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| Man learning with a more experienced dancers in a practica, 2022 |
I think guys have to learn in the woman's role. It can be in the milonga, it depends on the guy and the stage they are at. It depends on both people really - how comfortable the more experienced guiding dancer is in guiding a beginner guy. The main thing is, in the milonga, the couple can't mess up the ronda for other people or stop or talk obviously about learning because it interrupts the flow for other people - not just the physical dance flow but the atmosphere too. And it can be hard to move a beginner guy - they are bigger and heavier in general than women. In my experience, in general, guys have a harder time letting go than women. When women do it, it's called trust, but many guys think of it as loss of control. And some new guys just don't feel comfortable in the milonga with better dancers around, or because they're in the woman's role - all sorts of reasons.
So for some people, practicas will be best, especially for the second stage of learning (the new guy in the guy's role). The problem can be finding a practica. Teachers tend not to be that interested in them as they are not financially rewarding. Community run practicas don't seem to be that common but most scenes seem to have a practica of some sort and if not, why not start one? I would love to have a practica near me. I just want one other person with whom to run it and there is not such a person near me.
And what about finding a guy who will help you? In a way it is understandable: what connection do you, the experienced dancer, have to some strange, new guy that walks in, some potential future competitor? Guys tend to want to dance with women, not other guys. And they aren’t your friends so…? But as I said before, there is goodwill in the social scene and it is a question of putting out there what you are looking for: for guys or women who guide to show you what you want to learn. I think you will find someone who will show you in most local scenes. Even if there is only one person, once you have learned too, that makes two of you disposed to bringing on new people. After that, the numbers grow exponentially. And, if you take responsibility for your own development instead of outsourcing it to teachers of dance class whose primary interest is in the money you bring in, you will already be listening to yourself, to your instincts and to the responses from your partners. You need instinct for dance and that is destroyed when you are deafened by being told what to do. Recall though, a lot of people, even outside of dance class, will try to tell you what to do. You need to be assertive about your learning, while remaining open, while also listening. A bit like dancing, it is a fine balance.
Before there were lessons or formalised, hierarchical learning structures with someone controlling vulnerable new people, or a tango industry based on money, guys learned from other guys in their neighbourhood and that was because, it is said, women wouldn’t dance with guys who couldn’t dance. Many women (here in Europe) though, will dance with guys who can’t dance well. And a lot of guys are satisfied with easy women. The trouble is, once you, as a guy who can’t really dance, are seen dancing with women who can’t dance, plenty of women who can dance just are not going to be that interested any more, not for a long time. That is fine for a while because most new people just want to dance with anybody. But then you find yourself hoisted by your own petard. You want to dance with better dancers but they have now seen what you can do and they don't want to dance with you...
A lot of people jump in at this stage and start moralising about how we should dance "socially" which is thinly disguised as "give charity dances". I think that's demeaning for both parties. You dance with commitment because you want to, not out of pity, because you feel for sorry for someone. I can't recall when I danced out of pity. It would be so undignified all round, so patronising and therefore disrespectful to the person you dance with and to yourself. No, you dance with someone, of whatever experience, from a desire to embrace that person and move together to music. Else - and by now you must surely know what's coming - it is just going to be mechanical dancing and what kind of dancing is that?
To avoid this scenario, you don't start by being seen in the milongas by the people you are ultimately going to want to dance with as a poor dancer. You check out the milongas first, and not just once or twice. The new guy learns what it is like there and who he wants to dance with. Invariably guys dance because they want to dance with women. So why then do they make their learning process not about the woman, why do they make it about class and direction and mechanics? If the guy does it the other way, the woman or women he wants to dance with stays as the focus of the learning process. So, he checks out the milonga and then he asks a good dancer to dance with him in the woman's role. Even one dance, for three minutes will be a great opportunity. Is that is an overly ambitious target for any guy?
If you, a guy, are reading this and you think I can't bear to dance with a guy - and there are plenty of guys who do feel this - then I have nothing more to say, except recall TangoFabriek El Sur in Antwerp where their local symbol is an amputated hand. There are always exceptions and I am willing to be shown otherwise, but in my experience, men like this simply don't make good dancers.
There are two stages: the man learning to move as the woman in her role. If the learning guy is receptive enough there's no reason it can't just look like dancing (to others). That part can happen in the milonga. I have done that a lot with beginner guys, probably just because that is where I tend to go myself. Guys may have to pay, privately, to learn the woman's role, if they can't find anyone to show them but I would be surprised if they have to resort to that. There is this weird idea that the only people worth paying for private lessons are dance class teachers. Many dance class teachers dance terribly. If you have to pay someone, pay someone whose dancing looks good or has felt good to you; someone you see dancing socially. How is that such a radical idea? And yet no-one does that. The chances are the social dancer will just show you - so you get great dance help, for free. Are we so obsessed with inverted notions of value that we think thing are only valuable when we pay for them? So, ideally, you will not learn privately with an 'official' teacher who will be a) expensive b) fill your head with insecurities and unnecessary things and thinking, whether deliberately or not.
And then there is the second stage guy learning the guy's role. Once you know what it is like to dance as the woman and you feel you are dancing with partners and it feels good and you know the music and you want to dance the music and you feel those shoots growing that tell you it is time, now you start to dance in the man's role. Or perhaps you always did swap roles. That is another way. But you are still going to dance with the same more experienced partners. This is usually with men but in queer tango or student communities, it is often either sex. Only this time you will be guiding. I think that probably has to be in a practica. It can be a fast process or it can take a while but it will unquestionably be faster than in dance class. There are other good effects of dancing both roles: it is easier, less stressful, more effective; you know what feels good for women and what doesn't. You need a practica for learning something new in the guy's role because when you are learning a new thing, it is nigh on impossible to manage the move and your place in the ronda at the same time. Either you try, which is a useful experience or you just go in the middle of the ronda where there is more space. You have, at least, the awareness of other people around you. In a milonga, it wouldn’t be right, but the practica is like a milonga with the understanding that some people are going to be practising things and may not cope as well in the ronda. I believe it is crucial to practice whatever new thing you learn very quickly in a ronda, to the music. It comes together much more rapidly.
You also need that partner who already knows how to do it and who understands how you feel unsure about something as you learn a new thing; otherwise, apart from anything else, the pressure is terrible to try and guide someone who wants a nice time when you don't know what you are doing. When you get stuck, or you want help, you simply ask the person you are dancing with who can already do it. When you are unsure the encouragement you get from people who can already do it, is beyond price. I can't thank enough the people who have given me that and yet it is such an easy thing to give. I can't imagine trying to learn those moves with someone who didn't already know them in the 'leader's' role. It would be high pressure, frustrating, it just wouldn't make sense. And trying to learn a new thing with a beginner woman? Sheer madness!
Imagine though, a guy who comes to the milonga to listen, watch, learn, meet people, chat but doesn’t dance - he is immediately an object of intense curiosity. Why won’t he dance? And then we hear he is learning the woman's role. Is he gay? Apparently not. How interesting! He comes again. He still doesn’t dance in the milonga, or he only dances in the woman's role. When is he going to dance with us? But still he doesn't. And then one day he turns up and he does dance with a girl and he can clearly dance. Now that guy has gone to somewhere near the top of the list of guys girls want to dance with.
I would love to hear stories about how guys learn outside of classes.
I said there are always exceptions and today I am going to contradict what I said recently about not going to milongas with classes before them and go to a milonga with a whole day of preceding classes. But I am going mostly for a change of scene and some tourism in another city.
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