Technique Tips - Larger Lunges | Learn to Dance Tango

Technique Tips - Larger Lunges

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It's so important to have a wholeness in your back and the continuation of muscle engagement throughout your body. Part of that is pulling the limbs away and feeling how that hits the body. You can reach further and further with your foot and then feel how that's connected to your butt or your back. Same thing with the arms.

----- Song 1 -----

Artist Name:

Kristina Olsen

Song Title:

Cry You A Waterfall

Album Title:

Live From Around The World

Artist Website:

http://www.kristinaolsen.net

From a review on the website: Olsen, an itinerant troubadour who regularly graces Australian folk festivals, was at her most engaging. Such was the candour of her songs and chatty tales that it would impossible for anyone with blood in their veins not to empathise with her. Her full-throated voice and crisp guitar served up such diverse subject matter as crop-dusting and prostitution, while a revealing yarn about life-drawing classes introduced The Truth of a Woman. From her new CD came In Your Darkened Room, the title track to an album containing some of her finest work, a black frost edging her usual warmth and humour.

----- Song 2 -----

Artist Name:

QTango

Song Title:

Malena

Album Title:

It Takes Q To Tango

Artist Website:

http://www.qtango.com/

From website: Created in July, 2009 by Erskine Maytorena, a third generation tango musician and opera singer, QTANGO performs authentic Argentine tango arrangements throughout the southwest, with multiple tours including appearances in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, San Diego, Tucson, Sedona, Las Vegas, El Paso, Santa Fe and Albuqeurque. Specializing in the traditional tango music of the "Golden Age" of the great Argentine tango orchestras, QTANGO's dynamic and powerful music keeps dancers on the floor and listeners enthralled. Every song is a novella; a story of love, betrayal, desperation and hope. QTANGO's musicians give the audience a unique and intimate experience, an acoustic resonance only an orchestra can provide, a journey into the romance, passion and elegance of tango. Whether touring as a quartet or performing gala events with over 14 musicians, every performance is sophisticated, engaging, nostalgic, and moving.

00:03: All right, starting now.
00:08: Okay...
00:10: ..so, talking about having much larger lunges...
00:14: ..or the experience for the audience should be
that the lunges are larger.
00:18: As you do it, the first thing is the push off.
00:20: So, just show the push off.
00:22: So you see, with his left leg, her right,
they propel themselves off.
00:26: Go for it.
00:29: And so, you see the food slides because they're gonig that big.
You don’t have to hold this, okay.
00:32: So, before we started videoing,
it’s amusing,....
00:36: ...we asked, “Jessica, so do you sometimes do
the ball of the foot or do you the flat?”
00:40: And she’s like “Well it depends."
00:42: "If I know you guys are going to ask me
to hold it for a really long time, I do the flat."
00:46: "But, otherwise, the ball, because it looks really nice.”
00:48: So, going high onto the foot really shows but
it’s a lot harder to hold...
00:54: .. so, you know, from the ball of the foot,
than the flat, depending on the size.
00:57: Anyway, one more time. So that’s propelling off.
01:01: After they lunge, and you can land flat this time,
because I’m going to talk for a while.
01:07: You’ll notice that, in the hip socket for her,
it’s turned out, both of them, the feet are pointed,…
01:13: ..the back is long and actually -
so this particular embrace is this.
01:18: If I really wanted to accent the largeness of the lunge,…
01:19: ..come a little higher, you're going to be holding for a while.
01:21: If I really wanted to accent the largeness
of the lunge,....
01:24: ..I'd also let the arms carry the line.
01:26: So, there’s the point of the leg and the
extension of the arm.
01:29: If you do a forward lunge or a backward lunge
for you instead of a side?
01:34: And let’s go the other direction just for variety.
01:43: So, if we're there, also, I want you to the see
the wholeness of the back.
01:46: That the back is engaged and active...
01:48: ..so that the leg isn’t actually coming
from the hip socket...
01:51: ..it’s coming from the back.
01:51: And likewise, for Malachai, it’s harder to see, though.
01:54: So, you’re going to do this again from the other angle...
01:56: ..the other direction going back towards me
Malachai.
02:00: Same lunge. And you see the wholeness of the back
in that lunge.
02:06: So, I want you to think that
you don’t just lunge with your legs,...
02:08: ...that you lunge with your backs as well.
Arm carries the line.
02:12: Quick summary: turn out, point the foot,
really lengthen through the back and hip socket...
02:19: ..and in backwards order: propel,...
02:21: ...reach with the arm, it will be a very large lunge.

Series:: Technique Tips
Tags:: Technique, Lunge

Technique Tips - Larger Lunges

I want to perform and I know some tango