The TANGOLATES moves call for a balanced posture at all times. In fact, you cannot even start until you center your energy and find your point of balance. Let’s see. Your hands rest on your classmate’s shoulders, and your classmate’s hands rest on yours. You find your balance through switching from the right to the left foot depending on what your classmate is doing. Once you two find your balance, you know which foot to begin with.If you start with the left foot, your classmate starts with the right one, and vice versa. Found your balance? Good, go!
Posture and balance is everything. Learn how to do them right and you are made. You enter a room, be it at work, at a pub, in a party, at school, with your boss, your friends, a date or whatever. The door opens. You make an entrance. You look tall and slender, your posture is straight and elegant. Your chin is up, your shoulders are drawn back, you are completely and utterly in control of your body and of the situation.You have presence. When you are balanced, you can move the world.
Balanced and Precise as a Tango Dancer
A typical saying goes: “As balanced and precise as a Tango dancer.”
Indeed, I can’t even begin to tell you how important precision is in TANGOLATES. If you miss the correct posture, even if outwardly it all may seem the same to an onlooker just passing by, I assure you the exercise will not be the same ...and neither will the results.
I like to think of it sort of like a card castle: if only one card is out of alignment, the whole structure collapses.
To gain precision, what do you absolutely need? I`ll tell you what you need. You need stability.
So your goal is to first get stability, then precision. And do you know the best way to attain these two objectives? I do:
Go slow.
Recommit to your PostureBefore you even start, you should check your posture. It is not until you have your posture down, that you even begin to move. This I will say a hundred times through his book for it is the very essence of TANGOLATES. The is nothing “more or less” about Tango. Rather, tango has very precise movements and position. They are not difficult, but they are precise. When the man advances his leg, it is perfectly straight and always in the same angle, with the foot, equally straight, and pointing out in the same direction. The same thing goes for Pilates. The movements are always precise and controlled. Nothing loose about Pilates and nothing loose about Tango.
O.K., let’s get to work. The things you want to check are:
- Your feet and your hips should be aligned.
- Your abs your be in and up as much as possible.
- Your head should be straight.
- Your shoulders should be down and back, (not up and rounded forward).
- Your spine should be lengthened as much as you can.
- Your feet should be parallel.
- Your belly should be moving up and down as you breath comfortably and relaxed.
The Two Girdles
Yes. You’ve got it; PILATES FOR TWO requires stability from two main areas: the torso and the pelvis. Remember that Tango a dance that requires a stable frame, and one in which you don’t go shaking your torso, your waist, your pelvis or your legs all over the place. In fact, in Tango you on’t shake anything. Rather, you slide in slow, concentrated and very, very controlled movements. Got it?
Imagine you are wearing a girdle that keeps your torso and your pelvis in place. Let’s talk about your shoulder girdle: made up of the top part of the sternumand a clavicle on each side that lead to the scapulae in the back. The girdle is completed with muscles connecting to the spine and the ribs. We are talking about at least four muscles here:
-Pectoralis, minor and major
-Rhomboids
-Trapezius
-Deltoids
And then there is the second girdle, the pelvic girdle. To get the stability you need in this area you need to work on the following muscles:
-Abdominals (rectus, transverse, internal and external obliques)
-Gluteus
-Hip flexors (Iliopsoal, Rectus Femoris)
-Hip Abductors
-Hip Adductors
Actually, the list is longer, but these will do for you to gain the strong abdominal muscles that will support your lumbar spine and maintain your girdle nice and strong to do his job: keep your TANGOLATES posture.
