Well I thought I did. I mean, when you’ve been doing something your whole life you like to think you’re a pro at it. One day my brother said, “Show me how you walk.” And so I did.
I made 4 steps across the kitchen when he blurted out “TERRIBLE!” Apparently, everything I did was wrong. The posture, the foot placement. Etc, etc, the list goes on forever. It’s been a couple months since that day and my walk hasn’t improved much but I still remember the basic rules for walking.
My brother explains that tango is all about the walk. If you can walk, you can tango. I used to think tango was easy, and then I realized I couldn’t walk. And then I realized walking correctly and elegantly and to the music was incredibly hard. And then I realized tango wasn’t going to be very easy at all. That was pretty much how my very first tango lesson went.
Basic Tips for Walking in Tango
- TRY to keep your weight evenly distributed across both feet at all times (even when one foot is in the air)
- Keep your head and hips centered between your feet.
- Move your upper body to counter-balance and create momentum for the lower body’s walking movement.
Of course all rules are made to be broken and there’s so much more to this. These basic walking rules instantly improved my walk by 50 billion times better. I hope it works for you.