The dark heart of the winter!

There is some lights in the harbor platform!

New Year's Eve in Sweden!

Tango Norte, Stockholm has organized a New Year festival more then 15 years, with workshops and many milonga nights in a row! I participated the milonga last night of year 2013 and here we can share it!

Support your feet, please!

Quite a  few of my favorite, experienced followers must cut down the number of tandas because of metatarsal pain. That is painful for her and really frustrating for both of us! The information about hese two methods to support the metatarso are not new but this is a new year push to start test/use devises for easier and happier dancing. I am NOT professional and you should talk with one to check if these methods are suitable for you and if they are enough to help you stay on the pista. It IS dangerous not to listen your body – we had here in our community (early days when there was not so much information) who lost her metatarso padding with painful consequences for many years.

Stay in place, keep the metatarso tissue collected!
A friend of mine is a professional modern dancer with many hours on bare feet; training and performing. The increasing pain on the front part of the feet was horrifying, challenging her career as a dancer. A solution for her was a bandage of sport tape around the front part of the feet. She changed it once a week during the long period her feet needed to recover.

If you put a piece of tape on the floor and step on it with you whole weight you vill get right supporting effect without squeezing the feet. Wrap the ends around your foot. This may be exactly what you need but for more stable support you can make another round.

This will keep the metatarso padding collected into its proper place without squeezing the structure or your foot.

Giving your feet some extra padding!

There is kind of jelly, colorless paddings used by many here but they are mostly loose ones so after a milonga you can find some lonely, sad jelly padding on the pista or they move around in the shoe so you need to put them to the right place again. In central Europe these devises have a band around the foot keeping them in place.  According to the info you can even wash the after a long dance night!

Do it together! Start a new trend in your community!

I have talked to followers here about these possibilities and helped them to test but it has been too embarrassing to use visible devises in those beautiful shoes. But according to the ladies it helped when they tested!

If this could be something for you and your follower friends, please go together and use the visible paddings, visible sport tape!  If you are 5-10 followers doing it at same milonga it will be  easier and others will join you quite soon!

The change can go VERY fast! 

When I visited a German encuentro and found these white bands in many shoes

 it became soon kind of signature of a dedicated, experienced dancer!

2014.04.07
Some more links to find tips for pain release!

http://www.leonatraining.com/2013/11/mini-class-3-school-of-silly-walks.html

http://www.advancedfootcontrol.com/moreinfo2/

http://www.alignedandwell.com/

What are our favorites telling us?

A few months ago a friend asked me at a milonga which are my favorite tango couples. A tornado of names rushed through my head and I must admit that to come down to a handful of names was impossibly. The question was though anchored in my mind and every now and then some names were floating up to my awareness before disappearing again. I started curiously follow the process when a couple of names took positions compared to others, absolutely and relatively until I today can present the shortest list during these weeks and months.

I ask you to pay attention to the fact that this list doesn’t have numbers, but the order seems to be important for me – I do not clearly know why, but this is the only order my soul allows me to write them. In that way this list or anyhow the reasons for this order are secret, even to me.

So this is not a list about who is the best dancer in the world, but a list which tells something about my deepest thoughts and feelings for tango.  These names represent the tips of icebergs of my tango values and appreciations.

Here are the couples for time being stated by my unconscious heart:

Sebastian and Mariana

Charlitos and Noelia

Chicho and Juana

Javier and Noelia

And here you have my thoughts when I let my brain to form some ideas about this list:

Sebastian and Mariana

They have been the starting couple at all stages of this list. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they have been working together so long time, having had the time to know each other and creating a stable cooperation, partnering. The most astonishing aspect in their performances is the glowing elegance as no one else’s today! I noticed that I prefer to write performance to dance – must indicate a lot.

Charlitos and Noelia

Their musicality blows my brain! They are outstanding and even a video with them can make me cry certain days!

Chicho and Juana

Chicho is the King of rhythmic tango!  He is also a kind of renaissance person being a musician and painter too.

And Juana is a sweet partner with the toughness needed to dance with Chicho. I have chosen this clip because it shows so clearly the first one! Some other clips show how she gets focused when music starts.

(Jump to 40s and whatch for some time)

Javier and Noelia

Javier is one of the few dancers who does move my heart live on the pista as well as on video. His ability to create an elegant dance is fantastic.

Noelia did grow to her new role extremely fast! On the first video from March 2013 she was still dancing kind of Nuevo movements but already in Seoul in May she had found the way and I just love them in this video from Tylösand in June.

The consequences for me then!

If one my deepest values is elegance I maybe should start to think the surface of my own dance body! Leave those pieces of training cloths and gymnastic shoes at home and start to think of how the clothing could support a more elegant look! Or how should I think about my steps, how to choose the ones giving my dance a better look?

Am I showing respect to the music? If I would give a more focused value for the music – could it give a different experience to my partner too?

How about you?

I sincerely recommend you to let your heart and soul work on this question for weeks and I think you can get some surprising ideas, when you review the results!

Who are your favorite dancers? Which couples keep you watching their dance again and again?

What are the values you find when thinking of the reasons for these choices you made?

Are there some consequences for your dance too?

****************          

A video in line with this posting

I just couldn't resist because I found this video extremely inspiring!

(If this link is not working try those below)

http://youtu.be/4znrNtLKDE4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb1YI2CKSyo