4 Secrets To George Garcia's "Lush Connection"

We've been blessed the last few weeks having George Garcia visiting from Hawaii and giving one great class after another--it's obvious why he's a Bay Area favorite. I was able to take 2 of his classes and it's hard to boil everything I learned into one tango blog post. But perhaps the biggest learning our group had was last night when George taught us how to create a "lush connection." I'm sure I won't be able to do justice to all the points George talked about or say it as poetically as he did, but here are the 4 things I took away:

1. A lush connection is about the couple expressing itself

2. The connection comes from the torso

3. Don't be afraid of touching thighs during the song as part of the connection

4. Leaders should lead with their right arm down somewhat lower on the woman's back than is normally taught. The part of the lead that comes from the right arm is not just the hand, but also the inner part of the forearm. The lead should be gentle, but clear. This is particularly true when dancing a milonga, but also applies for tango (you can see this in the video above of George dancing with the excellent SF teacher, Chelsea Eng). Our class tried this last night and it was the biggest "ah-Ha!" moment we all had. When George asked the follows afterwards how this lead felt one woman said she felt "loved". I'd never led with my right arm like this before (normally I keep it mostly stationary around her shoulder blade), but I must say I felt a much closer connection and ability to lead--especially when we danced a fast milonga.

Awesome Tango Performances By Christy & Darren and Chelsea & Count At Pachamama

 

So, after Seth and Pablo played a few tangos Friday night at Pachamama's in San Francisco's North Beach district, Christy Cote & Darren Lees and Chelsea Eng & Count gave fantastic tango performances. I love this photo above of Christy and Darren--it really captures the passion of their dance performance and shows how much the crowd was riveted by them. You can also see how intimiate it is at Pachamama. I've never seen anyone perform tango in a smaller area (it was only about 10 feet x 10 feet), but they did it with ease. Pachamama's was packed & the applause & "Esso!"s were loud. What a wonderful evening of Argentine tango it had already been...and we were only half way through the night! After the show we raced over the Bay Bridge to Trio Garufa's CD release party--I'll blog on that as soon as I can.