We were drinking macchiatos at a busy café, enjoying the shy sun of the late winter afternoon. Earlier that day, we had two private classes. Our chat was a continuation of what we’d worked on.
Rafael was basically my first formal tango teacher – all I had before were informal instructions from more experienced dancers I met or asked to teach me. And there, in that moment, he taught me one of the most important things I needed to hear at that point: to slow down.
But what I heard then was that he was suggesting I dance less.
Dance less?
It took me years of experience to understand that he wasn’t suggesting I dance less, but telling me that “not moving” is also dancing. It means respecting the pauses and finding pleasure in the silence in between.
You see, just like almost every beginner I’ve ever met, I was trying to hit every beat of the music. You would have seen me out there on the floor, chasing the music and pushing my partner to follow me around. I can only imagine how exhausted they must have felt.
Have patience.
~ Lao Tzu
Wait until the mud settles and the water is clear.
Remain unmoving until right action arises by itself.
Last month, when I reached out to some of my subscribers to ask them what they would like me to write about, one of the suggestions was exactly this: how to deal with partners who dance relentlessly without any pause.
In my opinion, there’s not much we can do when the dancer is already on the dance floor. I believe the work should be done in the classroom – not only developing the right repertoire and musicality, but also cultivating the right mindset.
If you think you could use some help with this, please consider these pieces of advice from an experienced dancer and teacher.
1) Stay grounded
Put your whole weight on the ground and let the music pass by: imagine you’re a mountain and the music is the clouds drifting past, grazing you as they move on. You don’t need to reach out to touch them; let them pass by you uninterrupted.
When you ground yourself like that, your partner feels strength and reliability, so they can trust you. And when you move, start slowly, just like one might imagine a mountain would start moving. Smooth. Powerful. Confident.
2) Feel your partner
There is no such thing as follower in tango – you are both leaders and followers in the same time! The masculine role in tango is to give direction to the feminine, which means following her responses and adapting accordingly.
Dancing fast and chasing every beat can drain your partner’s energy and, even more importantly, disable the possibility of connecting on a deeper level – not because they don’t want to, but because you’re so obsessed with the movements that you forget you’re dancing with a human being.
3) Not moving is also dancing
Learning to stand still and wait is also dancing. Many dancers feel uncomfortable simply standing still. This reminds me of nervous men going on their first date – filling every possible silence with speech. They often forget that the tension built in non-verbal moments is more valuable; one glance can say more than a million words. That’s also a form of communication.
4) Build a tension
In my experience, making a pause is not like “freezing,” as if you were pausing a video of a dancer motion. That feels unnatural and like dancing with a robot. I suggest you think of it more like driving a car: first, you slow down, then stop for a while, and then slowly start moving again.
Just like a giant boulder reaching the top of a hill and then slowly rolling down toward the next valley.
This means your partner feels something happening the whole time, even when your body isn’t moving. I call it building a tension, and I love it.
5) Reset the embrace
No matter how good dancers you both are, you must make adjustments during the dance. Even a tiny adjustment can disrupt the whole balance, and over time, these add up to bigger problems.
For example, the positions of the torsos might change slightly, or one partner may bend their spine to adapt to something – and suddenly the embrace feels uncomfortable.
Consider these pauses as moments when you can reset and readjust.
As you might notice, these points are very connected, and it’s hard to separate where one ends and another begins. I separated them for convenience.
But what can you do when faced with a “relentless dancer”? Can you stay grounded and with that “suggest” them to slow down? Well, maybe, but I believe it shouldn’t come to that: if it does it means the dancer has not yet developed this essential awareness for a respectful and connected dance.
And once you learn that, your dancing can be elevated to a completely new level, no matter how simple the steps you use.
I cant dance anymore bcs an injury destroyed my balance.
You are hitting the very soul of tango here.
Thank you!
Kåre