Tango in the Desert | why less is more

2 ~ Navigations: "El cambio de peso" is far more than just a “change of weight.” It also opens up a vastly dynamic & subtle world of doing less and experiencing more.

"The secret of tango is in this moment of improvisation that happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing possible: to dance silence. This is essential to learn in tango dance, the real dance, that of the silence, of following the melody." - Carlos Gavito¹

Capturing the sea is like capturing silence. Stillness still moves and so should we in the dance. Relaxing into stillness is what can open us up to the subtlety Gavito speaks of. So how and where can we find this body electric? In the cambio de peso is where I find it and how I share it with my partners and the music.

The trick is to do more with less, to seek dynamics in simplicities. One of the most overlooked, under-explored and missing elements in Tango in the Northern Americas is the artistry of musically shifting weight, it’s pleasing forms, how it relaxes both bodies and minds (which in turn positively affects those around us) and its utility for tight space dancing.

Bending a truer knee² helps to open us up to the subtle and vastly rich world of changing weight.   Yet, this sounds boring:  “changing weight.”  Even if we phrase it as “shifting weight,” it still lacks the essence of this beautiful and symbiotic moment that connects all movements.

Un cambio de peso… sounds more poetic. It is poetic in the embrace.   “Por qué no cambiamos el peso… con la música… y después nos vamos.”  Yes. Let’s.  This sounds fun, engaging and collaborative.   In English this would sound like “Why don’t we change weight… with the music… and then afterwards we’ll go.” It’s all in how we say it, just like this dance. It is all in how we express the music. Tango for me is enjoying the now, playing within a living moment. I want nothing to do with patterns, futuring or pre-planning anything past the now. “Que la música nos lleva…” (let may the music carry us…) and the best way to be in the music is to be relaxed and ready. The best way I find to remain relaxed and ready is through los cambios de peso.

En el cambio de peso to me is where mastery will be found and the music to be heard with the heart.

What is un cambio de peso? 

Let’s start with weighted suggestions of what it is not.  El cambio de peso is not us shifting weight in front of each other just to shift weight.  It is not a shuffling of feet back and forth until finally departing from that spot.  In fact I try never to shift my weight from one foot to the other more than 3 times, ever! I will, however, at times take an entire compás (musical measure of 4 rhythmic beats. It also means a navigational compass), and even una frase entera (an entire musical phrase which is 2 measures, dos compás). Changing weight is problematic for our partner if we (and they) feel like a metronome with glued feet to the floor. Our noses (center lines) should not be traveling further than the instep of our shoes cresting up over a ball of foot at the very maximum. If our upper torsos travel too far we spend the entire time trying to stabilize our sway for what we think will be a clear change of weight, but all we accomplish is a shuffle that feels like doubt and killing time with very little musicality nor connection to the moment or our partners. Plus it creates negative tension in our bodies especially in the neck, the IT bands, glutes and the tendons in the tops of our feet. A lot of effort wasted with no gain.

So let’s explore and more pleasing, relaxed and powerful way…

“Peso” means both weight, and also money in many countries.  It carries weight, the ability to have means, gravity, meaning, substance.

“Cambio” can mean change, and it also means an exchange. I like this idea a whole lot more:  an exchange of meaning, an exchange of substance, gravity.   

Aequilibrium³ [Latin] —> Equilibrium , from aequi- ‘equal’ + libra ‘balance’. Origins of the word denote more a healthy mental state, evenly balanced. All the more reason never to be on one leg and more seeking 60/40⁴ distribution of weight for all dancers’ harmonious movements being "even or smooth of surface".

Equilibrium is very much a part of weight and exchange.  In healthy relationships with money, humans and the world we need balance, groundedness and understanding all to be in harmony to evolve a healthy state of being.  Tango is absolutely the same because we are the ones creating it. If we desire balance and lively moments in the dance, we therefore must be in a state of relaxed equilibrium free of thought and ready for adapting in synchronized moments with other humans.

So how does one exchange weight?

We may express gravity, harmonize our shifting of equilibriums, by remaining in a centererd state of observation without preconceived thought.   You will hear in Tango a lot of talk about maintaining one's axis, but how should we maintain this unseen axis?  Is it on an angle like the Earth’s tilt as it revolves around its axis which revolves around the sun?    Since April of 2023 I left behind this idea of this elusive and illusory axis inside my body.  It always felt too thin and without gravitas. When I am in water, especially when the seas are calm, I love the rhythmic yielding power of the ocean, seas and large-bodied lakes. Water yields, adapts around you until you try to force it, then it will overpower you. When I am relaxed in the sea with water up to my waist, I love the pulsing sway of everything… how my feet feel in the sand… how it feels to walk through the water… we must wait for gravity, for connection with the ocean floor in order to walk forward (without swimming). I use this for exploring movement for the dance. Adaptive states of being seeking connection and balance and relaxation at all times.

