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Thursday, 1 September 2022

Do not obsess about repertoire!

 This is just a short reminder for all leaders (male or female) in Tango: 

Do not obsess about boring your followers with your limited repertoire. 

During a milonga, followers will dance with all kinds of leaders and each of them has a different musicality, repertoire and embrace. So unless this follower will dance with you only, he or she will have enough variety in the dance. 

In addition to that most followers complain about leaders trying to dance too many "steps" and therefore forget about musicality and embrace. Hence: less (steps) is more (wellbeing)!

Female leaders should actually know that because most of them have been making exactly this statement for years when they were "only" following. But as soon as they start leading, they forget about it. Very stupid.

The only person being bored by a limited repertoire is the leader him- or herself and this is quite understandable as she or he has to dance the same steps over and over again. So if you want to enlarge your repertoire, please do it for your own sake, not with the excuse of having to entertain "the ladies". 

But remember: Unless you are very skilled in leading and adapting the repertoire to music and partner, the steps will only stress the followers. 

Last tip: Female tango teachers are particularly annoyed by all the leaders wanting to impress them and show how they can dance better than their dance partner. THIS is really boring. A nice embrace and connection to the music however can never be boring. 

So: cut it out!