Prácticas
Why Prácticas?
Classes are for learning.
Prácticas are for practising what you’ve learned in Class.
Milongas are for social dancing – not for learning or practising.
Practice Makes Permanent!
Our bodies only become familiar with new movements through repetition. Tango is not an easy dance – especially at first – and there is no substitute for regular practice. If you want to make real progress, you have to consider dancing more than once a week. However, what you practise, and how you do it, makes a huge difference. Repeating poorly executed steps – especially complicated ones - really does get in the way of developing a sound technique and becoming a good dancer. So remember, Practice does not make Perfect . . . but it does make permanent!
New Monthly Práctica & Milonga Class
First Fridays of most months, Liphook
2012 dates:
3rd February, 2nd March, 4th May, 1st June, 6th July, 5th October, 2nd November
Timings:
7.30 – 8-30pm: One hour Open Milonga Class. See below for more information.
8.30 – 10.30pm Práctica.
An informal and fun evening. We will be on hand to help if you need us, or you can just come along and have a dance in a more relaxed atmosphere than most Milongas.
Prices:
Class & Práctica – £9
Práctica only – £5
Venue:
Liphook Village Hall, Headley Road, Liphook, Hants GU30 7NPL. Easy access, within 1 mile of the A3. Directions here
Ample parking off road behind the hall.
This pretty hall has continued on-going improvements every year. In the summer of 2011 a new wooden sprung floor was laid, the kitchen was completely refurbished and the large foyer entrance underwent redecoration over the Christmas/New Year period.
About Our Milonga Classes
As some people reading this will be new to Tango, some explanation may be helpful.
The word “Milonga” is used to mean two things:
- an event of social tango dancing is called a Milonga – as in our monthly Farnham Milonga.
- there is a specific dance called the Milonga, which has a different rhythm to either Tango or Vals.
At our monthly Milongas in Farnham we dance Tango, Vals and Milonga.
Milonga is similar to Tango, but the content is simpler, and you can draw on most of your current Tango repertoire. We will demonstrate Milonga periodically at our weekly classes for those unfamiliar with it.
We have found that people need as much time as possible learning Tango, especially in the early stages, and that it is better to run dedicated Milonga classes on a different evening in order to do justice to both dances. The 7.30 to 8.30 slot at the beginning of our Friday Práctica provides a great opportunity to do this, and we hope that as our Monthly Friday Práctica becomes established, it will be possible to increase it to twice a month.
Also, during our Summer Programme, we run a series of weekly Milonga classes on Tuesday or Wednesday evenings, when a suitable hall is available. Times and dates will be posted here and flyers will be available at all venues.
More About Prácticas
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. From then on it’s a question of getting posture and movement into your muscle memory so that you can dance naturally without having to think about it.
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.