Dance: Tango class note/reminder

Here is a part of Tango class note that I taught last week.


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(a) Axis

Stand on your right leg, and put 100% of your body weight. Draw an imaginary straight line inside right side of your body. That is your right axis.

Stand on your left leg, and put 100% of your body weight. Draw an imaginary straight line inside left side of your body. That is your left axis.

Be very stable on each axis.

Notice you can freely lift and use the other (non-axis) leg when you are balanced on your axis.


(b) Use of axis

You use your axis leg to support your own body weight.

You can pivot around the axis, so the direction your body is facing can change.

To pivot freely, you need shoes with leather or suede sole (or socks). No sneakers.


(c) Use of non-axis leg

You can use your non-axis leg for mainly four ways;

  (1) Extra balance support
  (2) Embellishment (tap, boleo, etc)
  (3) Interaction (stop, sweep, entanglement, wrap, sandwich, etc)
  (4) Moving (to gain or control momentum by swinging, twisting, flicking or kicking)

They are not mutually exclusive but somewhat intertwined usage.

(d) Walking

Walking is shifting your axis


(e) "Ankle magnet" rule for followers ("collect your feet" rule)

Imagine you have magnets in your ankles. After taking a step (changing your axis), your ankles come together (you collect your feet).

If you think your Tango somehow looks sloppy, be very conscious about collecting feet, and do it religiously after every step. In many case, your dance starts looking much cleaner just by collecting feet after every step and also take your time to pivot.

It's leader's fault if he does not give you balance support or time to pivot cleanly. But sometimes you cannot choose your lead. 


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We talked about many more things. These are some reminders and extra explanations.

Book(+Dance): Balance casual and formal -- "Quickest way to look fashionable" by MB (Japanese)

I read a Japanese book that boasts itself as a textbook for men's fashion. It's titled, "Quickest way to look fashionable" (最速でおしゃれに見せる方法), published on 9/17/2015.

The book was very good. The author MB, who has been in fashion industry for a long time, distilled his ideas of looking fashionable and good in the street and came to theories. His basic formula for street wear is "to balance casual and formal" to look fashionable and to be likable.

A useful concept is that, he rates all components of men's clothes in a "casual-formal" axis.

Casual being casual, like sneakers, sweatpants, jeans, hoodie, t-shirts, baseball cap, etc. They tend to be relaxed and colorful.

Formal being something like serious business/dress attire; dark shiny leather shoes, dress slacks, constructed jacket and dress shirts. They tend to be structured, monotone, or black and white. 

Even within an item category, there are more dressy/formal ones and more casual ones. Pale and torn jeans are more casual than dark skinny jeans.


And he advocates to mix and balance the casual components and formal components in one appearance for a street wear.

I had not come across a book that states street fashion rules in such a simple and practical manner. Most magazine photos and company catalogs have an agenda to sell and tend to focus on components themselves, not necessarily the whole appearance, and much less on how to construct the look. "Looking good" is left to some "sense" or individual's "talent" that are too elusive to grasp quickly. 

He says otherwise; there are rules that can make your appearance appealing to a majority (not all) of people, and he'd teach the rules. I like this kind of thinking. To tell the truth, I wanted my "Beginning Argentine Tango" book to be like that (in the field of Tango, not fashion of course).

In the book he added some rules that make sense. For example, he asserts that "bottoms determine the overall tone of how one looks, and tops change one's appearance".

Consistent with his assertion, we have been told that shoes are the most important part in men's fashion. Shoes are a main component of the bottom, also are a part of "tips" of the body that tend to get attention. 

We know wearing formal and sharp shoes can uplift the whole attire, and wearing overwhelmingly casual crocs sandals (these guys in the photo) can irreparably damage otherwise dressy attires. Even expensive suits cannot save the look.

If you look at street fashion photographs with this theory in mind, you'd be surprised how much of them follow his theory.

When a guy wears sneakers (casual), he may tip the balance to formal side by wearing slacks and a jacket (formal). But he might add more casual side with long sleeve t-shirts. Right. I've seen these street wear photos in some websites like The Sartorialist (link to the site).

I recommend the book (well, if you can read Japanese. Sorry).




Then, I was thought-experimenting by rating various partner dances in "casual-formal" axis.


