Dance: An example to analyze techniques pros use

I am on my winter break, enjoying some time off.


I was browsing YouTube, and here is a good find.


Lomachenko's Matrix Style Footwork & Matador Feints Explained - Technique Breakdown

This example video explains techniques used by a champion boxer Vasyl Lomachenko. 

Some boxers give off aura of "highly talented". He is one of them.

I find some martial artists' moves smooth, slick and fascinating. They can easily have much greater appeal than some dancing.

There are aspects you cannot imitate easily. Innate physical aspects, such as reflex speed, dynamic vision, and body usage with looseness, are hard to teach or learn.

However, there are technical aspects in the game (including dancing), which can be learned efficiently with the aid of good analysis and teaching, such as this video.

Next time when you find an impressive dance video, analyze the techniques like this video is doing. Narrate it, with a focus on what the performer is doing.

If you make it a habit, you appreciate the art better, and you may even be able to pick up the techniques and do it yourself better or faster.

This boxing technique video is from a website "The Modern Martial Artist". Highly recommended. 

[disclaimer: I have nothing to do with the makers of the videos and the website. All rights belong to them.]

Life: Wrapping up 2018; 3 work-related news from 2018

Friday 12/21/2018 was the last day for official working days before Winter break.

I submitted a revised manuscript to journal office, made backup copy for digital files in my computer, chatted with a colleague, sent out a peer-review evaluation for someone's manuscript, and ended the day.


For this winter break, I did not schedule anything beforehand. 11 days of unscheduled chunk of time. How luxurious.


Yesterday I was just enjoying being lazy. 

Today I went to my office, and finished a couple of peer-review evaluations due this week.

To some extent, a scientist is like an artist; like dancer or musician or painter. What they do is not entirely "work", but has elements of "play". The word "workaholic" may not be entirely accurate.


Anyhow, if I chose three news from 2018 in my work; 

 (1) We published a paper and a review article that are important to define upcoming work related to Alzheimer's disease.

 (2) Initiated a collaborative work with brain trauma researcher. Sent out a grant proposal with them.

 (3) Sent out an abstract for American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) annual meeting 2019 (March 29-April 3 2019) in Atlanta, and a manuscript related to the work.


During official Winter break, I'll take some time to appropriately plan for 2019. Most of good things will not happen if we do not make them happen.


An additional news would be, successful job hunt by my former Graduate Research Assistant. He found a job in Mew Mexico and moved. Good.

Life: Is it Exciting? Profitable? Contributing to others?

This is December already and it is about time to have my annual planning session.

There are many subjects to make action plans for. But it helps to have "simple guidelines", in addition to detailed plans.


What I am currently listing as candidates for the "simple guidelines" for 2019 are;

     Is it exciting?

     Is it profitable?

     Is it contributing to others?


Whenever I need to decide something, I'd ask these "simple guidelines" to myself.

If that "something" does not meet at least two of the "simple guidelines", I'm not going to do it. My time and resources will be better spent elsewhere.


In other words, I am currently interested in doing something exciting, profitable, and contributing to others, in 2019.

Don't bring me anything that is unexciting, non-profitable, or self-serving in a predatory manner.



I'll test these guidelines for this month, and decide whether I'd elect them personally-officially for 2019 or not. So far, they look fine, though.

Science: evolving science publication business

Scientific publication business is changing rapidly in recent years.

Previously, there was a hierarchy among publishers and journals for given research field.
The order/ranking was mostly defined by prestige and impact factor, a metric showing how many times on average other researchers cite the paper in the journal.

Then there came open access online journals. Traditional publishers also started using online open access format, with or without extra fee.


Now it is almost December, 2018. We have many more scientific journals with similar names. Many of them are new and online. They keep sending out solicitation for us to join the editorial board and do some work for them, so that their publication system stays alive.


Although the sense of "major" and "minor" journals is maintained among researchers specialized for the particular field, for lay people who do not know about the journals' prestige and rankings, the landscape of scientific publication has become quite confusing.



In such a messy era for scientific publication, publishers are also paying attention to improve their metrics.

There is a cycle: "Improved impact factor -> more prestige -> better attention from researchers -> attract better quality papers -> improved metrics -> Improved impact factor....."

They want to get this win-win cycle going.



