12 Nov 2020

WHY ACHAVAL AND TANGOMEET FOR ME, by Leena Paloranta


Roxana and Sebastian have always been among my top favorite performers, but it was only some time ago, when I decided to develop my enrosques, that I started to pay more serious attention to them. I am dancing as a leader and Sebastian's art of turning, his skill of coiling his spine and body were mindblowing to me. I had found my high rising goal and it inspired me to work hard to get better, growing in that direction!

Youtube
I started to collect Youtube clips for future homework and saved them in my online library to manage the growing collection. From these videos you get the form, the shape of a figure and if you pay attention and are working carefully you can perform them reasonably well after some time. I had earlier noticed that when I work on 20-30 figures from a specific teacher I could hit some basic principles in their style and many times that is enough, that is what I want to achieve. Though in this case I knew that there were deeper-lying details which I could not even imagine and therefore not develop on my own!

Workshop
When Roxana and Sebastian visited the town giving workshops I was there for sure! They were very professional and had an unusual well build structure to the course material. They were also circulating around well, but with that number of students what could they do? I was surprised that they managed to give each ofus personal feedback so I could lead one of the figures with Roxana and my follower was lead by her too! But in these situations the whole room is filled with excitement so really deep learning is hardly possible.

Tangomeet
My third try was an online course! During the closedown autumn I bought two collections of Sebastian and Roxana classes on Tangomeet and that has been the best thing I have done for my long-term learning. The content of the classes is put together with great care and understanding of what a student needs to know in order to reach their goal. Through the years I have become extremely sensitive to power unbalances between the teachers, but in these lessons we find only cooperation and a clear focus on the students to help them develop. Both Roxana and Sebastian are seamlessly adding information and advice, helping me advance! Systematic video watching is the core of my learning method and therefore I really need content that I can watch over and over again, then repeat it once more!

Local teachers
To learn from Youtube, fom a DVD, from an education channel or from visiting teachers is a kind of unsynchronized learning and it is not enough for me. I need also local regular courses as well as privates to reach the dance I am looking for. I need to combine the INFORMATION on how to do things with the FEEDBACK on how I am doing and on how it feels for the follower. When we'll be able to return to couple dancing and private lessons I will go to my local teachers for feedback about how comfortable my lead is and how to improve my performance so it will be comfortable for tandas in the future!

Some comments on the Tangomeet courses I work on
I have been working on enrosques earlier with other teachers but his section gave me the exact timing of the steps as well as other details. Grateful for that! The biggest surprise was though that this section gave me so much more to learn - boleos sacadas and other goodies!
https://tangomeet.com/sebastian-achaval-roxana-suarez/the-traces-you-leave-lapiz-enrosque-sacadas-and-boleos

The second group of courses included the baridas at a *second level*! At the first level I could stop the follower, do a barida and continue the dance. This I knew already! Here I learned how to do the barida as a skillful cooperation/shared decoration during the flow of the dance. No stops anywhere and that is much more complicated than I thought!
https://tangomeet.com/sebastian-achaval-roxana-suarez/captivated-by-a-beautiful-moment-barrida-and-rebote


I am a seasoned leader and I want to push others too initiate a RELEARNING period - a renovation of the tango house.
If you are a house owner you know that every 10 or 20 years some repainting or fundamental renovation is needed! In my case, the same is true for tango. During 2019 I initiated an intense update of my dance with local teachers and was also working on a new extension for my tango - enrosques. This posting is about how I continued, about my experiences in different learning possibilities and what was the clear winner!  -  Leena Paloranta

Check out more about Learning for Dancers on Leena's blog: https://leadingladyl.blogspot.com