Reverse Outside Swivel: Tango Style

Part: Follow

Dances: Waltz, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep

Hovers: 0

After dancing our round, Jeff announced that we were dancing poorly today, but we went ahead with our practice program focusing on tango. I didn't think the dancing felt terrible comparatively, but it definitely wasn't our best...sometimes we both don't feel quite the same about how it's going, but we both know off days are to be expected, and don't let them get us down. It's happened before and it'll happen again. That's life.

Now for tango, we were set to work on the reverse outside swivel. That's always an extremely tough step for us, especially me. This the place where I feel it makes the biggest difference how far outside partner I end up, because if I get too far behind him, I pull the whole partnership drastically off balance when I swivel. Me getting too far behind is caused either by his right arm breaking back from the shoulder (which has been known to happen), or by me taking to large of a step forward outside, which has also been know to happen. So with this step, Jeff experimented a bit with timing the swivel part. He tried it with the lady's step outside into the swivel as one continuous motion on "slow," and also as two sharp and separate movements, the step outside "quick," and the swivel "quick." So from the follow's perspective you've got the right foot stepping forward outside partner, swiveling around into promenade on the step, and then the promenade close either as "slow, quick, quick" or "quick, quick, & slow." I much prefer the second version; it feels more in the character of tango and is sharper and more defined. One thing I forgot to experiment with is keeping my head to the left even as we move through promenade position. I remember when I first saw Kora dance it that way and then tried it, and it was so much easier to maintain balance that way, I think because not having the head turn makes it less likely that the frame will tip or move around as the position is changed. I've just gotten in to the habit of turning the head on all promenades, so I forgot to go back and try that again. It can be done both ways.

We ended practice with the Beegie Adair slow "Moon River" waltz; always a good test of balance and strength. Our waltz seems to be our one fairly consistent dance these days.