My center is a column made purely of water.

Water is extremely difficult to compress, there is not enough space between molecules. I want my body to be the same way, all one cohesive unit working together like the sea and not willing to be compressed. I want my height to be present. I do not want to compress my spine or crumple my body in any way (or water will spill out over the top). I also want this column in a fluid, vertical state as I move it around space and time using the floor for support, balance and energy.

I think of my center as a column of water the diameter of my head. It begins above me (drawing down the music) down through the center of my torso, inside the pelvis encompassing both ball-and-sockets, down the inside line of the legs, inside line of the knees and shin bones and remains the diameter of my head as it settles between the space between my feet and settles down through the floor.  

I want my weight on the floor so I have gravity, weight, meaning and more importantly… connection!   If we bring in the concept of 60/40 from last week’s article, el cambio de peso will feel fluid, subtle, easy and very clear and relaxing for our partners.

Why would we stand on one leg in a dance, an art form, that requires us to be fluid and relaxed?  

There is zero advantage to being on one leg.  As you wish, but let’s put to pasture this idea that “the follower stands on one leg.”  That is ludicrous, cruel and creates inequality in my experience. I want my partners to be equal and feel equal in all moments. If I am leading, I am assuming the role as navigator, a guide, for my partner who is just as equal to the task of movement, musicality and collaboration… but perhaps they are blind. This does not make me more important or the one calling the shots. I am merely navigating us safely through the social ronda as we collaborate on ideas with the music.

To do so all four soles must be relaxed and ready to connect with to the floor.  Both capable of absorbing our weight, individually, just like the knees in last week’s discussion.  We are moving weighted connections in Tango.   This does not mean we feel heavy. No!  A sea can be unfathomably heavy, but no one can lift it.  We cannot lift a sea, yet we know the weight of water.   If we are connected to the floor our bodies can move with the same power, fluidity, motion of the sea and never feel heavy  IF we keep ourselves centered and our columns in equilibrium between our feet that each sole, both balls of feet are always relaxed and ready to carry the load for us.

NEXT WEEK: Ipsilateral movements!

