Which San Francisco Tango Teacher is Better

Well, I have my own preferences but I can not possibly tell about it to you. You have to find it out yourself. Here you can find all information about all of tango in Bay Area. What I can do, I can give you some advice how to pick up a teacher.

First of all, there are things which are personal like location, time, how big or beautiful is the place and so on. All this is of least importance. Forget about them if you want to dance tango well.

Second. You have to watch how the teacher conducts a lesson and dances. If the teacher does not explain how to lead and follow, which is something internal, invisible, but just tells what step is after what, this teacher is clearly not suitable. Watch the teacher dancing. Does he/she dances during milonga at all, or sits in the corner? Well, not all good teachers dance, but they should dance sometimes, a good Argentine Tango teacher must be a good dancer. Not all flashy show dancers are real good Argentine Tango dancers. Again, the dance is internal and for a beginner is very difficult to recognize the real skill. Are people ego to dance with the teacher? Are people happy after dancing with the teacher? Do they smile after the dance? Does the teacher dances well only with his/hers students or with everybody?

Third. Teaching is an art itself. Not all good dancers are able to convey what they know and build up a useful lesson. So here my advice is to take lessons with as many teachers as you can to compare.

How did I learn dancing myself? I took lessons with most San Francisco teachers. Then after about 8 month I stopped taking lessons. I bought a whole bunch of tapes and studied them and tried new stuff at milongas right away dancing like crazy 5 night a week. In the following year I took lessons only with a handful teachers mostly from outside of Bay Area which gave me strategic directions, but I've already had in mind what I was looking for. Mostly I have learned from my dancing partners and watching other dancers, and even more from my own cultural perception of what tango is.

Tango had global influence starting with the beginning of the 20th century which made imprints in books, movies, music, and memories of people. Now tango is still an artifact of the past. Being interested in history and literature I have had quite a thick layer of tango in my mind before I met tango dancers in San Francisco. But I have met a first tango teacher 20 years ago, a friend of my family. It was a woman from Belarus who was a Russian guerrilla spy during 2nd World War. She danced tango in occupied Minsk. Then she was taken by Germans to France to work in a camp. She fled, met her French friends, and there in France she danced more tango in 1944-1947. It is her image, with which I subconsciously check everything I learn and deduct about tango.

Most important in studying Argentine Tango is to dance. Dance, dance, dance ! Try something new little by little, improvise. Change something slightly. Variate. Explore. Gently. If you do that everything will come itself, naturally, when time comes, when you have built up necessary basement and skill. This is most important. Always try to dance your best, give your partner pleasure of dancing. Watch what she/he likes. Be a teacher of yourself, which you ultimately are.

See you at Milongas!

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2004 November 3. One more thing. I have noticed that many teachers, including very famous ones DO NOT TELL YOU THE TRUTH about your own dancing. Why? May be because we do not want to hear the truth? I believe they might think "..She (or he) did not get it. And the whole his(or hers) dancing sucks. Let us continue the lesson with what she (or he) is able to and get some results. Otherwise we will get stuck in basics.. ". Something like that... And then some of these students say: "I took lessons from a famous Milonga Milonguero! He (or she) did not say a thing, only 'very good, mucho bueno!'. It means that I am dancing good! " :0