How do you choose your tango teacher?
An expensive tango class is the one where you learn the wrong material.
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The most expensive tango class is the one where you learned the wrong material really well!
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Our approach to teaching tango:
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We believe Argentine tango social dancing must be learned objectively, before it is interpreted subjectively. This is the main reason why we have a very high retention ratio of dancers who choose to approach the learning of the tango dance methodically and independently of vague and subjective concepts like romance and passion. They understand that what each dancer personally brings into the dance is not taught; rather, it is developed as the dancer's understanding of the tango matures, gradually. These are the dancers who also recognize, value, and respect the rare talent for a related art form: the teaching of Argentine tango dance.
What are your teacher's credentials?
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From the early 2000's on, the number of tango teachers in the US mushroomed. Today, there are thousands. The percentage of skilled dancers in that same time increased much slower. The milongas in the US are now largely populated with mediocre dancers who learned from mostly unqualified teachers the wrong technique and nothing more than a random collection of step sequences, figures, and poses, barely commensurate with the simplest aspect of the music, the rhythm. Nothing more that caricatures of tango. These dancers' command of improvisation is poor. In other words, while they may look like they know what they are doing, they are in fact repeating ad nauseam a limited collection of cookie-cutter, pre-fabricated figures, and any deviation from those figures is strictly a matter of "mistakes" (precious mistakes abandoned in mindless adherence to dogma). This includes hundreds of couples who each year are "disqualified" for those "mistakes" in round after round of "Mundial de Tango" annual salon tango competitions in Buenos Aires (and now also in the US).
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The talent for dancing and the talent for teaching.
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The talent for dancing, as a performer, or as a social dancer, does not imply a talent for teaching the dance. The talent for teaching the dance is far more scarce than the talent for dancing the dance. This is the most important reason why so few people learn to dance tango well, no matter how many group classes and private lessons they take, anywhere, including in Buenos Aires.
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It takes a lot of time, thought, a genuine interest in teaching, and teaching experience under qualified, competent guidance, to develop a well-planned, one-hour tango class if you take your obligation as a teacher seriously.
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It takes time, effort, and some money to learn how to dance tango well, even for a gifted dancer.
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It takes much more time, effort, energy, and money to learn how to teach it well, and that is true no matter how gifted you are as a dancer and no matter where you were born. A student who finds a tango teacher who understands this, is luckier than other students; if the teacher also has a gift for teaching ... that's when the student has hit the jackpot!
We are the only teachers of Argentine Tango Dance on the West Coast who have continuously studied for 19 years combined with the world's preeminent tango couple, Gustavo Naveira and Giselle Anne. Click here for that record.
OUR BEST ADVERTISING IS WHAT OUR MORE DEDICATED STUDENTS DO ON THE DANCE FLOOR AND SAY ABOUT OUR CLASSES.
See what our students have told us: Click here for unsolicited testimonials.