Tango for balance

WHY TANGO?

Tango is exceptionally good for equilibrium – primarily because tango is essentially a walking dance in partnership. This means that, at the level relevant to Tango for Balance, two feet are on the floor at any one time. One is your own, one is your partner’s. Essentially when one stands in the practise hold with a partner, four feet are sustaining stability rather than two – this is like using another person as a support frame. However, as classes progress, couples are encouraged to move together without using the partner for support.

Walking alone involves moving from one foot to another. There are three crucial events involved in this: instigation of the move forward, passage of one foot past the other – with pressure on one hip – and landing on the other foot – transferring pressure to the other hip. Tango encourages dancers not to “dip” in the hip when walking forwards. Allowing the hip to become displaced while transferring weight is a major cause of instability.

Three possibilities exist in moving from one foot to the other – or indeed in rebounding back to the initial foot. You can walk forwards, backwards or to the side. Tango works with all three of these movements, and with the simple transference of weight from one foot to another “on the spot”. In a conventional tango class, preliminary exercises will encourage participants to move through these actions without a partner, developing “an axis” – that is, an ability to balance collectedly (one foot without weight on it next to the foot with weight on it) after forward steps, backsteps, sidesteps or rebounds back onto the foot initiating the step. In Tango for Balance, such exercises may be done later, where appropriate, once a measure of balance security has been attained. Exercises may also be performed seated to encourage strength in knee and ankle.

The second essential component to tango is the pivot, a rotation of the ball of the foot achieved by releasing the heel. Fear of performing this action, or indeed the functional inability to perform it, leads to freezing in turns and is a key cause of falls. Participants in these balance workshops are assessed for pivot ability and, where capable of pivots, taught how to perform this action without losing their axis, or, where incapable, shown how to develop a strategy for turning without pivoting.

Partners are encouraged to exchange lead and follow roles, so that they learn how to instigate and how to respond to movement. They are also expected to swap partners, which creates a pleasant social ambiance – raising morale. And all these issues are addressed to the accompaniment of music, which stops them feeling like a chore.

While a vestigial unconditoned walking response can be observed in babies, we learn to walk, unlike other animals. We learn to walk as we learn to talk and to think. Walking is a conditioned activity that requires a number of complex muscular coordinations. However, our ability to walk in a confident balanced way may be improved as we bring walking closer to its natural roots in the unconditioned response from which it evolved. Tango encourages crossover coordination between the upper right and the lower left parts of the body. Crossover coordination has implications for autism and Asperger’s Sydrome, dyspraxia and dyslexia.

This was discovered by observing crawling patterns in babies. Freedland and Bertenthal have stated that “crawling experience, and specifically experience following the onset of hands-and-knees crawling, contributes to the development and reorganization of a number of other skills, such as spatial orientation, fear of heights, and postural stability.” (*2)
Significantly, some infants later diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome have exhibited crawling patterns that deviate from the basic diagonally opposing limb patterns. Diagonal coupling of the limbs “maintains the most stable centre of gravity.” (ibid)

By encouraging crossover coordination, tango develops our ability to maintain “the most stable centre of gravity” – for dancers are encouraged to coordinate crossover rib rotation with walking, thus maintaining a connection with their partner.

For all these reasons, tango is good for a confident walk, with diminished fear of falling.