As such, there are increasing amounts of efforts both on publishers' and researchers' sides for improving the visibility of their paper and the metrics.

Publishers began to get serious about improving metrics, by helping out researchers and their papers to get more attention.


One of such efforts is to send out "News and Views"-type follow up article. I got one, too. 


So here it is.

Science: Abstract preparation for AACR annual meeting 2019, difference between data and result

I am a member of American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). It's annual meeting for 2019 will be held in Atlanta, GA in 3/29-4/3, 2019.

During 2018 I have been busy for Alzheimer's disease-related project, and I was not planning to go to the 2019 AACR meeting. But our Center for Cancer Prevention and Drug Development (CCPDD) wanted to send some abstracts for the AACR annual meeting. After talking with three post-doctoral members who may present the work, I sent out an abstract yesterday (official abstract deadline is today 11/15/18), along with a few other abstracts from the CCPDD. 


Most of the results for my abstract were generated last year. Now I am busy writing up a manuscript for the project.


Writing a scientific paper is somewhat similar to making a picture story show, with rather structured storytelling pattern and no fictional picture allowed. Past three days were spent laying out the pictures (data, results), examining the pictures, and organizing the story. This was also a good time to plan ahead.



In many cases, future events and deadlines define what I need to do now. This is another example.

PS

 Data and results are frequently confused, but they are not the same. Data is raw pile of data (frequently in a form of numbers) that you get from your experiment. A result is a message (or an answer to your research question) extracted from the data. Thus, a "result" is subjected to researcher's bias and interpretation, and we scientists are fussy about such bias and accuracy of "result". Preconception, prejudice, overstatement, over-speculation, over-interpretation, cherry-picking, .... all need to be weeded out.

Dance: 2018 OK/KS state swing dance championship, trend in WCS

This past weekend (11/9-10/2018), we had OK/KS state swing dance championship.

This event has been around as a place for friendly contests among several swing dance clubs in OK/KS states. People came from Oklahoma City (this year's host), Kansas City, Wichita, Tulsa, etc. It was an event with a good size, supported by many volunteering club members. I enjoyed meeting with friends and new people, and dancing with them.


Like trend in clothes, how we dance WCS shows a trend. About 10 years ago, cat-like smoothness was a trend. It was like a demonstration of moves of sorts.

Example:

MADjam 2009 Jordan Frisbee & Jessica Cox WCS Jack & Jill contest


In recent rears, exaggerated use of frame, especially among followers, and liberal slot usage, became more popular among traveling "top dancers" in WCS circuits. Overall, more "dancing".

Examples:

Jack & Jill O'Rama 2018 Strictly Swing A 1st Place - Thibault Ramirez & Victoria Henk

Jordan Frisbee & Larisa Tingle, Phoenix 4th of July 2018, 1st Place Champions
(the same guy, 9 years later)

Once a trend is set by traveling dancers, it may "trickle down" to intermediate/advanced dancers.

However, trend is not for everyone. Local dancers who do not compete in upper circles don't even need to follow trends. Or, probably they shouldn't. Most of them were simply not ready. Social dance depends on basics. How you enjoy dancing socially depends on your partner and what he/she got.


You can express your philosophy and demonstrate your knowledge and physical ability (or lack of) in your dance. It was interesting to see the difference among participants. 


The level difference comes into play in contests.

For newcomer/novice, the contests were mostly whether they have good use of WCS basics. To compete, knowing and dancing basics, having quick feet (that can be used for syncopation and improvisation in upper level) yet demonstrating correct timing, and knowing positioning, are all necessary as expanded basics, especially for followers. It is obvious if they have them or not. If you are stumbling in your basics, you are not ready for upper level.


"Intermediate" is a tricky level. They may not have physical ability or fitness of advanced dancers yet. But they try. The pre-set patterns they can pull off help. To some extent, dancing is a demonstration (=external presentation) of your physical abilities. Some sorting can take place here.


"Advanced" level is a level you decide what to show. In other words, they both (lead and follow) have some grasp in how they look, by each and combined, while dancing. As WCS is generally a directional dance and has a front side and a rear side for show, they may calculate and include it in their performance, too. But at this level, the direction she is facing defines a slot. Much more freedom is allowed here.

Even for "advanced" dancers, recent trend may be hard to adopt. But it is a matter of choice. We will see and appreciate their choices.


