Archive for May, 2003

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Good Followers are Good Listeners

Thursday, May 29th, 2003

A good follower exemplifies the qualities of being a good listener: someone who listens and responds to the speaker with full attention rather than simply waiting for his or her turn to speak.

  • A good listener is comfortable saying \”I didn\’t understand,\” instead of responding to a half-heard statement.
  • A good listener waits patiently and calmly while the speaker assembles his or her thoughts.
  • A good listener can listen without expressing judgment.
  • A good listener will let the speaker follow the train of thought and arive at the conclusion with the speaker instead of jumping to the conclusion ahead of the speaker.
  • A good listener can tell the difference between what a speaker says and what a speaker wants, and can respond appropriately to what the speaker actually said (and can exercise discretion in responding to what the speaker wants).
  • A good listener understands that the things left unsaid don\’t all require a response.
  • A good listener can exercise these skills regardless of the quality and talents of the speaker.

Posted in Followers and Following, Metaphors | Comments Off

Leader/Follower != Man/Woman

Thursday, May 29th, 2003

Regardless of tradition, stereotypes, and a preponderance of examples of Man-Leader and Woman-Follower relationships, the roles of Leader and Follower are not the same as being a Man or Woman, Male or Female. Leader and Followers are roles that are adopted during the dance to provide a structure for interaction. They are not necessarily connected to who you are in life, what you do to earn an income, or how you interact with people off the dance floor. Otherwise quiet and unassuming people can dance as good leaders, and take charge, type-A personalities can be good followers during a dance, then revert to type afterward. Exploring the role of leader and follower, unencumbered by gender roles and stereotypes can give everybody a better appreciation of the roles in the dance, and provide insight on how to enhance the communication and interaction of leader/follower roles outside of the dance.

Even if you\’re normally a leader in day-to-day affairs, if you choose to follow in tango, you must learn to follow. If you\’re normally a follower at your place of employment, assuming the role of leader requires donning a different attitude and outlook on doing things. When you develop a more complete understanding of the roles, you\’ll find that switching between them is not as difficult as you thought, and the roles are not as confining as commonly believed. Choosing to lead or choosing to follow is just another choice that we make as people interacting with other people, and they are not necessarily permanent parts of our identity.

Posted in Followers and Following, Leaders and Leading, Philosophies | Comments Off

Philosophy for Followers

Thursday, May 29th, 2003

One of the central tensions in tango is the role and identity of the follower. There are lots of conflicting ideas about the proper role of the follower and what the follower needs to do to be a \”good follower.\” Many of the more common ideas are based on misconceptions of the dance itself, or outmoded and shallow models of the relationship between leaders and followers and men and women.

Many problems inherent in understanding the follower\’s role stems from focusing too much on what the follower is not, rather than what the follower is. For many people, the follower is simply not the leader. The follower doesn\’t call the shots. The follower doesn\’t choose the steps, the direction, the speed, the timing. So what does the follower do? To say that the follower simply follows, while true, belies the difficulty inherent in the role and responsibilities of the follower. It\’s a claim no different than saying that to be alive, you have to live or to perceive you must see.

I\’ve written about one aspect of the follower\’s role in a previous blog post (Followers are Not Empty Vessels). I was going to write an extensive unified post on followers here, but came to realize that there are so many different threads to bring together that I\’d be better off posting on smaller, more narrowly focused issues over time, then letting them evolve into something larger on their own. So, expect more on this topic over the next few days/weeks. Some ideas will be more fleshed out than others. Some may just be single lines out of context. Most will probably focus on the concept of the follower rather than specific movements or techniques. In any case, read them, think about them, and respond.

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First Tango Blog?

Friday, May 23rd, 2003

Well, I\’ve checked a few pages deep on Google for \”tango blog\” and \”argentine tango blog\”, and I appear to be the first and only. Lots of blogs mention tango once or twice, but aren\’t using it as a primary focus. There are one or two sites that were started or referenced as tango blogs, but they\’re effectively vaporware. And one site that uses blogging software to run an otherwise standard website, not a blog as such.

Posted in Site Announcements | 2 Comments »

Beauty and Simplicity

Friday, May 23rd, 2003

The most important ideas in any discipline are those that are considered \”beautiful\”. In math and science, these are the ideas that demonstrate parsimony, but are also very powerful in that they make it possible to both describe and predict an array of theories and observations. When you tie these ideas together, you make it possible to understand so much more than just the one situation you may be applying it to. You can immediately see the relevance of the idea to other situations and examples. Tango is composed of these ideas as well. At least, it can be.
(more…)

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Followers are not empty vessels

Thursday, May 22nd, 2003

So, here\’s an idea that can help guide your thinking about the role of the follower. Followers are not empty vessels to be filled up with whatever ideas you think are so important for them to know to be able to follow your leading. Followers are not tabula rasa. Followers can instead be thought of as a medium, and as any artist knows, the final product will be strongly influenced by and dependent on the medium.
(more…)

Posted in Philosophies | 1 Comment »

Demo at Orange with Charlotte

Thursday, May 22nd, 2003

Today was the day for one of my students, Charlotte D\’Annunzio, to present her end of term project on Argentine Tango. Charlotte is 16 (not 15, my mistake) and a student at Orange HS. Students were completing year-long special research assignments on topics of their own choosing, and she chose to learn how to tango! With the generous support of her mother, Anne, Charlotte spent more than 6 months studying tango with me, culminating in today\’s presentation where she spoke about learning to tango (the process and what she learned), then danced three songs with me. The pieces were \”El Once\” by Carlos Di Sarli, \”Desde el Alma\” by Osvaldo Pugliese, and \”The Pink Panther Theme\” by Oranj Symphonette. Charlotte danced wonderfully, didn\’t freak out, and didn\’t say \”oops\” even once during the performance. I\’m pretty sure the audience in attendance was suitably impressed. Congrats!

Here are some pics.

Update (2003-05-22 17:32:00): The verdict is in, she got a 100 on the project! woo-hoo!

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Mark & Dora Wedding blogstuff

Sunday, May 18th, 2003

My photos of the wedding and reception have been uploaded here.

Thanks, Mark for helping me get in touch with my inner blog-fiend. As an homage to Mark, I published my first moblog post via my Sprint PCS Wireless Web/Handspring Deluxe combo during today\’s wedding reception, sometime between their first dance and the toasts.

Posted in Site Announcements | 2 Comments »

News from Mark & Dora\’s wedding

Saturday, May 17th, 2003

wedding\’s going great! The music disappeared in the middle of their dance,but they recovered beautifully & the jazz band whipped something up. Mark&Dora improvised,kept on dancing & did me proud! Congrats to a wonderful couple!

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Minor PHP Phreaking

Friday, May 16th, 2003

I\’ve been running Textism\’s refer on the rest of the site for a while, then I expanded it to the gallery, but couldn\’t get it working on the blog until I realized everything in Movable Type needed to be switched over to PHP. Thanks to etc. for the \”converting to PHP\” guide which pointed out what I was missing.

I\’ve also added Textism\’s Google_hilite tool which will help the people finding the site via Google by highlighting the search terms that led them here. To try it, click on that Google link, then click the first link back to my site.

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