How do you choose your tango teacher.

TANGO TURNS, Inc. (Tangomilonga.biz)

Argentine Tango in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, CA, USA, Since 2003

How do you choose your tango teachers?
Simple question. Worth a few moments of your thoughts.

Can you tell the difference between the talent for dancing and the talent for teaching? How?

Have you given any thought to how you choose your tango teacher?
Who will bring the best tango dancer out of you that you can be?
Or simply ... who will have your time and attention for, say, just 2 hours in a class?
Maybe 2 hours a week? Maybe 2 hours a week for one year?

In choosing a teacher for social dancing, consider this:

What does (s)he spend most of his/her time doing as a tango professional? Performing? Creating tango shows? Traveling with a tango dance company? Organizing tango events? ... or teaching?

You can find the answer to that question if you spend just a little effort. It is worth it.

How often will you get to study with him/her in the next 12 months?

How much will (s)he know or remember about your dancing the next time you meet again?

If the organizers are touting him/her as ... "the best", "the master", "the great", "the amazing", "the fabulous" ... have the same organizers said the same thing about the last teachers they hosted? And about the one before that? ...

Can you tell the difference between the talent for dancing and the talent for teaching? How?

The talent for dancing, as a performer, or as a social dancer, does not automatically 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 one reason why so few people learn to dance tango well, and sooner or later, they abandon tango.

It takes a lot of time, thought, interest in teaching, and teaching experience to develop a well-planned one-hour tango class if you take your obligation as a teacher seriously. The relationship between a dancer and a dance teacher is so important that the courts in the US have ruled it fiduciary. It frustrates serious tango teachers to see tango teaching taken lightly, by students or by teachers or by organizers.

It takes much time, effort, and some money to learn how to dance tango well, unless you are gifted.

It takes even more time, effort, and energy 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.

Unless of course you have a different kind of gift: a gift for teaching!

What's $20 worth? What is 2 hours worth?

$20 dollars and two hours wasted on a bad tango show is just that. $20 dollars and two hours wasted on a bad tango class is a far greater loss than that, if you take the tango more seriously than a passing casual hobby.

Nobody ever learns to dance tango half-decently by taking a lesson here and a lesson there, no matter how famous and fabulous the teachers may be as performers.

Respect the tango for what it has become: a sophisticated dance whose least sophisticated aspect is the limitless number of step sequences you can build.

If you don't want to waste your time and waste your money, then you must choose your teacher(s) carefully, and then make a commitment to the dance if you want to learn it well.