The Force is Strong with this one: Using Physics for a Better Dance

To move your body through space, you impart force on the external world. The faster you move and the farther you move, the more force you must generate. Your body has two interactions with the outside world: one with the floor and one with your partner.[1] You can push the floor, and you can push your partner. Tango uses a mixture of both. Here I am talking about pushing to move around the floor, though the same applies to the push to overcome the force of gravity (if you don’t use the floor to keep yourself up, then your partner must hold you up) The right balance between using the floor and using your partner can be the difference between being a comfortable or uncomfortable dancer.

As a follower, the more you use the floor, the less you use your partner. If you generate 40% of the required force from the floor then you need 60% from your partner, while if you generate 90% from the floor then you only need 10% from your partner.  There is a direct connection between the force that goes into your partner and how heavy you feel as a follow. Pushing more from the floor will make the embrace feel lighter. The optimum seems to be to receive a light but non-zero force from your partner (so maybe you generate 90-95% of your movement from the floor but still leave 5-10% to give some weight in the connection). A little bit of force provides a feeling of weight, connection, and assurance, while too much force provides a feeling of heaviness and sore arms.

Understanding that force is required to move through space helps clarify a common misunderstanding. From the leader’s perspective, we feel a force acting against us, which can be described as resistance. This perception sometimes results in teachers and partners giving followers the cue to “resist your partner.” In response, followers generate force in opposition to the movement, leading to a heavy embrace. We want the opposite of resistance, where both partners generate most of our movements from the floor under our own power.

As a leader, your job is not to push your follower, but to ask them to move from the floor. Here is a simple mantra that I believe all leaders should hear. Ask your follower to push the floor, don’t push your follower. Or, similarly, the force comes from the floor, don’t force your follow. You push your follower when you try to take a bigger or faster step than they are prepared to take, which usually happens because you do not give enough time between the start of the lead and the execution of the movement. You need to give your partner enough time to react and move under their own power. I personally find it helpful to think of the timing of the leader as similar to navigating while driving, where you give the directions well in advance of when the driver actually changes lanes (https://tangotopics.org/driver-and-navigator/). An additional tip: you also generate force from the floor so that your partner does not have to pull you. The goal is to coordinate the forces into the floor so that you can take strong powerful steps while maintaining a light comfortable connection.

A few more physics concepts are worth mentioning. Your connection with the floor is below your center of mass while your connection to your partner is generally above your center of mass. We need to distribute these forces throughout our body, or they will torque our body out of alignment. Beginner dancers tend to fall backwards (head gets behind hips) because the forces between the partner torques their upper body out of alignment of their lower body. This is especially common when walking backwards but can happen when going forward as well. The fix where you lean on your partner so that the weight of gravity counteracts the torque on your upper body is only marginally better (works decently when the follower walks backwards but compromises the ability for the follower to take assertive forward steps). A much better approach is to generate more force through the floor and transfer this force efficiently through your leg and core to maintain alignment while moving.

Changing direction or speed changes the velocity of both partners. If we change our velocity at the same rate, then we will accelerate in space while maintaining a constant connection between the partnership. But if we change our velocity at different rates, then one person will accelerate towards or away from the other. If we reduce the tone in our embrace then we can absorb these changes without imparting force on our partner, such as if we change from open to close embrace. Smooth changes in acceleration within the partnership can also lead to enjoyable dynamics of compression and elasticity. But rapid changes without absorption tend to be uncomfortable. In physics, a change of acceleration is called a jerk, with a faster change in acceleration resulting in more jerk. Remember this. Don’t to be a jerk to your partner.

We do this by generating force through the ground to move ourselves. We coordinate the timing of our movements so that we do not have to push (too much). We change directions and change speeds together so that we do not jerk our partner. In this way we can fly through space while keeping a calm, comfortable connection.

[1] Thank you to Sol Orozco for some enlightening discussions on this topic.