Learning Tango with us
Prácticas
Thursday evenings at St Joan's Centre, Farnham
Click here for venue information & directions
Please check the News Page for road closure
affecting access to St Joan's.
8.00 - 8.30pm - Open Class:
Check on the Blog or News Page for details of this week's class
8.30 - 10.30pm:
Practice Session
Just turn up and dance, or, if you wish, you can have a ½ hour Private Lesson with one of us.
Prices
Practice Evening - £8 per person
Open Class - £2 per person
The Práctica is a time honoured tradition in the learning of Tango in Argentina. In its original form, young men who wanted to learn how to dance well would attend prácticas to perfect their technique by dancing with other men. Given the shortage of women in Argentina at the time, being a good dancer was the best chance they had of meeting women and finding a girlfriend. After months of learning the Follower’s steps they would finally be allowed start to learn how to lead. By the time they attended their first Milongas they would have mastered both the men’s and ladies’ steps and were well and truly ready.
Nowadays we have to find a shorter route to successful and enjoyable social dancing. Our classes are carefully structured to learn as quickly and effectively as possible, but there is no substitute for practice – especially when there are teachers on hand to offer additional guidance. So we schedule in practice sessions after each class to provide the opportunity to consolidate what you’ve learned, and we strongly encourage you to use this valuable time to the full.
Tango is not an easy dance - especially at first - and there is no substitute for regular practice. If you want to make real progress it is well worth considering dancing more than once a week. We have therefore started a weekly Práctica at the Maltings, Farnham, to provide more opportunity to practice than we have time for on class nights.
We foster a positive and encouraging atmosphere to build dancers' confidence, with no blame or criticism allowed – we can all feel a bit vulnerable when learning something new, so it is vital that people feel comfortable and supported. We also discourage more experienced dancers from teaching 'their moves' to recent beginners because, in our experience, this is rarely helpful and often causes confusion. Learning complicated moves badly really does get in the way of developing a good technique. Classes are for learning. Prácticas are for practising what you've learned in the Class. Milongas are for social dancing where 'feedback' and coaching of any kind are best avoided - especially on the main dance floor.
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Photography: Xavier Walker, Richard & Sally D'Arcy