms so you can follow the musical map. I make sure they know WHAT orchestra they are listening to and tell little stories so they place them in their misty memory. The more you know the music, the better dancer you can be).
I tell people we are going to throw 2 words into the trash: "lead" and "follow." And we're going to replace them with just one word: "take."
To women, I say: TAKE the impetus, the direction, the timing from the man.
To men, I say: TAKE your partner with you! And I show them how to.
Now, the man doesn't have to "learn how to lead;" he JUST LEADS. I want to eliminate the thinking and just be doing the doing.
Now, we're dancing.
All the fancy stuff can be learned any time later. But tango is a WALKING PARTNER dance. We have to learn how to smoothly walk and move together inside the music for tango to start to reveal itself fully.
In this sense, I say THERE ARE NO STEPS. There is only: where is the man's weight; and does the woman feel it and feel where/when it is going next.
I believe a good teacher reduces the essence to its simplist, most understandable and doable form.
In my humble, biased opinion, true tango happens when the mind is shut-off and the dancers move in harmony to the suggestions of the music.
So, my teaching is about giving good habits and shutting the mind off asap. Pretty much the opposite of what I see other teachers doing.
This stuff is "gold" for men and women. According to my students.
:-)