Routines are entirely different game. Not many people try routines, but you can get whole new experience from dancing a routine. From spectator's standpoint, we can even see an art of "goof and recovery" (though I won't mention who).



.... These were some of what I was thinking during the event. 


 It was nice to get back to this dance I love. 

Dance: When you are not dancing Tango for a while, what would you lose?

"When you are not dancing Tango for a while, what would you lose?"

Think about it and come up an answer. I'll wait.



This is not a trick question or anything. But your answer reveal something about yourself.


If you list human relationship-kind of answer, like connection, sense of belonging to community, unity to partner, friendship, wine and fun time in milonga, etc, these are the personal meaning you find in the dance. You may be on the "feelie", or Sensing-Feeling side.

If your answer is more physical or technical, such as balance, posture, figure X or Y, they represent the way you find meaning in the dance. You may be on the "techie", or Thinking side. 

It is not bad or anything. You would have to be at least at intermediate level to be able to talk about techniques, and I'd expect your dance level may be higher than those who grasp a dance only from emotional meaning to them. 

Poets and dancers are not exactly the same people. Like musicians, dancers (or so-called "real dancers") carry highly technical requirements.


You need to align what you think, what you say, and what you do, to be most effective and live your life truthfully.

Dance techniques enable you to "do" the dance. Not only what you think or say. Bluntly put, a singer is hardly a singer without a voice. A dancer is hardly a dancer without physically presenting beauty of the dance. 

For dance contests and auditions, how you dance here and now is what you got here and now. I like that kind of simplicity.



BTW, tomorrow Tuesday is midterm election day in the US.

I used to think, if your inner self (religious belief, spirituality, political good intention or  malice, etc) can be physically seen like watching your dance, it would have been much easier. 

Life: Opinions are cheap. Now what?

Opinions are cheap. 

Opinions can be easily generated in your brain without any cost or real efforts. You can even just borrow it and recite it. Opinions may or may not be backed up by facts, and certainly skewed by your interpretation. 


[I leave this note here to remind myself of the inherent cheapness of opinions, right before midterm election of 2018.]



If you want to add value to your opinion, there are a few ways.

(0) Have a name.

   Anonymous or unrecognizable handle names don't count.

(1) Make it different from most others/value through rarity

   by radicalizing it (take an extreme position). This is the path extremists take and I do not recommend it. 

   by making it otherwise unique (smart, clever, new, etc)


(2) Give credibility

   by your actions (live your opinion). No hypocrite.

   by becoming an expert (be an industry expert and have tangible results)

   by external credentials (same as expert opinion)


(3) Make it useful or specifically applicable/value through timeliness and practicality

   "Useful" is in the eye of beholder. Generic opinions don't work. Some opinions can work for specific person or situation, but they may not for others. For many pragmatic issues, having "useful" opinions at the right time and for the right person can add value. This is for a counselor, a coach, a doctor, an instructor, etc. 


I do not recommend (4) and (5).

(4) Talk only to affirmative friends (the echo chamber method)

   You can have a false sense of valued opinion by living in a small echo chamber.


(5) Use halo effect on someone who recognize your halo effect (the celebrity-and-fans, or the cult leader-member method)

   Similar to (4). It works only in your small world.

....


Since my basic view on other people's opinions is like above, I do not value all opinions, but opinions by select few whom I trust. 

Yes, trust and source are important.

I am still using my judgement on the person as a source, and delegating a part of my judgement to him. 


Some people proposed to take even more strict approach than mine.

“Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.”

— Buddha

If you agree with this Buddha's "opinion" with your reason and common sense, believe it and practice it.




PS
This week I was working on a research manuscript that contains works by my summer student and graduate research assistant. Hoping to send it out soon.


Last Saturday (10/20/18), we had a memorial gathering for Paul Ramirez at the OKC swing dance club, where he spent so much time. Visiting there one last time in his urn was probably a good thing for him.

Science/life: OU daily article (published 10/3/2018)

Some time ago in late September, a reporter from OU daily, a campus newspaper, contacted me, saying that she read our press release article from Stephenson Cancer Center on our research and interested in writing a story.

So we had an interview over the phone. I also told her the names of my previous graduate research assistant and summer student, so that she could talk with them. Apparently, having independent people talk about research was journalistically (?) important for her. 

Two days later a photographer showed up and took some photos.


