The Chinese have a long history of war and martial arts. Their martial arts are called Wushu or Kung Fu.
Kung Fu has hundreds of schools and styles, but they can be roughly categorized into two styles by the emphasis. One is the "external" school, which has an emphasis on physical ability, speed and agility. A style seen in the Shaolin temple is a famous example. Advanced practitioners of the external schools can do incredibly acrobatic moves.
Another is the "internal" school, whose emphasis is on cultivating life energy, force, or "chi," and uses the energy and your sensitivity for the energy for fighting. They have an application for healing. Tai chi is a famous example. When practicing the style, they use set forms, slow-contact sparring ("the Push hands") and even standing-still exercises. The aim for the exercises is developing sensitivity for the flow of energy, that can be used for redirecting an opponent's attacks and for offensive moves.
Why am I talking about this? Because there is a parallel analogy in Tango styles.
The show tango definitely belongs to the external school, with an emphasis on physical presentation. It is film and YouTube friendly, because the big and visual moves and motions can be captured in this media easily. High kicks and aerials are obviously impressive, and serve the purpose of a professional trick, "Demonstrate something the viewers cannot do, make the viewers give up on doing the same, and establish superiority."
And the social tango? The social tango has subcategories of its own, and some social styles have more emphasis on the internal aspect.
The internal style emphasizes the internal feel of the energy, or the "force of Tango." Good tango of this style feels like giving and receiving a good massage. The dance can be very satisfying, but just like massaging, it is hard to judge by the appearance.
Like advanced martial artists cultivate and have both the physical ability and strong chi, advanced/good dancers are strong in both aspects, physical/external and energy flow/internal.
In social dancing, just like martial arts, what counts is your motion and response in the moment. Good social dancers almost look like they are reading the partner's mind. It is achievable through practice long enough to make your dancing a subconscious act. And to achieve this, you'll need both external ability and internal energy flow, that I refer here as the force, chi, energy, or Tango.
Dancers with weak force, or chi or Tango or whatever, may look fine with choreography, but they cannot fake it when social dancing. The reverse can also be true. Someone with a not-so-interesting dance appearance can have a strong and comfortable Tango.
In this era of audio and visual media (e.g. TV, movies, YouTube) , an aspect that cannot be easily translated to the media, such as a sensual aspect of life (e.g. tactile sensation, sense of smell or taste, the "feeling" or the "atmosphere" of a person), tends to lag behind the speed of information propagation through the media.
Tango is a uniquely sensual dance. What I am hoping for with this blog entry is that you take a balanced approach towards the two aspects with your own Tango by recognizing the two aspects.
I read some Tai chi and Kung Fu books in search of how to develop the chi. They did come up with some training methods, and these techniques may work for your Tango. I'll write about it some time later. In the meantime, you can do your own research, too.
