Milonga Style - Up-Down
This is about the shoulder blades. People think of bending in their waist but really think of it more as pulling one shoulder blade down and then the next. People think of bending in their shoulders, but it's not about the shoulder socket; it's about the shoulder blade.
This relates to two larger principles:
- In the family of tango dances, the torso is always engaged and long.
- Typically, it's not about bending. Sometimes it bends, but that's not what it's about.
As you watch these videos, if it's not clear what something's about, please feel free to talk to us.
- Artist Name:
- Joe Powers
- Song Title:
- Se Dice De Mi
- Album Title:
- Amor de Tango
- Artist Website:
- http://www.joepowers.com/
(From the website): International harmonica sensation, Joe Powers is taking his instrument to new heights with his energetic and engaging performances that cover a full spectrum of musical genres.
- 00:04
- This next styling is in the upper chest.
- 00:07
- And I'm going to show it really large, so it's easy to understand. But it's incredibly difficult to do.
- 00:13
- And it's not really that easy to understand, because it looks like,
- 00:16
- And this is what I thought when I first started, that it's moving from the shoulders.
- 00:19
- And it really has almost nothing to do with the shoulders, you're contracting in your midsection.
- 00:25
- So, really, it's the movement of your wing-bones, rather than of your shoulders.
- 00:29
- It's not the socket, it's the wing bone, which is, you know, back here, rather than up here.
- 00:36
- It's really hard to do with a contra body motion, especially...
- 00:39
- It started out difficult, and it gets harder with a contra body motion.
- 00:42
- So, don't think you're going to do both, and if you're doing this...
- 00:45
- Yeah, either one makes a lot of milonga with the landing, heavy landing.
- 00:48
- Yes.
- 00:49
- And, with this, if you do it...at the beginning, for practice, do it medium-sized.
- 00:54
- But, if you were really dancing, you wouldn't do it too large.
- 00:56
- Right.
- 00:56
- Once again, showing neutral, and then showing with wing-bones.
- 01:02
- Neutral...
- 01:08
- Here's wing-bones.
- 01:14
- And, once again, I'm moving too much.
- 01:16
- Here's neutral,
- 01:20
- Here's wing-bones.
- 01:26
- And really, what I'm doing, is I'm dropping my left shoulder blade, here, and then my right.
- 01:34
- But I do that at the same time I step.
- 01:36
- So, as i step on my left, I drop my left shoulder blade; as I step on the right, I drop my right shoulder blade.
- 01:41
- If we do this together...
- 01:46
- We go over, I drop my left. We go over - the right.
- 01:50
- So, the weight bearing foot is a foot with the shoulder down.
- 01:54
- And we're showing this really big, but now we're going to dance it, and we're going to dance it as we really would.
- 02:01
- When the music gets there.
- 02:20
- And it's not a lot, but, really, what I want you to think about,
- 02:23
- Is that all of these things in milonga are really like,
- 02:26
- You imagine this old guy just standing in the corner and pulsing to the music?
- 02:30
- He's right. It's almost nothing. But it's almost nothing coming from your center, really big.
- 02:35
- So, if we do...
- 02:47
- And that's really what I want you to think about.
