After eleven years living, dancing, teaching tango, and writing in Buenos Aires, I came home to L.A. in 2014, where I'm reconstructing my life.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

More Holds and Embraces

















These two followers' left arms as well as their bodies are remarkably the same in both photos below. I would call the woman's position, Woman Who Wants to Lead, but I can't do that with the gorgeous Turks. Or maybe it's Freudian and he wished he were leading at that moment.


6 comments:

Anonymous said...

To me that embrace says "I'm going to hug you even if I don't want to". It looks rather defensive and affected...

Anonymous said...

Yeah I've never been totally into that embrace. It seems to be pushing the guy away. But, that said, I certainly don't mind it when the cute Turkish guys do it! :-) Woweee!!

La Nuit Blanche said...

i always like feeling some part of the man's shoulderblade as i dance. mmm. :-D

but, on the few times i tried the embrace in the last photo, it was very comfy. seems to work well with very tall men!

last night, i saw a woman's left hand with just her wrist touching the man's back. her hand was curled upwards, and it looked like her wrist hurt. i wish i took a photo of it, darn it!

tangocherie said...

"Embrace" means embrace, and some of these so-called "abrazos" don't cut it. Let's not push the guy away, chicas, but bring ourselves closer to him so we can join hearts. This is tango!

Nuit, I see that turned-over-wrist-with-curled-fingers thing sometimes with our beginning students or newcomers at the milonga, and I think they are afraid to really hold the man--maybe they're trying to look delicate, dainty or feminine, or maybe someone taught them that years ago in Cotillion! But it looks very affected and insecure to me.

The low arm with spread fingers (a la Turk!) seems to me like the follower is leading with that arm, I dunno. I do like to feel my partner's shoulder blades, though, but not all the time. We teach our students to embrace each other like a lover, or a loved-one, which generally gets the desired effect of follower's arm around man's neck.

Ruben's personal opinion as a dancer is any position that the woman finds comfortable is fine, as long as she doesn't lean her weight on him.

Elizabeth Brinton said...

Is that last picture Ney Melo and Jennifer Bratt? I really like them. As people and as dancers. In a private with them Ney talked a little about embrace and called this (arm low on the back) "goin' downtown"....
Still looking for the picture of "radical embrace", which is manybe also "the anaconda"

La Nuit Blanche said...

yes, the hooked han turned out at wrist position seems like the woman is saying, "i'm too good for you, but i will deign to dance with you, and meanwhile, i'm going to look as snooty as i can, because i got a smoking hot attitude."

lol. an affectation that doesn't please me...

i've seen beginners do that too, but i think its because they get nervous, and for some people, the stress comes out in their hands. maybe because they aren't used to holding strange men in their arms, but more because of performance anxiety, wanting to do well, and trying to remember all those things they're supposed to be doing (and all that thinking makes it worse!!).

it's so hard to relax at the beginning... i remember i wouldn't even breathe, until some concerned partners told me i was getting blue in the face. :-D