How to Learn at a Tango Festival - Taking Workshops

by Mitra Martin

Photo by Oscar Chang Photography

After one of the big summer Tango festivals this year, one of my students scheduled a lesson to review work together on what he’d learned in the festival workshops. 

It became clear to both of us that getting something worthwhile out of his festival workshop experience required a better learning strategy. 

We are blessed with so many incredible Tango festivals, filled with brilliantly inspiring teachers from all over. How can intermediate students get the most out of the time and money they spend at festivals ? Here are some things I have found that work for me: 

1. Workshops or social dancing ? Most festivals have really packed schedules. Usually, it’s physically impossible to do ALL the workshops AND all the social dancing. For your health and sanity, I suggest you choose what your emphasis will be. E.g., “I’m planning to dance til 5am every night, spend the days sleeping and eating, and oh yeah I want to make sure I hit that one Alex Krebs technique workshop Sunday at 4pm.” Or, “There are so many teachers here I want to learn from, so I’m coming home from the milongas at midnight sharp so I can show up for classes all shiny-tailed and sparkle-eyed!” You can learn a lot by social dancing, and also socialize a lot in classes; but I’ve found trying to do BOTH in one fest may make you grumpy, or likely to catch a cold!  

2. Choose your workshops. Ask someone you respect for class recommendations. You could ask your teacher or an advanced dancer whose dancing you like. Make it easy -- just show them the festival program on your smartphone at a practica, or bring a printed copy of the schedule. If you’re not sure who to ask, you could watch videos of the teachers and see whose dancing, and what specific aspects of their dancing, you’re attracted to. 

3. Dress Up. Personally, I have found I get more out of festival workshops if I dress a little more festive than usual for the occasion. Tango’s just like that, I guess.

4. Bring Snacks. Apparently, the brain can learn only once stuff like basic survival is taken care of. Bringing along a bunch of granola bars, juice, and salmon jerky (for instance) will help you keep your mind on what you’re learning, instead of trying to figure out how the heck you’re going to find a sandwich before you have to get across East Burnside or even across the hotel. 

5. Learn both roles. If you are already out dancing and learning at festivals, probably you know both roles a bit. If the teacher is showing a figure in the workshop, definitely take the time to understand and practice both roles. Trying out the other role may very well reveal questions that you may need to ask the teacher about, to understand the gist of the figure. 

6. Take notes. Bring a notebook to the workshop and write down everything you can in as much detail as you possibly can, both during and immediately after the workshop. I recommend writing down instructors’ technical words verbatim, because usually they say things a certain way for a very good reason. If a figure is taught, once again, you need to write it down such that you can reconstruct it fully from your notes when you are back at home, whether you are primarily a leader or follower. Writing Tango down is an incredibly useful challenge that enriches and extends your Tango mind. And, by the way, it will continue to be quite tedious until mass adoption of the Tango Fairytale Game. 

7. Make a voice memo. This is the speedier, more high tech version of taking notes: just “explain” to yourself what you just did in a voice memo. Like, talk right into your phone voice memo recorder as you watch someone doing the move and narrate what happens using all your normal terminology, references and vernacular. “Okay, so, step forward, switch with a cross in front, media luna...blah blah blah enrosque the usual type... blah blah...then, that crazy ganchoey thing with the butterfly bit...etc.” Voice memos are also great for recording technique information or technical exercises you have learned.

8. Engage the teacher. Now, having an expert of such rare kinesthetic sensitivity, right there in the same room as you, represents a very special opportunity because of course there is the possibility that you might DANCE it with him or her. Now, don’t get carried away! Festival teachers are not there to provide an amusement park ride for you! They are there to help you learn. So, usually they will be happy to dance it with you if that is the best way they can help you learn. Personally I feel weird about stalking the instructors and just asking “Can I do it with you?” Maybe that would work for someone with a more direct personality than me. For me, instead, I feel like I should earn the instructor’s attention, either through the way I am dancing/working OR through working hard enough until I have a very specific, real, concrete, and authentic question that ONLY the instructor can answer. Once I have that, I make a beeline. Remember, often you get extremely great info from your same-gender teacher.

9. Work with other couples! A lot of times, out of over-politeness, diffidence, or forgetfulness we neglect the humongous educational resource right there in the room with us at festivals: the other dancers! Yes, you are surrounded by other dancers, some of whom have tons of experience, all of whom are working on the same thing you’re working on. So maybe, instead of struggling or asking the teacher right off the bat, ask your neighbor how they are doing with that crazy ganchoey thing. 

10. Make a video. It’s true, sometimes there are these rules about video-ing the teachers. However, you can still video! You can get a video of...YOURSELF (!) and your partner, doing your best roughed-out version the figure. Just ask some nice fellow-workshop participant to videotape you guys. Or maybe better, you can videotape a pair of advanced dancers who looks like they have got the hang of it. 

11. Review within 3-4 days, and again within a week. Workshop gems can go in one ear and out the other if you don’t review it and work on getting it into your long-term memory. Mentally review or rehearse what you learned several times over next 3 or 4 days -- festival prácticas can be a great place for that. When you get home, schedule some time with a practice partner (or maybe your teacher, if you do regular lessons) to work through the material and techniques. Then, practice each thing about 50 times, practica after practica, and get your partners’ input.

