I overheard a debate on leading quick side-steps:
“You lead them by rising up on your toes and pick your heels off the floor.” Said one
“I say It’s all about lifting your partner with your embrace.” Replied another
“No no no! It’s about rocking side to side to lead the weight changes!” Interjected a third
How to communicate with our partner in tango (as in life) is often a mystery. We look for clues and come up with all sorts of hypotheses. “Maybe I use my hand like a rudder on their back to lead pivots?” Or “let me try signaling the direction by leaning—tilt forwards to walk forward, tilt back to walk backwards.” Our teachers give us clues, and eventually we construct a theory of how the movements in our body signal leads to our partner. Good leaders are considered the ones who have clearer, subtler, and more comfortable signals.
The most common question asked in any tango class is “What do I do to lead this step?” This is a question of what the mechanics of communication are. Let us call the approach of translating body movements into leads the mechanical approach to leading. I do X, so you do Y. I turn my chest, so you pivot. I push the floor, so you step backwards. I place my leg here, so you do the gancho. But is this the correct approach? I want to share a concept I believe opens many new possibilities for communication and results in a calmer, clearer, more creative, and more comfortable lead.
The concept is what I call the abstract approach to leading. To ‘abstract’ something is to distill its essence by removing certain details to clarify other parts. We distill our lead to the essence of what clearly conveys the information while removing unnecessary details. We abstract our communication from our movement mechanics so that we can separate the lead from our own movement.
Say you want to lead three quick side-steps to catch a piano fill in the music (to take a specific example so that we can abstract concretely). Leading mechanically requires you to communicate the following: small side, collect, change weight, small side, collect, change weight, small side, pause. That is an awful lot to get across, especially in a short amount of time. No wonder there is so much confusion around how to communicate such movements. Instead of leading each movement, you can take a more abstract approach. Maybe lead the concept ‘quick sidesteps’ instead of leading each movement. Or you can lead the direction and instrument—piano, side. This communicates the same concept more succinctly.
By getting at the essence of communication, we can lead complex movements and concepts with simple movements in our own body. Using our arms to manipulate our partner into positions is replaced with transmitting an image of the effect. Asking for a larger step or bigger boleo by making a big movement in our own body to send more force into our partner is replaced with calmly conveying our interest in a change in intensity. When we abstract our lead, we reduce the amount of information that needs to be conveyed. The pivots, collections, and steps of the turn are replaced with a simple direction (turning clockwise or counterclockwise). Leading the timing of each step is replaced with signaling an instrument for the phrase. There is only so much bandwidth with which to communicate, so conveying the same information more succinctly allows us to communicate more.
A great way to practice leading abstractly is to lead the turn (forward, side, back, side, forward) and changes of direction without using your arms. You signal the direction and trust your partner to take care of the specifics of the timing, steps, pivots, and collections. The direction to go is the essence of what your partner needs. They spend a lot of time practicing their turn, so trying to lead each step tends to only get in their way. Pay special note of whether you move your arms when you change direction with a front or back ocho. Most people do, but it is largely unnecessary. Here you see the difference between leading mechanically and leading abstractly. With the former you move your partner with your arms to lead the pivot; with the latter, you ask for a change in direction and trust your partner to pivot.
Something else to practice is to see if you can convey images and concepts instead of steps. Instead of trying to figure out what in your body you need to do to lead a boleo, visualize what a nice boleo would look like and feel like. See the image as if you were a third person looking at your partnership from the outside. Many people find that once you have a clear image of what you are going for, then the information gets conveyed to their partner as if by magic. When our mind is clear, our body somehow knows how to efficiently convey information and we do not need nearly as much movement as we think we do to communicate clearly. You can also try conveying a musical phrase or instrument. A simple exercise is to be in an embrace and try conveying an instrument without taking any steps. Once your partner thinks they know which instrument you chose, they say it verbally. Then switch and see if you can feel which instrument they choose. The same game can be played for things like size of step, linear versus circular, energy, and emotions. We can convey a lot more than just steps through the embrace, and communicating with these more abstract concepts often makes the movements much easier to lead. While I have discussed abstraction from the perspective of leading, the same concept applies to following. Moving our partner is backleading, but communicating ideas and intentions is co-creating. Communicating more abstractly also allows multiple ways to communicate the same ideas. This means the communication can change from partner to partner and can even change within the song. Leading abstractly can free us to do and experience more in the dance. Instead of trying to lead every detail, we just lead what is necessary for our partner to understand. We distill our lead to what is really needed to convey information instead of what is needed to move our partner. This allows space to feel more, observe more, and allows us have a true conversation with our partner.