Skip to main content

Argentine Tango School

How to dance Argentine Tango exercise 1: change of weight and walking

How to dance Argentine Tango exercise 1: change of weight and walking

Shift your weight from one foot to the other, making sure to align your body’s axis, that is, the vertical line that organizes your body so that you have a good balance on that foot.
 
Walk trying to gradually put your foot on the floor while moving your axis between both feet, until letting your axis be completely aligned on one foot, and thus begin the same process again.
 
My intention is to be sure about where I put my foot before I commit my full body weight on that foot, moving carefully and, at the same time, free enough to accept risks and safe enough to choose certain risky situations to be able to play with my movements, making my dance in this way pleasant and interesting at the same time, like a happy, deep, and witty chat with my dance partner.
 
We can add a “tap” between steps so that we have to develop our sensitivity in relation to the alignment of our axis on each foot alternately.
 
We can also do a “tap” between each weight change.
Walking slower helps us better control the gradual shift of our weight from one foot to the other.

Ver esta clase en español

See more video lessons:

See all video lessons

Dancing Argentine Tango: A Philosophy of Life and the Art of Being Human

Dancing Argentine Tango: A Philosophy of Life and the Art of Being Human

Marcelo Solis dancing Argentine Tango with Mimi

To truly dance, one must live as a dancer lives.
By this, I do not mean dedicating oneself to dance as a profession. I wish to elucidate this idea through the following comparison:
 
If I were fond of riding a bicycle, I would require a well-crafted bicycle manufactured in a factory. It would be ready for me, with its tires inflated and its chain perfectly oiled, as soon as I hopped on and began pedaling.
 
The body and soul of a dancer are akin to this bicycle. Similar to how crafting a bicycle from scratch to ride it would be arduous, attempting to dance with an unconditioned, untrained, and unprepared body is equally challenging. Essentially, my body must be ‘manufactured’ beforehand, conditioned, trained, and primed to dance.
 
As I cannot dance without a dancer’s body, and since I have only my body at my disposal from the moment I rise each morning, I must ensure that it is always primed for the dance floor.
 
While I believe anyone can dance at any time with minimal preparation because being human inherently involves being a being that dances, dancing Tango, in my view, demands much more in terms of subtleties, skills, perception, and awareness.

It is akin to philosophizing about the fundamental aspects of life, contemplating the value of life itself and the reasons for existence. In this contemplation, language may not always serve us best; sometimes, silence might be the most appropriate response.
 
This silence, however, is not resignation but rather a celebration. It reveals that the absence of our everyday language may not be a hindrance but rather an aid in answering the profound questions we face in our solitary moments.
 
As music, dance, culture, and a philosophy of life, Tango is more than the sum of its parts. It evokes excitement, love, meaning, and a sense of fulfillment we often dreamed of in our childhood. Perhaps it is not through exhaustive technical study, training, and the application of objective principles that we attain Tango. Instead, these endeavors only prepare the ground, nurturing it until it becomes fertile enough for us to become dancers truly.

What do we, as dancers, desire?

Perhaps it is to transcend the limitations of our bodies and embrace the joy of movement fully. Happiness, rather than an end in itself, could be seen as a tool for a life imbued with purpose and meaning.
 
Understanding our bodies and their spiritual implications through training and knowledge is crucial in this pursuit. We can then carry this wisdom into our social and intimate relationships, recognizing ourselves in others and knowing ourselves better through this mutual recognition. This is what truly makes us dancers.
 
This is why I believe conventional marketing, as professionals understand, cannot aid me in finding new students, encouraging more dancers to join milongas, or promoting Tango in its true essence.
 
For me, Tango embodies Friendship. How can one market friendship? And if it cannot be marketed, does it lose its value?
My students and I share a profound friendship rooted in our shared love for a dear friend called Argentine Tango. ❤️

Leer este artículo en español

More articles about Argentine Tango

Continue learning about Argentine Tango:

Anibal Troilo and his orchestra | Argentine Tango music to learn to dance

Argentine Tango music

Music to learn to dance

Listen and dance!

