"You should never ... You should always ..."

Recently I've read and heard in person a lot of ... wisdom about tango dancing. One blogger in particular has an affinity for buzz words/phrases, like "lead with the core" or "the right hand (of the follower) is useless in close embrace" and a myriad of other bits of advice which are advertised as absolutes, as in, you're committing some sort of tango sin if you dare to do otherwise.

For the very experienced and accomplished tango dancers, this is just noise they got used to, but for a beginner it's very confusing. Especially when these things come from people with authority, like for example an Argentine instructor who's been dancing for 263 years and was featured in 17 movies. Which reminds me, what's up with the habit of introducing a teacher and making a big deal out of how many movies they were featured in? Who the hell cares about that? How is acting in movies or performing on stage relevant to the skills required to teach salon tango? But I digress.

So, when an instructor you respect utters an immutable rule "You shall not use your left hand for anything" and then at the next workshop with another tango guru you're taught to use that hand to lead something people get confused. Who is right? Who is wrong? Not only that, but if you watch those people dance, you are likely to see them break all the rules themselves taught.

Here is my conclusion and advice, as it stands now, after a year an a half of intensive tango. It may change in the future. Others may disagree.

There are very few, if any, hard rules in tango. Shorey Myers, one of my "tango crushes", insists for me to hold my left hand in a very specific way, advice also given by many other instructors or dancers. Yet two of my favorite dancers from NY, both of them amazing dancers, they both expressed their strong preference for the way I was holding my left hand, which was almost the opposite of what the "rule" said. They found it cozy and intimate and told me I should not change it. Lately I've been experimenting with different hand positions, the one recommended by Shorey being one of them, and several dancers commented positively about the "new" embrace.

Teachers will often simplify things for people at the beginning of their tango career, knowing it will come a time when the "rule" will not longer make sense. What do you do then? It up to you. Personally, I try to accomodate the preferences of my partners unless that impedes my dancing. If it does, I'll do what works for me. Luckily humans are too "flawed" to follow the same rules all the time. It would be very boring to dance if everyone would have the same embrace, same technique, same feel to the dance.

But, yes, there are hard rules, but some of them are hardly tango rules. It's common sense. Although lately, the common sense doesn't seem so common anymore. For those who misplaced their common sense, here are some of the "hard" rules :

Don't hurt your partner or others. Don't make your partner uncomfortable. Don't be a bitch or an asshole. Remember that people have feelings. Don't take advantage of people. Don't stink. Don't be dirty. Pretty much all of these rules are taught in the kindergarten. If any of these rules are a surprise to you, you may want to seek help.

There are some "rules" that are more important then others when it comes to the actual dance, but I'm not going to go there today. I'll just cover one subject which I consider the most important "rule" there is when it comes to dancing tango. It's a simple rule to remember. Here it is :

Rule : Don't forget to dance.

Let me explain. Tango is dance. A dance, by definition is moving to the music. For a movement to be a dance, there must be a correlation between the music and the movement. The absolute simplest correlation between movement and music is walking on the (main) beat. Walking on the main beat is the simplest form of musicality there is. It's the very first step of very many, towards being musical. If you are executing figures without any relation to the music that is playing, regardless of the proficiency and precision you are executing them with, YOU ARE NOT DANCING. I get sometimes compliments on being a "musical dancer". Musical dancer. Just the fact that the term "musical dancer" was coined it's sad. It should be an tautology (antonym of oxymoron). It isn't. Please make it an tautology. Pretty please?