Then I forgot about it. There was no follow up or anything.


Today I remembered it, and searched for the article.


It was actually written and published. So here it is.

Link to the article OU daily article 10/3/2018  by Francesca.

[the photo in the article....me]

Dance: This weekend in OKC, Tulsa (Tango, WCS)

In this weekend 10/12-14,

Tango workshop Jose Luis Ferraro and Rika Fukuda (OKC, idance)

Tango weekend with Jose and Rika Facebook event link

Tulsa Fall Fling /West Coast Swing workshop with Taletha Jouzdani (Tulsa, Clubhouse)

                                       Tulsa Fall Fling Facebook event link


For your consideration.

Science: DOD PRARP grant preparation

We have been working on a proposal for a grant from DOD (Department of Defense). Past Saturday and Sunday it was hectic. But we uploaded files yesterday (Monday). 

Administrative office was checking them, and today (Tuesday) we were fixing things. Now I am finally getting optimistic about making the deadline on 10/11 (Thu).



There are a few major federal funding sources for scientific research. For biomedical research, the most major one is NIH. But DOD also has a number of medical research programs concerning issues pertinent to the military and veterans.


NIH programs are reviewed by experts panel members. The programs and announcements change focus over time, but slowly.

Apparently, DOD programs are more driven by needs. They can be created quickly. For example, some programs on psychiatric issues did not exist until PTSD was recognized and became an issue. On the other hand, some programs were discontinued or took hiatus.

DOD research grants follow different mechanism from that of NIH. I think it is good.


One of such DOD programs is PRARP (Peer-reviewed Alzheimer's Research Program). 

The mission statement says,

"Mission: The PRARP’s mission is devoted to (1) understanding the association between Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Alzheimer's disease (AD) and AD-related dementia (AD/ADRD), and (2) reducing the burden on affected individuals and caregivers, especially in the military and Veteran communities."

This is the grant we have been working on the proposal for. We think we have a proposal that will contribute to the DOD PRARP's mission. For that, we teamed up with TBI experts in Neuroscience department. Reading and learning their work was interesting. 

Some aspects of their research were fascinating, although I do not fancy doing it myself (brain surgery and behavior analysis, anyone?). I'll leave these parts to them. Delegation is a great merit of teaming up, as long as the partner is reliable and does good work.

The story is the same from their standpoint. Teaming-up wouldn't work unless both parties bring something equal to the table.

Probably tomorrow we can finish finalizing the application with administrators and submit it.

Almost there.

Science: Cancer immunotherapy for 2018 Nobel Prize

Elderberry syrup. Zinc. Vitamin C. My low-tech combo for mild cold. Now the cold I had over this past weekend is gone.

It is good to have some medicine for a disease.


This year's Nobel Prize went to cancer immunotherapy. Specifically, to people who found receptor proteins that regulate immune cells and that cancer cells use to evade immune attack.

One of the proteins is called PD-1, found by Dr. Honjo in Kyoto University, and another, CTLA4, investigated by Dr. Allison in Texas MD Anderson. Their studies led to a novel class of cancer drugs. The obvious usefulness appealed to the Prize committee, it seems.

Cancer is born out of our own body. But as they grow, they start to express various proteins that are not in surrounding, former kin cells. That means, in theory, cancers should be found by immune cells and eliminated.

But it does not happen, for many growing cancers. Cancers somehow evade immune attacks. That "somehow" part is regulated by surface receptor proteins, including PD-1 and CTLA4.

If we target PD1 or CTLA4, it may disrupt the way cancers evade immune cells, and help immune cells eliminate cancers again.

The theory sounds good. But there are too many good-sounding theories in science that don't work.

Most striking thing was, they worked.

For example, PD1 inhibitory antibody, called Nivolumab/Opdivo, was used against a type of late-stage cancer, for which 5-year survival rate was near zero. But the drug brought the figure to 16%. Literally, life or death difference.

Encouraged by the success, and with optimism that the drug may not be choosy about the types of cancer, many clinical trials are ongoing.

That way, we have seen many "cancer immunotherapy" reports in cancer research meetings in past several years.


In fact, a few years back in our lab, we bought anti-PD1 and CTLA4 antibodies as a research tool and did some pilot experiments to see if they are expressed in cells with genomic instability, and if they are promising target in cancer immunoprevention. (I guess I should not talk about this). Anyhow, immune-modulation is now an important therapeutic or preventive option to consider.


