These are ideas that the community at large came up with here at Stone Soup in Eugene, OR and some others that I added.  I might just make this an evolving list.  Please comment and I will update this post as an evolving article!

1. Offer a showcase and/ or performances for students
2. Offer social Tango parties (different than milongas)
3. Offer a retreat where people stay together in one place and do more than just Tango
4. Require for a class than students go to 3 other events
5. A teacher takes their students on a field trip to another Tango event together
6. Offer taxi dancers that wear something that designates them as such
7. Form a welcoming committee where at milongas/ practicas designated people welcome any “strangers” to the event
8. Publicly recognize newcomers and thank them for coming
9. Publicly offer a master class
10. Ask current community members to talk up tango and bring new people to an event
11. Have advanced dancers join a beginner class
12. After class/ milonga/ practica all go out to a restaurant/ bar and hang out together
13. Have a potluck
14. Watch Tango movies and talk
15. Form an online community through news groups or Facebook or ?
16. Switch around DJ’s so their friends come
17. Have a Q & A session on a juicy Tango topic
18. Have a special milonga just for beginners
19. Do Guerilla tango
20. Affirm people’s dancing – tell them what is good about their dancing
21. Have a monthly recruiting milonga
22. Eating between classes and the milonga/ practica

Yesterday strapped me into a high-tech rollercoaster, complete with the foam wrapped steel bars and padded head cradle.  And I stayed on the rollercoaster for several loops.  If you have ever literally done this as I have 7 times in a row at Great America in Gurnee, IL, once you get off the rollercoaster you feel the ground moving.  I still feel the ground moving, and I am wanting a lot more joy with my moving ground.

The day started off with an informative presentation on attracting then retaining people into Tango.  After the presentation, we split up into groups to brainstorm then present ideas for retention.  I will present these ideas in a separate entry.  So far, so good.  I felt hope that this industry will grow much faster than it is.

During practice time I had a 50 min. private with Michelle.   I worked on using the floor with putting my weight onto my leg fully with walking and leading a follow into a turn, thereby being the axis she turns around.  I have tended to make it easier for the follow by moving to make it easier for the follow to get around  instead of leading clearly and not moving my axis.  In some ways the follow needs to do more work, yet the feedback I got by practicing this with a few follows is that ultimately she feels more secure, sure and better.

Hmmmmm.  Life lesson here.  I obviously accommodate way too much vs. standing in my center and leading from that.  Yes, you can make metaphors with just about anything in Tango.  However, as woo-woo as they might seem, I believe the metahpors are more accurate than many dare to believe or explore.

However, and this is a big HOWEVER, I also got how I need to lead more from my core spinal rotation so it is easier, clearer, and more delicious for the follow to move in the direction I invite her.  My private with Eric later in the day confirmed how little I do this, and how he achieves the high level of dancing I so admire in him.  He is always spiraling with his spine, telegraphing his lead and leading his lead with his spine and torso.  This is no small feat.

In my beginning attempts at codifying the skill sets in Tango, the 10th skill is Upper and Lower Body Differentiation and Torsional Energy Management.  Yeah, a mouthful and I am realizing how much of it I have been missing.  Michelle so gets when I do not use it, and Eric so gets how to do it.  The privates paid off – now is my work.

And then I watched a Master teacher teach musicality – Murat.  He is a teacher that understands sequencing, making the learning process fun, the importance of exploration for students to own the material, and his charisma and entertainment skill is really a site to behold.  I know I am gushing over his skill, yet he deserves it.  Few teachers get to the teaching skill level I would label Master Teacher.  He commands the attention of a room, enchants the room, and leads the room to a fully satisfying learning and enlightening.

He started demonstrating musicality with a Charlie Chaplin movie, then had us just do things with our bodies as we sat in our chairs to the music Charlie Chaplin did his routine to, and later played and labeled visually to the time of a Biagi Vals on a projected image from his computer.  So, he combined visual with audio.  Yesssss!  We all worked in our cells to just walk to this vals and other music later while expressing the melody.

Why is it that so few dancers express the melody?  I would love to hear from my readers on this.  I have my own ideas, but none of them are too flattering to the American Culture.

Then I get to the milonga portion of the night.  I am struggling on how to share what happened while being kind, for I don’t think I was being too kind to myself.   I had the kind of night where I got a sense that my dancing unraveled, I gave boring dances, and a doom and gloom scenario of my Tango future.  This may seem dramatic – in the moment it was.  Crying was an option, leaving a second option, verbally asking for some “help me out, I am having a very hard night” dances as favors from friends a third option, falsely buying a belief that I just sucked a fourth option, falsely buying a belief I was too old to learn what I needed to a fifth option, dancing with anyone who would accept a dance a sixth option…   blah, blah, blah.

I chose all of the options and then some.

Even though I rode the rollercoaster with some terror, I experienced some of its thrills.  As I did not want to dance much, I watched the immense talent on the floor.  I have only once seen anything close to this talent – at Villa Malcom in Buenos Aires.  And I think what I saw last night went beyond the milonga in B.A. in terms of social dancing skill sets vs. performance skill sets.

What I am making all of this mean is that I have some specific skill sets that I have not ingrained into my body memory.  I also recognize the importance of staying true to how I feel the music and dancing it THAT way.  I love the melody, and I keep honoring the beats way too often.  I am not staying true to my integrity of my inner dance.  I am so intensely curious as to how many dancers feel one thing in Tango, but do not honor it for they see so much of something else.

My stone is BOILING HOT.