The followers I love to hate

I have been much too serious in my posts lately... so I thought I'd have some fun with the comic side of tango... the followers I love to hate...! Here they are:


The wiggler (a.k.a. the pole dancer)

She simply will not stop moving! I lead a simple back ocho, and I STOP for a second to start a new figure in some dramatic music moment... and she keeps on going like the energizer rabbit (remember that ad?). 2 more back ochos, one front ocho and twirls around me in a molinete... all while I am just standing there with half a smile on my face waiting for her to stop... so I can go on dancing. She finally seems to become aware of my presence, slows down and looks at me, expectant eyes,... oh, there you are .. the "leader"! Didn't you love what I just did? So, what's next?


The refrigerator

She simply will NOT move! I swear it feels like pushing a refrigerator with no wheels across the floor. My back thighs and calf start hurting for the pushing, and my left arm struggles to stay in its socket. Here comes some fast tempo I'd like to play with.. quick quick, slow, quick quick quick... I get slooooow, slooooow... and the musical phrase is over... Oh well, the dance ends and I look for a massage therapist.


The feather

I remember being surprised when I first heard that followers were being instructed to provide some "resistance". Having mainly experienced the "refrigerator" types, I felt like NO resistance should be the ideal... but nooo, tango is so full of surprises. No resistance is bad too! The feather is hard to dance with because you are never sure where she is. If you feel no weight at all you cannot know where her weight is, and even the tiniest error in timing a turn can send her flying off balance. Dancing with the feather is not tiring, but disconcerting and seldom connected. In the end I feel like I have danced with myself ... and I am NOT a good follower!


The purebred

When I first started dancing tango I had a creepy feeling of deja vu, related to my brief experience with horseback riding. I remember how odd it felt that even though you were taught what to do with your legs and arms to get the horse to turn right or left, each horse behaved in a slightly different way. One would turn as expected, another horse would completely ignore your "command", and another one would take off to the right like you had attached a rocket to its side! Not that I would want to compare followers with horses (!), but I could never get over the fact of how similar that dynamics of movement "reading" and reaction really felt...

One of my most interesting experiences in horseback riding was in fact with such a horse. I was in an amateur rodeo where we were assigned horses at random and had to perform some figures like number 8 (ah, ochos!) in the arena. That required a continuous turn to the right, followed by a continuous turn to the left, and so on. Well, MY horse felt my intention to the "right" .... and right he would go, taking off like a bat out of hell all the way to end of the arena, where he would finally slow down, read my "left" intention from my now begging and shaking knees and do another 100 yard dash to the other side of the arena. Needless to say my 8's did not look very good...

So, what does this really have to do with Tango? Well, I find that sometimes I encounter a follower that reminds me of that horse. Mind you, in this case she is the "advanced" one and I am the one who doesn't know what he's doing, but my experience is one of starting a movement that gets read and immediately "amplified" beyond my original intention and which now needs to be dealt with the kind of skill and elegance I sadly still lack. So I struggle along feeling again like I am riding that horse across the arena unable to make the nice number 8...

I don't know what the horse was thinking... but SHE is probably thinking that I need a few more years under my belt to be able to appreciate what she can really do... and she's right. Sigh...


The absentee follower

She is there, but you sense immediately that she's really with her boyfriend walking on a beach, dancing with the other guy across the dance floor, at the table eating the cake or drinking whatever is left of the wine. She is in all kinds of places ... except in your arms. You wish you hadn't asked her to dance, but she's going through the motions, so you do too... and suffer until the end of the tanda.


The beginner

It's harder to have fun with this, as we've all been there, so I'll start with ME... I still remember one of my first milongas when at some point, early in the dance, my follower looked at me with a patient smile and asked: "are you trying to lead back ochos?". Indeed I was ... obviously with very little success! And another one who just froze in front of me and said "I have no idea what you want me to do...". I bless the patience of these and other followers who kept dancing with me and helped me improve. If they are around I still dance with them (and they are much happier now).

But now... just like I baffled followers with an unrecognizable lead, I am baffled by how very obvious steps and weight shifts produce the most unexpected results, and usually with a delay that makes me wonder whether my move was sent to her by mail, and she just opened the envelope... ah, yes ... move my foot to the left... but make sure to shift my weight back and forth a few times and end with both feet firmly on the floor... Then look at him with a smile and say "I am a beginner"... "No kidding! - I think, but I smile back and say - ... oh you are doing just fine" ... and I finish the tanda, unless it's a milonga. I cannot bear to go on for three milongas with a beginner. So I thank her and promise to come back for a tango set... and I do.


The clamper

She's typically an advanced intermediate dancer who has decided to dance with you ... but not really. She could be the "absentee dancer" but she has decided instead to prove to you that you shouldn't have asked her to dance , so she puts her left hand firmly on your biceps in an unmovable "clamp" that prevents you from being in a close embrace and limits your steps to what you can do in an open embrace and a "frozen frame" ... and she invariably turns out to be right... Your dance will be stiff and uninspired, while you are trying to decide whether her "clamp" is temporary, while she's warming up to you... , or whether you'll have to suffer that way through the tanda.

I usually decide not to take a chance and I quit, confirming that I shouldn't have asked her in the first place.


The crazy glue

I should say that the "crazy glue" is easier for me to deal with than most of the other "followers I love to hate", since I feel very comfortable in close embrace and she is typically a good intermediate dancer. The trouble with "crazy glue" is that you cannot pry her open! She is the exact opposite of "the clamper". There is no way to do any open figures, as she stays glued to you for dear life! Oh well.. worse things can happen in life...