What makes difference between this dance "casual" and "formal"? I'd say, how it looks. Specifically, how classical and line-emphasizing the dance looks. Ballet-like long lines makes it more formal, and body rolling makes it more casual. Assuming that they are all danced by the performer-level professionals, how they look and how much classical appeal they hold is the criteria.

Then, elite dances like Ballet (duet), competitive ballroom dance by professionals, stage tango, contemporary duet dance by dance company, would be formal. Among ballroom dances, smooth dances would be more formal than Latin/rhythm dances, although they both require hard training to perform well.

Casual dances would be like many social party dances. Kizomba and bachata would be most casual. Most Salsa and swing styles fall on casual, too. The less you need specific practice for the basics, the more casual the dance rating goes.

There are dances fall in between two extremes, like social style serious Tango, or contest-level WCS. Some dances hold more potential to look formal than others.



Personally, I like formal dances more, to watch and to do. I feel like, casual dances are fun to do, but they may not look as good as the dancers can. I am referring to a fact that Kizomba pros may have harder time to distinguish themselves from intermediate non-pros compared with Ballroom waltz pros, who "obviously" look different from intermediate non-pros. But you can have your own opinion on this one.

Dance: "Improvement" in dancing is qualitative

"Improvement" usually means that you can do something that you could not do before.  The "something" should be something positive; more impressive, more aesthetic, more joyful, more beautiful, more connective, etc.

It does not necessarily mean that after improvement now you are faster, stronger, or endure more,....something that you can measure and quantify. A standard quantitative measure does not necessarily apply in evaluating dancing. 

But if you are used to see contemporary sports with quantifiable performance, you may have a hard time for this notion to sink in. I am only saying that speed, time, length, height, weight, etc, are not good measurements for dancing.


Improvement in dancing is qualitative. It is about sophistication in the ways you move, communicate with your partner, and work together.


It is certainly true that factors that you can measure (quantitative) can affect your dance greatly, as you are more flexible and can reach further, or you can jump higher or can spin more, so you have more options. Quantitative improvements are, well, quantitative. You can measure the "results". It's much easier to addict to quantitative improvements.

But it is hard to quantify how smooth(awkward) you are, or how good (not-so-good) your dance looks, or how you changed your body usage so you move more elegantly.

Sophistication and elegance sounds like an elusive target. But we should remember that dance improvements are not always coming as improvements in numbers.

Dance: How to get better quicker in dancing

Some say it takes three years to be able to walk properly in Tango.

Others say give yourself a few months to fully enjoy Salsa.

They assume that it takes time to be good at dancing.


Is it true?  

No. It's only half the truth. Time alone will not grant you a good dance.


Be good at a dance requires three things; (i) knowledge, (ii) physical ability developed through training, and (iii) confidence/right attitude.

(i) Knowledge can be acquired relatively quickly, if you know good sources and if you have been proficient at academic studies. Occasionally it is difficult to find "good sources", though.

Knowledge is important. For example, if you keep dancing Tango as if it is casual Country western, you are not really getting better at Tango. Over time you reinforce your habits, and you are stuck there. To get out of there and change your habits, you need knowledge.


(ii) Physical ability through physical training. 

This is where you can make difference most.

Imagine you are learning basketball. If you want to be good at basketball, what would you do? Watch the professional games? Sure. Talk about last nights' game and criticize some plays and tactics? Fine.

But if you really want to be good at basketball, you have to grab a basketball, and start practicing basics. You practice in-place dribbling with your right hand, then left. Then you practice dribbling and moving. You practice shooting from various positions, from right side of the post to left, changing angles. You practice 3-pointers from afar, with different angles. The drills can go on.

Once you can handle the ball and maneuver in the court by yourself, then you are ready to practice with your friends for passing and role play for offense/defense. Game day will come after all these practices, if you want to play a decent basketball.


These practices are the point where you want to take your time to be good at basketball "quicker". They say no shortcut. Actually, knowing what to do and do it is the shortcut.

Even after only one week, concentrated practice every day will make a huge difference compared with untrained self one week ago.


Your body is an animal part of you. It has it's own intelligence (you don't have to think to digest, breath, or keep your heart beating), and it can be incredibly smart. But it follows its own rules for introducing something new and for improvements. It takes certain patience and repetition to train it.