History of Argentine Tango: El Cachafaz and Carmencita Calderon at Tango (Movie 1933)

History of Argentine Tango

Tango is a culture

Learn more about Tango

To dance well in Argentine Tango

To dance well in Argentine Tango

Marcelo Solis dancing Argentine Tango with Mimi in the San Francisco Bay Area

To dance well, that is to say: to DANCE, we will have to organize our lives in that direction; I will not be able to dance well if my life develops away from that goal.
Indeed, if what I long for is, for example, to make money, then my life will be oriented in that direction, in the direction of abstractions (money is an abstraction), very far from my actual body.
 

Put any project on this scale and consider how far the primary goal of that project will be from performing a good dance.

No one is forced to dance well. Truths, life projects, and desires cannot be the same for everyone.
 
I am inclined to think this way: when I reach the end of my life, what would I like to see in the wake left by that life?
 
Imagine all the possible lives we could lead. Let’s try to think and feel them, weigh them, smell them, look at their colors, and measure the scope of their luminous skyscrapers of triumphs and black abysses of awful flavors.

Perhaps we all live in different worlds, with the things and people we surround ourselves with. A life could thus develop in the direction of a choice of one’s own world in which to inhabit.
 
I think that perhaps a good way of living would develop in the direction of becoming more and more capable of directing and selecting what goes into the process of our existence.
 
In particular, as far as I am concerned, I prefer what increases the power of my physiology, makes my body more versatile, adaptable, and happy, my mind more lucid, and my spirit lighter and dancing.
 
Here is the foundational question that is answered with living itself: How to live?
That would be dancing!
Should I ask myself “what for” and/or “for whom”?
 
We could also perhaps answer ourselves: “there are immediate, urgent things to resolve; we live at a precise moment in history which conditions us, that is, it enslaves us and forces us to do things that we would not do otherwise. Let us, then, postpone our plan, our life, until we have resolved the present and responded to all the obligations implicit in its calls”.
 
In particular, my truth concerning this is that we will eternally be bound by the present. We were born like this: OBLIGATED.
 
My opinion on this is the following: it is a matter of perspective; It depends a lot on where we look at life from and where we place ourselves –physically and spiritually– to look at it.
 
Let’s listen to the tango “Me quedé mirandola” by Anibal Troilo with Alberto Marino on vocals. (I ask you… Is there another version of this song that we can dance to?)
 
Sometimes people leave the dance; that is, they abandon the dancing project because they run into a barrier they don’t dare to cross. Although they always give themselves other excuses.
 
I have abandoned many of my previous lives to lighten up enough to be able to continue dancing.
 
And do not think that you will not find doubts about yourselves and the value of dancing!
 
There are many possible worlds, many parallel realities that cannot be accessed in any “objective” way, such as the achievements of science and technology.
 
Don’t you think you should dare?
 
But this is a matter of taste.
 
When I see someone who dances, who DANCES, I see someone free. His body is no longer “ergastulum“, as the Catholic Church used to say in the Middle Ages, meaning “prison of the spirit”, a spirit that must wait until death to be released.

When I see someone DANCING, I see his soul already free in life, no longer waiting, postponing, procrastinating life to perhaps one day meet that fundamental question not only unanswered but never asked.

Leer este artículo en español

Continue learning Argentine Tango:

More articles about Argentine Tango

Marcelo Solis answers what is Argentine Tango. He is an expert.

How to dance Argentine Tango?

An introduction to the most important details

Find the answer

Anibal Troilo and his orchestra | Argentine Tango music to learn to dance

Argentine Tango music

Music to learn to dance

Listen and dance!

History of Argentine Tango: El Cachafaz and Carmencita Calderon at Tango (Movie 1933)

History of Argentine Tango

Tango is a culture

Learn more about Tango