So I am not surprised to see them won the Prize. Congratulations, Drs. Honjo and Allison. 



PS 
"Cancer Immunotherapy" here is a highly specific therapeutic modality targeting "immune checkpoint". It is different from previous generation immunotherapy (like using interferon or interleukins) or from generic "immune boost" (mushrooms or garlic, anyone? Could be elderberry syrup, too).

Science: "Can Alzheimer's be stopped?"(2016) by Nova/PBS (and about our work)

Yesterday I was stopping by the office of a colleague in neuroscience department. We are working together to finalize a grant proposal involved in Traumatic Brain Injury and Alzheimer's dementia.

At the beginning of the discussion, she gave me the DVD, "Can Alzheimer's be stopped?" 

These DVDs were sitting around for some reason. My guess is, they were distributed in the department as an educational aid. She's had at least three copies in the office.


So tonight I popped the DVD in my laptop and watched. 60 minutes, plus short (<5min) bonus films.


The 2016 Nova/PBS documentary was very well made. It can be quite engaging, too.

This documentary was made for general public. It was a good description of ongoing battle (or perhaps, struggle) by research industry and patients against the disease. 


When we read research papers and reviews, they are great sources of knowledge. At the same time, they are highly condensed, in terms of information.

What was presented in the documentary was something I knew already, mostly by reading, and some by experience. Yet, with all real life settings and with human voices and faces, the knowledge was given so much more "reality".


There are many layers in knowledge, depending on your standpoint. 

[Producer] I am doing research on Alzheimer's now. That is a hands-on researcher's standpoint. Since the mouse model we uncovered and are working on is a novel model, what we are doing is cutting edge scientific research. We are on the side of producing latest knowledge on the disease.

[Consumer] Then there are written knowledge from colleagues. We read through results of their 3+ years study in 15 minutes, and see if they can be useful for our own study.

[Teacher] The colleague is busy teaching in the department. I borrowed her course slides for neurodegenerative diseases (including Alzheimer), just to know how the subject is taught in college in 2018. Teaching requires different way of objectifying the body of knowledge and assessing students' existing knowledge.

[Patients' family] I would not be working on Alzheimer's, if my mother was not diagnosed as Alzheimer's in 2015. Her diagnosis motivated me to read and learn about the disease. Since she lives in Japan, the disease impact is not direct. Yet, I've seen how the disease goes, and it is tough to see or hear at times.


Being a researcher is unique privilege, I'd say. In the process of reading literature on Alzheimer's, I learned that what I study ("genomic instability in the body" research theme) may be involved in causing or aggravating Alzheimer's disease. Since I've been working with genomic instability mouse models, I tested the hypothesis with the genomic instability models that were intentionally maintained and aged for cancer study purpose at the time. 

Although with a twist (research is not always straightforward), the test led to our finding of the model mouse that accumulates amyloid-beta in the brain in old age.

Previously, it was believed that normal mice will not develop amyloid-beta in the brain, due to sequence difference in mouse version of amyloid precursor protein and to their shorter lifespan (2-3 years) compared with human (65+ years for 95% of Alzheimer's). It was believed that to generate amyloid plaques in mouse, manipulation of amyloid metabolism and forcible expression are needed.


Our mouse is designed to create "cohesinopathy", a type of genomic instability that naturally occurs over age, which also is associated with human Alzheimer's disease. With a transgenic mutation, the model spontaneously accumulates amyloid-beta, the initial trigger and a pathological cause for Alzheimer's disease, in old age.

We are getting flurry of data that show similarities between the mouse's brain and human brains with Alzheimer's disease. We are very excited by that.


What we do is work in the lab, called pre-clinical translational study. Yet, for uncovering disease mechanisms and biomarkers, the mouse will be immensely useful. The knowledge we know is not yet directly translated to human patients. Hopefully it will, soon.


Sure, if our study turns out to be successful and helps to cure human Alzheimer's disease, Nova/PBS may be making a documentary out of our work. Haha.

Dance/life: Passing of Paul Ramirez

Paul Ramirez was OKC swing dance club director for over 30 years. He retired and moved to Houston in Nov. 2015.

 On 9/15/2018, I heard that he passed away.


