This chapter goes a bit further and shows you some intermediate exercises which are more sophisticated and which require a bit more expertise.
“Balanced and Precise as a Tango Dancer”
The 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 for just half-inch, the exercise will not the same and neither will the results. It’s like a card castle: throw one card out of alignment and the whole structure collapses.
To attain precision, what do you need?I tell you what you need. You need stability. So your goal is to get first stability, then precision. I know the best way of getting these two objectives and it’s really easy: Go slow.
Recommit to your Posture
Before you even start, you should check your posture. It is not until you have your posture down packed, 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; Tangolates requires stability from two main areas: the torso and the pelvis. Remember that Tango is the only 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 don’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.
Your Foot
Imagine you have an isosceles triangle in the palm of your foot. The short side of the triangle goes from the little toe to the basis of the big toe. The third angle is located right in the middle of the heel. A balanced posture is one in which the weigh of your body is evenly distributed among the three point of the triangle.
Men find it easier to stand straight on a balanced position because their shoes are flat; but women’s shoes have high heels and this makes their bodies lean forwards an lose the natural balance. The end result is the shortening and tightening of the calf. Other bad habits include: holding the briefcase always with the same hand; holding the telephone between the shoulder and the ear; hunching over the computer screen; crossing the same leg over the other, among others.
Hold that head
Most people have week necks, and strong shoulders. Rather, they have weakened neck muscles and overused enlarged shoulder muscles that come to the rescue of debilitated neck muscles. What happened here? Well, what happened is that your head is heavy (about 12 pounds or 5 kg), and it’s the first thing to get tensed up when you are stressed, overworked, or simply spend long hours staring at the monitor. We are talking about the following muscles here:
- Sternocleidomastoid
- Trapezius (top part)
- Splenius muscles
- Musculus semispinalis capitis
- Musculus longissimus cervicis
Tangolates exercises are deigned to stretch your neck muscles and distend them primarily by strengthening your main girdles, for, let’s admit it, it’s difficult to have neck problems if your pelvis, your lower back, your torso, your shoulder and your spine are aligned in strong an disciplined girdles.Right?
One trick to distend your neck muscles is to push your head backwards, for it is precisely when you bend your head forward that the front muscles of the neck weaken and those in the back tight up. One good way to put your head in place is to keep your chin up. Hey, that will do it for your neck and for all aspects of your life!
