An introduction to Tango teaching through role-play and technique fundamentals review - starts 12^th February 2013  - with Joe Hudson

Function and aims:

To provide an opportunity for students who have a keen interest in tango to deepen their understanding through carefully examining fundamental technique and developing experience teaching that technique.

My hope with this short course is to empower students to grow and then share their skills and knowledge in tango, on a continuing basis, with each other as well as with new students who come to Tango Lingua. The idea being that this will lead to a stronger and bigger group of tango dancers, and a sense of community within it that helps everyone progress as much as they want to.

The aim is not to turn out polished and ready to role tango teachers in 6 weeks – rather one of the key objectives is for participants to develop some practical teaching experience and skills which can be put to use immediately within a class structured to involve students in the teaching process.

The particular teaching methods and concepts shared on this course are based on what Joe Hudson has developed over the course of running Tango Lingua so far. Inspirations for these methods and concepts include his own tango teachers, fellow dancers, his background in martial arts, feedback from students which has helped to find which approaches tend to work well, and his interest in NVC.

Specific learning outcomes:

• Clarification and reinforcement of fundamental tango technique for leading and following, which will improve your whole dance.
• Methods for constructively sharing what understanding you have, and some approaches to avoid.
• Methods for encouraging students to take an active role in their learning process.
• Ideas for addressing conflict or disagreement in a class.

Structure:

Much of the 6 week course will be built around teaching role-play activities and the constructive feedback from other participants. Alongside this there will be a detailed review and practice of basic tango technique, including walking, the embrace and pivoting. As well as strengthening your own dancing, the point of this is to add detail to your understanding so you can more effectively address questions from other students. To aid the learning objectives there may be a small written element to the course.

A more detailed weekly breakdown of the course will be provided before commencement.

What you're expected to bring

If you're enthusiastic about learning and dancing tango and think you might enjoy sharing some of your growing understanding with others, then that is enough, plus your tango shoes of course. While the course will be challenging, it will hopefully be a lot of fun too!

FAQ

• Does my technique need to be slicker than a greased eel on ice to do this course and be able to teach?

  No. The course is an introduction to teaching as part of a class with a supervising instructor, and a review of fundamental technique.

• What benefits can I expect to my own tango dancing from this course?

  Your dancing will improve through both main approaches of this course, the technique review and also from gaining experience passing on your understanding. By teaching a skill you will naturally re-examine what you know and therefore deepen and clarify your understanding.

  Besides improving your dancing, you'll also get to experience how satisfying and inspiring passing on understanding can be.

• I'm worried about others criticizing me, or am not comfortable giving critical feedback to others, so I don't know if I'd enjoy the role-play and feedback parts of this course.

  Firstly feedback is encouraged as a way of supporting fellow participants, rather than a way of cutting them down. Supporting each other in this way we will share our experiences of each others first steps in teaching some tango skills. Sometimes that may involve saying that we would prefer a different approach, or that something was unclear. Other times it will involve saying what we really liked. But it will not usefully involve saying something was 'wrong' since that's merely a matter of opinion, and there are many ways of teaching that can work well.

  Secondly, an essential ingredient to learning is trying ways of doing things that don't work so well. By trying to understand why that is, and then doing something different our understanding becomes much more robust, and useful.

  By remembering that all participants are there to help and support each other's learning hopefully the idea of a little constructive critique won't be so scary.

• What sort of things will we be practising teaching?

  Some of the elements of the 6 week tango fundamentals course, including specific exercises and games to put across the underlying principles.

• What will be expected of me after the course?

  No expectations. But you will most likely be given the opportunity to start using your new skills in near-future Tango Lingua classes, to help other students learn, and to support each others learning as a group of 'teachers in training'. You will also be eligible for any future follow-up courses.
  

How to book your place

Places are limited to a maximum of 10 people, to ensure the quality of your experience. To book you must have been dancing tango regularly for a minimum of 8 months.

To make this as accessible as possible, the cost is £47 per person for the whole 6 weeks. To book, please use the paypal button below:

Venue

The course will take place at StudioSo, 8:30-10:00pm on Tuesday evenings, from February 12th - 19th March.