I love exploring Ipsilateral lateral and gathering movements (never when walking forwards or backwards). Ipsilateral will will blow your mind and demystify crossed-system with how “less is more” is all can be. Ipsilateral & contra-lateral exchanges of weight (cambios de peso) and how the nose is our rudder… where it points our partner goes (and sometimes we twist ourselves up into tense confusion).

~~~~~~ NEED MORE? Below is more detail… and some little Darlings that got cut from above. ~~~~~~

I want to age well into tango.

The milongueros I was fortunate to study with, before they passed away, moved smoothly with dynamic power and this was when they were in their mid-to-late 70’s. I was lucky to have the opportunity to take a few private sessions with them at Monica Paz’s studio on Riobamba. She arranged these opportunities for me to study with Juan Lencina⁵, Eduardo “El Nene” Masci and Roberto “El Chino Perico” Ponce, during my first 2 month intensive-study-immersion in 2016*⁶. One evening we drove El Chino back to his home in Villa Urquiza. He got out of the car and caught his foot hopping up a tall curb. I saw him lithely adjust mid-air, land softly with the other foot absorbing his off-kilter weight from the trip and he made an effortless 3 step jogging trot, turned around and waved us goodnight with his broad smile and sauntered onward toward his home. That was all the proof I needed to liberate my hips, relax my body, seek less is more and move only using my “active grounding leg.*⁷”

It will take some weeks and months even years of honing this awareness and seeking proper technique. It will be time well-spent because we are learning how to move through life in more efficient and body-kind ways. Once this neuro-plasticity becomes instinctual the entire dance will unfold to us in infinite possibilities available in the present.  My best experiences in tango have been when I was completely present, not futuring… thinking of the next move or “what is happening?”  

We are working on conditioning our minds and bodies to be actively ready, quietly open to possibilities.  Additionally, this method of movement will improve the integration and dexterity of our small stabilizing muscles and therefore increase our true strength strength of micro adjustments. Conversely, when we move with stiff “standing legs” and land chasing our feet we are taxing our tendons and ligaments to stabilize and move us.

I’m choosing the active grounding leg  because I wish to grow stronger, more relaxed, more in control, move more with equilibrium and dexterity as my own body ages.  I have worked with octogenarian and septuagenarian milongueros who have for many years moved with the active grounding leg. They moved like someone half their age.  One day soon I will tell a story about a car ride I had with El Chino Perico, el último* milonguero (*the “last” and also the “greatest” dancer who lives tango).  He was 80 years old when he worked with me one very long afternoon en el centro de Buenos Aires.

Tension is the enemy of movement

My current mentor, Brigitta Winkler, reminds us of this as we explore. It is so true. A locked leg bearing our weight creates tension.

VIDEOs for this week #2 - date TBD

We can soon dive in with updated awareness into our pursuit of 60/40. The active grounding leg always will have 60% of our weight, not 70, not 80 and never 100%.   A tango dancer should never be trying to keep their weight on one foot when centering.  The search for the active grounding leg being the only active knee will keep us nimble, safe from injury and relaxed through the soles of our feet.

How to feel this idea: 

1. Stand in neutral position with equal footing, weight 40% in the left and 40% in the right.  We should feel stored energy in our belly (20%).

2. Release the 20% from the belly down the inside of a chosen leg (inseam) and let our natural body weight rest between our feet… maintain a relaxed and ready body in the sense that we do not crumble or go lazy…no… just at ease and ready to move.

3. The leg that absorbs this 20% we want to be the only one that the knee absorbs (catches softly) our weight and then restores our height ready to move… this knee should always remain in an active state.   

4. The free leg is unaware and unaffected.  It should be doing nothing… not flexing, not trying to help, not jumping at the chance to move… just observing (almost daydreaming)... just observing and quietly ready to absorb into action if and when that 20% shifts to it.

What to be wary of… bad habits!

The free leg’s knee should NEVER be bent in front of the active grounding leg… In fact it really should never be in front of the active grounding leg’s knee.  This breaks the axis and leaves the dancer flat footed and unable to safely pivot of change directions, let alone move.   The free leg should be free… the foot a weight on a string with 40% of our body weight inactive.   Embellishments are more attractive when driven to motion with the active grounding leg. 

1. Carlos Gavito may be more well known for his impossible prowess dancing in apilado. However, this is for the stage and for performance and not the social dance floors… there is no physical room! The people I heard talk about him at milongas, who were there and danced with him said he danced very differently when at a social milonga. I recall them saying he danced small and politely, relaxed and dynamically.

2. Bending a Truer Knee, last week’s article 1~ Navigations

3. Citing : https://www.etymonline.com/word/equilibrium

4. 60/40 ~ In brief this stems from weight distribution many athletes use, especially boxers and martial arts, to remain balanced, explosive, relaxed, adaptive, flowing, nimble, responsive and accurate. I find it has absolutely transformed my dance after applying Western boxing and Muay Thai kickboxing to how I connect with myself and everything around me. More in depth info can be found in our article 1~ Bending a Truer Knee (Footnote #6)

5. Juan Lencina was one of the most influential people in my tango journey. In the two months I was in Buenos Aires in 2016 we became good friends sharing meals, tables at milongas, long charlas over wine and roasted chicken… I studied with him three afternoons during that most influential period. He passed away a month before my return to Buenos Aires. Here is a link to a lovely interview with him by Monica Paz and this interview was why I wanted to study with him for his kindness (and rhythmic dancing!):

6. Here are some links to see these gran milongueros dancing. My goal is to dance as well as they are in 30 years. To do this I plan on studying movement that enhances strength and cuts out tension. Here are some links to YouTube attached to their names. Juan Lencina. El Nene Masci (great interview and at 0:22:35 they dance). El Chino Perico:  this linked video was taken few months after I studied with him for a long afternoon in November 2016.  It was only supposed to be an hour lesson that turned into 2-1/2 hours after he saw I had a solid start on my walk (la caminata).   Afterwards we had some wine and cheese and talked about life and tango.  He then said to us (me, Monica Paz and my friend Barbi) “vamos a una milonga?”  Being invited by a gran milonguero to go to a milonga together was an honor. It’s a good story, the lesson’s obstacle courses and later how the milonga went that I’ll share another day.

7. The leg that bears our weight through the floor is the one that moves us, not the traveling leg, if we wish to be relaxed, precise, ergonomic and economical of energy expended. Plus, it’s way easier on the joints, ligaments and tendons since they do not have to compensate.