A Lightbulb Moment - The Leader’s Trap

When I started out as a leader I assumed that learning tango was a process of accumulating moves. Once I had enough steps in the bank, I thought, (ochos, giros, sandwiches, ocho cortados, boleos, ganchos etc etc) I’d be able to venture onto the milonga floor with confidence.  But this approach led to all sorts of problems when it came to social dancing.

One of them is a trap almost all leaders encounter at some point on their tango journey. It was the moment I found myself thinking: “ if only I had a couple more moves I’d be able to keep my follower happy and more people would want to dance with me”. The trouble is that two more moves became, another two and another two and the feeling of not having enough never went away. 

 It took me far too long to realise the very last thing a follower wants is a leader trying to impress by showing off his or her repertoire of moves.  SEE “What Followers Want from their Leaders”. Yes, as leaders we want to keep our dancing fresh and to avoid boring our followers. But answer to this, it turned out, was not more vocabulary. The answer to this was  better dancing. And that meant becoming a more musical dancer sensitive to the music, our partner and the floor. And I discovered the best way to achieve this was by simplifying my vocabulary and developing the skills that allowed me to focus on trying to express the music. Once I’d prioritised this emphasis on musicality and consideration for my partner (and the other dancers on the floor) it inevitably carried over into the more complex movements I encountered later on.