Drinking From The Holy Grail

As any of you who have had a lesson or two with me know, I teach what I believe in.  I teach what I know and study inside and out and have experienced first hand. I’m also open to learning and discovering more whether it is simple push break or a complicated figure that requires a lot of skill.  What I call The Holy Grail and posted a while back is what I believe to be the greatest thing one should search for, including solid connection.  The Holy Grail and solid connection is what I believe makes for great dancing.  And I can prove it through experience.

I just came back from a Tango festival in Greece.  It was not a huge festival by Swing standards.  Maybe 250 people attended.  There were people from 16 countries within that crowd.  Most people had English that was better than my Greek.  Many times there was a language barrier.  Accents and broken English were everywhere.  The dancing was some of the best Tango I’ve ever had.  I didn’t get to my hotel room until sunrise every night, err, day of the festival.  Even the Swing dancing I did in a local jewellery shop was good but that’s a whole other story.

In the entire 4 day weekend I only had two lousy dances and one that was just OK.  The rest were phenomenal.  It wasn’t because I was king of the floor.  Far from it.  were people waaaay better than me there.  It wasn’t because I was chasing after dances with ‘Pros’ and ‘All-Stars’.  I did not know a single person there.  We were all ‘regular’ people who happened to be really good.  It wasn’t because I was constantly doing fancy moves with them either even though I was able to do them due to my skill and my partner’s skill.  I was definitely barking with Top Dogs and able to keep up to the pack, but that isn’t what made the dancing so great.

What made the dancing soooo good was that their fundamental elements and concepts were so well understood and solid.  That includes their connection although I’m sure I obsess about it way more than the average dancer.  I was able to dance well with someone I’ve never met, in a country across the Atlantic, and all through a language barrier.  Everybody brought good quality of personal movement to the floor along with a solid understanding of the elements and concepts of how the dance works.  If you wanted to play, you brought your toys and you shared them.  Everybody had their hands on The Holy Grail.  Movement was primary.   Moves were secondary.   That’s what made the dancing soooo good.

I’ll finish this month’s article with what I wrote.  I would like you all to read it. And then I would like you all to read it again.  Ponder, reflect, soak it all in.  There’s a lot to think about in there.  I wrote what I have always believed makes for great dancing.  I wrote and was teaching this long before I went on my trip.  My trip just happened to confirm it, again.  This is what I study and believe thoroughly.  I teach what I believe and experienced.  Great dances come from movement through connection driven by music.

For the love of all things Holy in the lands of Swing and Tango please study and understand the following:

1: The dance itself. It’s foundation, how it functions and it’s elements and fundamentals
2: Motion of the body. Where impulse and intention come from, where that energy goes and what it can and will do. And also the same path, but in reverse.
3: The Lead/Follow relationship. What are the roles, responsibilities, how they relate to each other and how action or lack of action affects that.

Music is the medium we choose to intertwine it all. Everything else is fluff.