Make notes, reviewing, and practicing what you learned does take time. If you take the time to engage the workshop material this deeply, it will be more likely to stick with you and be available to you when you dance socially. It might be wise to take only as many workshops as you can “really” take seriously, so you can be sure you’ll get a lot out of the precious and expensive time you’ve decided to devote to notsleeping, not eating, and not social dancing, at the festival. :) 

I’d love to hear about anything you’ve found that helps you get more out of the festival learning experience! 

Love Takes Practice: How To Practice Together

by Mitra Martin

“The true idealist is no dewy-eyed dreamer but a committed foot soldier in the cause of his vision.” - Laurence Boldt

We started practicing Tango together around seven years ago. We didn’t have a teacher and neither of us knew anything. In our mutual lostness, trying to figure out how we could dance with each other, I remember moments of sobbing and scorn. I also remember, a few times, having the impression that sunlight, falling on the mutilated floor, had come specifically to make these beautiful moments more beautiful. That the hummingbird who lives outside actually paused, touched by our efforts. 

How do you go on in your practice when nothing feels right ? Or, how do you rouse yourself to find something deeper, when things everything feels blissfully okay ? If we believe in love, we believe in practice. We meet and try to connect. Then, we do it again.

Over time and through struggles, Stefan and I have found a few things that help us sustain our imperfect yet real Tango practice. Here are a few of them in case they are of use to you and your partners. 

Mitra's Suggestions for Practice Sanity 

• Decide what you would like to practice ahead of time. Make a plan. Is there an improvisation game you're interested in ? A step you have decoded from video that you want to try ? Some new foot/ankle/leg/hip/shoulder/arm/whatever technique you want to build your own awareness of ? "Just" walking ? A particular song ? Or a particular orchestra ? Is there a movement theme, e.g., say, boléos ? Are you preparing for a class ? Consider both your and your partner's interests as you plan. 

• Dress nicely for practice. It makes it feel more important, which it is. "Nicely" just means that you feel nice in what you are wearing ! Like, maybe something flowy instead of something sweatpantsy. 

• Have a clear start time and end time. For us it is really ideal to make practice a regular ritual that always happens at the same day/time/place/frequency. That way you can look forward to it and prepare in the right way. We have experimented for quite awhile now to find exactly the right rhythm that fits with our energies and the demands of the day, and we're still tinkering.  

• Starting with a small ritual of respect and gratitude can be really unexpectedly powerful. I remember when I took piano lessons as a very small person, each lesson would start and end with me and my teacher bowing to each other, which was totally impressive and focus-gathering. At the beginning of practice, saying something like, "I pledge to bring loving respect and curiosity to our time together -- Namaste," in words that are meaningful to you, will definitely have a positive effect on your practice time. 

• Negotiate what you are going to do. Share agendas and be proud of how wonderfully prepared you both are. Then take some time and work out a plan that allows both people to work on whatever they are interested in. Probably, you can't get to everything. 

• Set a timer for the end so you don't need to keep checking time. Clock-checking is a behavior that might make your partner feel rather forlorn and instead it's nice for both of you to know that you can focus fully on El Tango. Also, set a timer for taking a break if you think you’ll need one. Try different things til you figure out what’s realistic with your energy levels. If your plan includes different parts, set a timer for each one. E.g., first 20 minutes: walking. next 20 minutes: "Griseta" on repeat. Next 20 minutes: work out that thorny Balmaceda move. Or, ideally, more like 100 minutes for each. 

• Try, seriously and earnestly, to REALLY understand your partner’s question/problems/issues/frustrations/blocks/interests. Tackle them, study them as if they are your own (they are !) Look for resources that can help them, during and outside of practice. 

• Decide together any general principles you want to adhere to about feedback. As in, do you want it or not ?? Any kind of feedback or only certain topics ? How much/often ? Are you going to adopt The Stefan Fabry Five-Step Formula To Giving Tango Feedback ? (To come, next week !) 

• Feedback can sometimes be super stressful ! Especially if you are someone like me who mostly expects to receive lots and lots of praise, with rare and only very very gently-phased highly constructive criticism skilfully woven into a fragrant bouquet of compliments ! So, since you have to give feedback to improve, I suggest that you do something that makes the situation funnier if possible, in cases when you can't find enough compliments in which to embed the critique. For instance, give each other feedback LOUDLY, from opposite corners of the room. Or, poke him or her in the ribs if he or she gets too serious/ostentatious in response to your feedback. 

• Thank them at the end. Never take anyone for granted ! Each practice opportunity is such a gift, even -- especially -- with someone you're very close to and see all the time. In case it is hard to remember that, just saying "Thank you" can actually pull it into focus. 

• Articulate the growth, improvement, or changes you’ve noticed. E.g., what has changed in the past 10 minutes/hour/week/year/since the partnership began. Say, "hark ! how awesome we are becoming !" 

Our practice feels more productive and harmonious when we keep to these things. Honestly though, I still feel like even with all this we could be getting so much more out of our practice time together. I'd love to hear anyone's thoughts on how they work to reach their potential, through practice with a Tango partner.