The last time I saw him in person was the night of his retirement party. 

[my blog entry about the party]
http://beginningargentinetango.blogspot.com/2015/11/dancelife-paul-ramirez-retirement-party.html

In the night, he stayed late until the party closed. With some help he got in a van, and left the swing dance club for good. 



In 2000's and early 2010's, I spent a lot of time dancing. The OKC swing dance club offered long hours for social dance opportunities. 

The long hours was possible because Paul was there for a long time, keeping the door open until or past midnight. To him, the club was not a job site, but where he lived. Even after he busted his knees and hip, and had hard time dancing, he sat on his seat in the far-end table, and talked with people while he watched dancers.


When I go to the club lately, and see the club closes before 11pm, I see the difference from then and now.


There were many ways he saw things differently from I did. Our personalities were quite different. I even moved his facebook page status to acquaintance, thinking his facebook account was hacked by right wing bot or something.


But I remember him positively.

What I like about him most is his love and passion for dancing. His love was what made him stayed in the club and remained there until the latest hours, day after day. He did it for years. Actions speak louder. His love was borderline crazy, or madness of sort.

Yet, long time dancers know the madness. We share the madness. That makes us friends in a strange way.

Rest in peace, Paul.

[his retirement party]

Science: video interview session for OU "Inside Sooner Magic"

Following is a part of an email sent by OUHSC officer to the Director of our research center.


"Dr. Yamada’s research on Alzheimer’s will be featured in the University of Oklahoma “Inside Sooner Magic” video newsletter next week. This video newsletter is distributed to all OU and OUHSC employees – and serves to highlight the interesting things going on at the University.

The OU Public Affairs team will interview him in his lab on Thursday at 10 am – and I or another member of our Media team will be escorting the camera crew and assisting Dr. Yamada with the interview.


Please let me know if you have any concerns – and we are excited to highlight this great research!"

Yup I got an interview on our recent work on Alzheimer's.

The camera crew and the OUHSC officer as interviewer showed up in the lab this morning. Wearing business suits, I stood in front of the camera about 1.5 foot away, looking at the interviewer, and answered questions. The interview took about 15 min, followed by additional photo and video taking in the lab in the lab coat.

There were two lab people happened to be working at the time there. We got the "working photo", too. [wink wink]

The materials will be edited to about 1-2 minutes video (nobody want to watch video over 2 minutes these days, anyway. ..unless it is cats video).

It is impossible to tell a long and complicated story. As it is for general audience, it has to be simplified. 

So the questions were simple, something like "Introduce yourself. ...your personal experience with Alzheimer? ....the current state of Alzheimer research and practice? ...about your research,..what's new? ..What is your hope for the research?"

It was an interesting occasion. Now I wait for the completed video somewhat anxiously, hoping for the best.

Dance: A little bit about Buenos Aires (Tango)

A friend of mine was visiting Buenos Aires for 2 weeks on the latter half of August. We had a short chat about her visit, in a milonga on Sunday in Tulsa.

She had a better balance, more composed embrace and sense of "gaze" in her Tango. I guess these were a part of what she got in her Buenos Aires vacation.


A little excerpts. 

********************************

Airfare was about $1100 (not bad). Use airbnb, and total cost would be around $3000. Not bad for a Tango vacation in Buenos Aires for 2 weeks.

It was Tango festival season. Many Tango events (contests, shows, workshops, milongas) were there.

They had a Tango school with seven different levels (1 for beginners, 7 for advanced). You can pick the level and the class theme,.... it exactly was a school.

Each class was cheap...about $3. Together with current economic turmoil in Argentina, no wonder many Tango instructors want to travel abroad for teaching, for a better deal.

There were "private" milongas that you can attend if you know the password. You get the password from "friend" (in fact from your instructor or other people you dance with). It seems to be another trick to have a milonga without making it a commercial setting (for which you need to pay for license or some sort of tax/regulatory compliance fee [?? I'm just guessing]).

You need to speak Spanish, or have a translator friend. 
My guess is its somewhat like in Japan. People may know English, but they don't always speak well... language is a reason I am not very eager to visit Argentina at this time. I am more a scientist than a linguist. I have many other things to study right now, and I find learning another language on top of it to be taxing. Probably I should find a translator/friend rather than trying to pick up third language (enough about me).



