Unlocking Tango Mastery: How to Integrate New Tango Skills Into Your Dancing

Many tango dancers study this dance religiously. They attend classes, take private lessons, go to practicas and milongas, dance with a variety of partners and nurture their dance relationships.

What could be the reason then that some are able to integrate new skills faster than others as though they have a key to unlocking tango mastery?

While there are so many things that can contribute to this, I think there is one important one that is often overlooked and that tango teachers don't tell you.

It's something that I see come up over and over again with different students, and even recognize in my own process of learning.

It has to do with clinging to concepts that you learned right at the start of your tango journey.

It's amazing to me how much we tend to hold onto these ideas as if they were unshakeable truths in tango, much like our early childhood experiences shape many of our beliefs and core values in life today.

But, the faster you are able to let these go or at least put them aside when you are learning something new or seemingly different, the faster you will integrate the skills that are relevant for where you're at today.

The big secret that most tango teachers don't share with you is that we teach you what we think you need to know at your current stage.

A beginner isn't going to have the capacity to incorporate the kind of subtle technique that an advanced student can, no matter how capable or talented they might be with their body. So a beginner will receive "simplified" concepts, which they will interpret in a way relevant to that stage of their learning process.

At a later stage in their dancing that student might receive some information from a teacher that seems contradictory to what they first learned. In some cases it may actually be contradictory, especially if they are studying with a different teacher, but in many cases it is just a much more fleshed out version of what they originally learned, because that student is ready to build on the foundation they've already incorporated.

An example of this would be how beginners are often told to always collect their feet. The reason for this could be to help you to have a little more control over your balance and axis because as a beginner that's usually one of the most foundational elements of your dance to improve.

However, an advanced student will learn that collection isn't always necessary and that it doesn't necessarily have to happen by bringing your ankles together after each step you take. The free leg can have much more variety in its' articulation and should in many situations trail behind with delay.

If you're looking to unlock this key to tango mastery and integrate new tango skills faster, I would urge you to assess what you think is true about tango, and how much of that comes from the very first things you learned. I don't think you have to throw it all away, but if you receive information today that seems contradictory, be open to re-evaluating what you think you know and see if you can cling a little bit less to that, even if only for the duration of the lesson.

You might be surprised at how quickly you'll advance once you free up your mind and your hold on the ideas that got you this far but are now just holding you back.

Hmmm.. kind of sounds like general advice for life too, no?