SACADAS at Golden Age - Forward

We have summer now and I had planned to take it easy. Read some novels and magazines on the balcony when the warm weather has at last arrived. But no! For some reason thoughts about sacadas have been coming up as well as memories from old training sessions are flashing through my head. I gave in and started to read some of the books having lines about this known move.

The first book is written by Christine Denniston and it is presenting the tango at Golden Age. This posting is a short excerpt from sacada section in the book. She is happy to describe how complex the variety of movements was at that time and how these old moves are coming up as new ones today.

The word *sacar* means to take out or remove and in this context it can be seen as removing the partner's foot from a place you want to occupy. This class of steps is mostly an illusion where the reason for follower's movement is far above the floor. It is NOT caused by a kick on follower's leg but by the cooperation of the upper bodies.

One of the usual, easy steps to target a sacada to is the follower's right foot side step. The leader will extend his right leg forward to initiate the exchange of places. Sometimes even the follower's backward step was used while the leader did the sacada forward.

When we explore the side step sacada the process is initiated and completed during the weight transfer.

One of the basic rules for Golden Age leader was to keep the feet under or behind you; never let your foot pass forward beyond your chest. During the sacada you violate this rule and the foot is following the line to the followers heart and even passing it when your toes are landing behind the follower's back. With other words both the heart and foot are following the direction to follower's heart. 

The leader is taking the follower's former place during a turning movement for both. The outcome of planeo or gancho is caused by the dynamics of the movement.

In this otherwise so clear description I am missing more detailed information about the turn, when follower's hips are moved away so the leader can take the space. You get some information about the timing in this Oscar Casas video with Mary Ann.

The preparing figure is an Americana giving a good start for her sidestep. They show us both a light and a deep sacada.

The sacada part starts about at 2.00

This is the starting position after she has turned around after an Americana. In the down left corner you find the exact time for this moment. Oscars right foot has passed behind the place of Mary Ann's heart.

Here you find the three phases of the turn.

Christine Denniston: the meaning of TANGO, The Story of the Argentinian Dance
(p. 153-155)

Basic training for July - August

With this July-August period I will close a whole year training! In September we will open a totally new training year.

For this period I have switched the fitness and pilates parts so there will be only two pilates days per week. I really need more fitness part

Pilates with Rene on Mondays and Saturdays!

Cardio will happen Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays!

If you don't find these two hard enough there is lot of alternatives take some of them!  :))



Comment 2014.08.30

This morning was the last day for these exercises and on Monday I will test a new set of movements. It has been a good period and I have done the training nearly every morning - traveling days excluded.

I totally love the FitnesBlenders serie - the lady in yellow T-shirt - it is so well done and my body is stretched and stronger after the training. I will pick one of their work-outs for next period too!

The pilates workout has been ok but quite boring. I have skipped the back plank - you are sitting on the floor and then lifting your hips up having your weight on hands and heels. I got some back pain during the period and it disappeared when I skipped this movement.

Basic training for May - June

There has been a 3 week vacation with no other motion but walking and dancing. Two weeks abroad with sighthseeing and dancing. The lazy start after coming home took me to last monday!

There will be my loved pilates and a cardio section for the basic training. No changes there!

For pilates I have searched and found a 30 mins workshop in spanish! I notised earlier that I learned to recognize a lot of words from my Russian Callanetics video and now I am hoping same kind of effect while working my body in Spanish!

For some reason I could not link the Pilates videos here but please check the picture below and if interesting click the video playlist below. Part 1 and Part 2 about 30 mins together!








Método Pilates - Entrenamiento en Colchoneta



If the playlist above is not working try these separate links!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8KYyA0-7hSY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7zHv7aVB_o


The cardio part is still in Enlish!  :)

 The Pilates part will be run Monday-Wednesday and the cardio Friday-Saturday as usual!

BALANCE Week 5

I started this balance trip just to control that everything was ok. Now I am aware of several areas I need to improve and the priorities will be reorganized. I will continue to do the excercises for muscles, but I will NOT increase the number of repetitions instead I will go down to ten. It will take only a few minutes when I run them after my basic training session. The muscles may grow slowly.

Last week I have send a message to a facebook friend, Mari K. Johnson,  who is certified trainer with feet as her speciality and got some web addresses in return. On her website I learned about other ways to train my feet and among them the need of development of the sensory feedback. If my brain gets just rough information about surface I am standing on the adaptation will allso be roughly correct. In complicated figures my brain needs detailed  information about the position of different parts of my body. When there is lot of sensory feedback from my feet, joints and so on, then my brain can send most accurate orders to muscles.

To develop my Proprioceptive system, the feedback system, will be a long term goal with a tiny start of walking barefoot at home.

This will be done every training day (1, 2, 3 and 5, 6) but only with 10 reps.

It has turned out that this video will not work as a training video for me at this level of balance development. Instead I use it as instrument to monitor how my balance coordination is developing. How many repetitions I manage to run without wobbling or putting my feet down after this weeks training?

You find Leonia  training by clicking on this line!

BALANCE Week 4

It goes irritating slowly but I don't want to do too much and risk my training during the coming weeks. So I will go on with the earlier balance training only once this week and add a video for the ankles for the days in between. I will have only a moderate ambitions level! :)

This will be my companion for days 1/2/3 and 5 

This will be my companion for day 6

2014.04.06   Weekly summary:
This week I was following the regime quite well and adding the number of repetitions to the ankle prosess up to 30 repetitions for the ankle training.

I did the first part of green man's program and noticed to my great pleasure that on the left I needed only one break and when I was standing on the right the touch down came just before the last reperition of these feet circles. Great progress!

I got a feeling that some of the improvement was not because my muscles were growing ,but because my body understood better what to do!