In response to Johanna
Beginner:doesn’t know what he’s doing
Intermediate: thinks he knows what he’s doing
Advanced: knows what he’s doing
Beyond advanced: “What is this thinking business, you over-analyze everything, feel what you are doing.”
While often guilty of leading long and convoluted steps he is a calm and steady dancer who ruins it all with a missplaced comment as he returns you to your chair.
When you worked with him in the class he seamed to have his own genuine voice but now that it’s the big milonga it turns out his steps are just hackneyed copies of someone elses steps.
One word. Smooth. Although it should probably be spelled ’smooootth’. He moves with an upright grace that has all the followers who dance with him walking away afterwards in a hypnotic daze not sure what he did or was going to do, just that it was smooth.
The Good-Time-Boy. He has bucket-loads of charisma and applies it liberally. Likely to buy every one drinks ’cause “it’s the economy, stupid”. Will flirt with anything in a dress and then go to great lengths denying it ever happened. No one remembers what the dance was like because once Slick Willy turns on the charm forget about it.
He’s confident, oh dear Jesus is he confident. So much so that he uses it to cover it up his ineptitude. Nothing will be thought through, it will just be done. He will launch into things that he can’t get out of leaving him precariously balanced with his leg wrapped round your arse. Of course because he is so confident he thinks the world, apart from one or two oddly strung followers that he is out to get, loves him and there is nothing you can do about it.
He leads and directs with a cold steel grip. His route around the dance floor is performed according to a five year plan and will be executed no matter what the cost or the obstacle. You are required to affectionately refer to him as uncle Joe. Any form of passive leading will be strictly punished and if you step out of line you can expect to be banished to the gulag of the back row of seats never to be heard of again. He will also have a number of satellite leaders in his thrall subject to his whim.
The male role in tango is commonly referred to as that of Leader. Well to be a leader implies leadership and the various qualities required. Much has been written about leadership, unfortunately badly and directed at middle management David Brent types.
In this series I am going to describe the various types of tango leader one can encounter in terms of world leaders.