*********************


My graduate research assistant who just graduated, got a job offer last Wednesday. I was very happy to hear that. He will be working in New Mexico as a clinical administrator assistant (not sure about exact job title). Good luck.



We had a Sushi dinner with colleagues in Gogosushi in Moore, OK, last Saturday. Good times.

Dance: Difference between "Dancers' Argentine Tango" and "Argentine Tango dancers' Tango"

I watched a video from "So You Think You Can Dance" show. Two dancers dancing a(n Argentine) Tango.

[Link to the SYTYCD dance video, via facebook:]
https://www.facebook.com/SoYouThinkYouCanDance/videos/1983275195062611/UzpfSTEwMDAwMDY1MTIxMzYyOToyMDY5OTQxMTI2MzcwOTA4/

It was impressive dance. As a spectator, I fully enjoyed the dance.


At the same time, I thought "This is a 'Dancers' Argentine Tango'. But this may not be 'Argentine Tango dancers' Tango'."

Here I feel like adding some elaboration to it.


"Dancers' dance" is danced by trained dancers, whose body is that of a "real" dancer, and whose execution is that of "real" dancer. Here, dancer is a trained person who has impressive body and motion.

Great dance can be performed when the dancer(s) have three key ingredients; (1) the body (how they look, and look right), (2) knowledge (demonstrate what they should do for the particular kind of dance), and (3) execution (how well they dance/move).

Trained dancers have right body and beautiful execution/motion. Their choreographer can supply the knowledge, even if the dancers were not grown in the dance community. 


And the particular choreography in the show did not use much of traditional Tango figures, but was heavy with crowd-pleasing Stage Tango moves.

That was why I thought it was a "dancers' dance".


An "Argentine Tango dancer" is not always a trained dancer (many are). But they usually come from social dance floor, where you can get by with basic moves only.

Tango basic elements are; Standing. Walking. Back ocho. Forward ocho. Cross. and Giro.

Then you can add other leg usage like Barrida, Parada, Gancho, Enganche, etc, and embellishments like enrosque, tap, drag, boleo, etc.

Combining these, there are recognizable Tango figures.

"Recognizable" means "familiar". 

While they dance Argentine Tango in parties/milongas, Argentine Tango dancers see these elements, moves, and figures many times, and get used to them. These elements, moves, and figures have become a part of community knowledge and tradition. Argentine Tango dancers use and share these common, familiar moves. 

Knowing them is somewhat like having a community ID. They can distinguish whether a dancer belongs to them or not.


It takes some "nod" and doing recognizable AT figures to be recognized as Argentine Tango dancers. The "Dancer's dance" had little "recognizable Traditional Tango" contents. All meat, no fillings.They were mostly using impressive moves that only elites can use. Common AT dancers would have little to relate.


There are many AT dancers and teachers who emphasize "Authentic" Tango. Because they want to emphasize their ties to the community and tradition.

If you see yourself as a traditionalist, you'd understand this easier.


This mentality by traditionalists would explain at least in part why traditionalists tend not to like nuevo music, dance, and dancers. To traditionalists' eyes, nuevo dancers are strangers who speak different dance language. 



Hope this note clarified the concept and the difference between "Dancers' Argentine Tango" and "Argentine Tango dancers' Tango".

Just a thought.

Life/Science: Graduation season, ending of Summer 2018

My graduate research assistant successfully defended his thesis last week and is graduating. 

That also means he is leaving the lab, as of this Friday 8/24/18.

He started working with me in 2015. Since then, he earned authorship in one original research article and two review articles.  


On this past Monday (8/20) the journal office notified us that our review manuscript was accepted for publication. They accepted the manuscript as is, in the first-submitted form. 

"Our reviewers have now considered your paper and have recommended publication in #####. We are pleased to accept your paper in its current form which will now be forwarded to the publisher for copy editing and typesetting." 

I can tell you, straight acceptance rarely (almost never) happens. Usually it takes one or two revisions. Anyway, the acceptance added one to his publication/authorship count. Let's say it is part of his good luck.


He is leaving some data to be published. I'll be working on them to complete the manuscript this fall, while writing up a grant proposal(s) with October deadline. It will be busy.


University is a school. People come and go (graduate). While they are here, if they are working with me, I want them to have something to show, some tangible results. That may help their next and future move.


Thank you for your help and good luck with your career.