The weekend is here! And YOU, being serious about your tango, have pushed those pesky errands off to another day so you can spend the afternoon at your favorite practica.
You get there as early as you can. You dance as much as possible. You practice for two, three, even four solid hours.
Maybe you've arranged to meet a friend there, or maybe you're happy to practice with whomever is there that day. The music starts, and you and your partner take the embrace and begin to dance. You dance together for song after song.
It's wonderful. You're having a great time. But are you making the best use of your time? Are you getting better?
Of course you're getting better, your brain tells you. You just practiced for hours. How can that not be helpful?
I'm certain that it was helpful. And I’m sure that those hours did you some good. How much good it did depends on how you spent your time. What did you work on? How did you work on it?
The Low-Key Milonga
Most people treat a practica like a low-key milonga, a social dance where you can show up in casual clothing, and no one complains if you stop and discuss technique on the dance floor. They important distinction is that what they do at a practica is not significantly different than what they do at a milonga.
A tanda begins. They find a partner. They dance together for a few songs, say thank you, and move on to the next person. It's fun. But is it moving your forward?
What I have described above is best categorized as rehearsing. Rehearsing has value. It enable us to get better acquainted with a partner. If we move from partner to partner at the practica, it gives us a chance to get better at leading or following others. Rehearsal also helps us to improve the flow of our dance, i.e. to link movements more smoothly and effortlessly. Rehearsal also afford us an opportunity to dance to a variety of music and orchestras.
But think about this for a moment. Can you not also accomplish all of these things at a milonga? The milonga floor might be more crowded, and people there might be less forgiving of experimentation, but you can certainly learn to dance with a variety of people there. You will encounter a variety of partners and music at milongas, and you will become a smoother dancer over time.
What Makes Practice Special?
Practice is like exercise. It's not the amount of time that we spend in a gym that makes us slimmer or stronger, it's how hard and how effectively we work when we're there.
If at the practica we dance a series of easy tandas, we're not challenging ourselves. We are breezing through material that our minds and bodies have already assimilated.
Rehearsal REINFORCES what we already know and what we already can do. It may smooth out a few rough edges, but it isn't going to give us a surge in improvement. Practice that is not well-structured might even exacerbate our technical problems.
Why? Because if rehearsal reinforces what we already know and do, it can reinforce our bad habits as well as our good ones.
Mindful Practice
I don't want people to think that they can't have a good time at the practica. I love dancing through tandas at practicas. It's fun. It's enjoyable, and we should all do it.
That said, if you want to get the most out of your practice time, spend some of it actually practicing.
1. Identify an area where you want to improve.
2. As your partner if they would mind working on a particular technique with you for a few minutes. If they don't want to, just dance with them, and ask your next partner.
3. When you find someone who is willing to work with you, don't just dance three songs together. Do the following.
a. STOP. You can't do what you need to do on the fly.
b. Examine the technique that is giving your trouble. Try to understand why it isn't going more smoothly. If there's a teacher who's willing to assist, ask them. Otherwise, do your best.
c. Think of what you might do to improve and give it a try. Don't worry if you don't get it right immediately; you've already got buy in from your partner to experiment for a bit. Do the best you can. If nothing else, you'll learn something new about the problem.
d. Be good to your partner. Don't put them in a risky or painful position while you're working out the problem. Don't make them repeat a movement so many times that it starts to become annoying or painful. Be kind to them, or they won't want to dance with you anymore.
e. Focus on this technique for a tanda or two, but not longer. The concentration and exertion required to change the way your body moves it intense, and it will burn you out quickly. You are ENCODING new information into your mind, body, and nervous system. Change at this level causes stress. If you focus on the problem for too long, the resulting stress will work against what you are trying to achieve.
Spend a few minutes working on your technique, then reward your patient partner with some fun, care-free dancing.
f. Don't expect immediate improvement. Even if during this session you suddenly realize why you were having the problem, it's going to take months for the technique to become a natural part of your dancing. Realize that you have taken an important step forward, and BE PATIENT. Buenos Aires wasn't built in a day.
Happy practicing! Have fun, spend some time working on your weaknesses, and always, always, always dance to the music.
¡Buena suerte amigos, y muchas gracias!
Daniel
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