Remember the time when you learn how to ride a bicycle. Train your body until your body takes care of the dance moves automatically. This is what you need to "get better quicker". 


Note that training is very specific to the dance you want to install. If you want to be good at Tango, practice Tango. Just like in the example of Basketball, work on important basics you use for the particular dance. 

If you look at athletic ability alone, a good soccer player may be well prepared for playing basketball. But he has to learn basketball to play basketball well. Does it not sound like a common sense? This notion is called deliberate practice or purposeful practice.


Once you have sufficient knowledge and physical training, (iii) your confidence should follow. Mental work is no less important. But for most people, I recommend to work on physical training first. It's easier to measure. Showing something through actions is much more trustworthy than "just saying".


The key parts are the first (knowledge) and the second (physical training).


If you want to get better quicker, (1) learn what to do to install good training for the particular dance (and to avoid acquiring poor habits). You may need a coach or an instructor who can help you do that. If they provide well-designed deliberate practice for you, that is great. (Do you remember "Wax on, Wax off"?). Then, (2) "just do it". Train your body until it takes care of the dance moves by itself. This "training" part can take time and patience, but can be a great fun part. 

In case of Tango, you practice basics until your dance looks "clean" as a initial goal. For many followers, if  she collects her feet neatly at her ankles, pivots on stable axis, and steps to a direction that is well-aligned to the direction suggested by natural body alignment, it looks much "cleaner".



I have seen very good dancers. A character they have in common is that at least at some time in their development, they enjoyed the practice and did it single-mindedly. They don't see practice as tough or pain. You don't want to do painful things. It may be work to some, but enjoyable work to them. Getting better than yesterday's self is their joy. This is the mindset that made them.

So, let's see "training is fun", shall we?

[Practice basics and train your body until you have clean basics. While doing it, have fun]

Science: The 2015 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine goes to...

Drs. William C. Campbell, Satoshi Omura, and Youyou Tu. 

Link to the announcement



They all found medicines for infectious diseases. Drs. Campbell and Omura found a medicine for parasite disease, and Dr. Tu found a medicine for Malaria.


Pretty easy to see the reasoning, eh?  Actually, Japanese media were surprised by the choice. As usual, they played the annual Nobel Prize prediction game during September, but no one predicted Dr. Omura. They were listing people whose works looked "sexier", so to speak.


The Nobel prize is the most prestigious prize for scientists.There were even studies (maybe industry joke) regarding "how to get the Nobel Prize for Medicine".

According to what I heard, you need to discover;

(i) New Concept that shift paradigm ("Jumping genes""DNA double helix"), or
(ii) New Object or Molecule (Novel medicine, "artificial stem cell (iPS cells)"), or
(iii) New Method that greatly helped science ("Polymerase chain reaction")

Then, you got to keep contributing to the field as a leader. Also, you have to live long.


Dr. Omura's work is impressive, yet it was likely to be overlooked by scientists who value academic, mechanistic or conceptual novelties. His work was much more groundwork. He and his team collected mud samples from everywhere, cultivated microorganisms in the mud, isolated chemicals the microorganisms produce, and identified various biological activities of the chemicals.

Among the chemicals was the anti-parasitic drug. The drug Avermectin proved to be a broad spectrum anti-parasitic and saved many people (over 200 million people!) and animals. It worked. It was useful.

In fact, he found many more drugs useful to us, too. I have used research reagents Staurosporin and Lactacystin (that they found) in the lab. I had no idea who originally discovered them, to be honest.



Dr. Tu is the first Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine winner from Mainland China. She re-discovered the anti-malaria drug from a herb used in traditional Chinese medicine. It should mean much for the Chinese. And it is easy to see the usefulness of anti-malaria medication.


So, this year, the Prize went to science with usefulness.

Probably I should say the Nobel Prize went to the work that helped humankind in a very straightforward manner.



Business people say that, "to make money, you got to help others, and if you help enough people, you will be rich."  This year's Nobel Prize is the science version of the business saying.

[A figure from the press release. They isolated chemicals from soil-dwelling microorganisms]

The medicines are from the nature. People who like and believe in "all natural" would be happy, too.