A guest post by Veronika Kruta, verokrutayoga.com
Warm up before dancing with this 10-minute full-body yoga routine.
How strange that tango dancers rarely warm up their bodies before dancing! You would for other types of challenging dance.
The “warming up” I’ve seen might be dancing a low-intensity tanda (maybe a Calo or Canaro) with someone you have danced with before and know well, so as not to ruin your chances of impressing someone if they ask you to dance before you have warmed up.
Several years ago I began a practice of tuning in with myself and my body before going out to a milonga. I put on my heels at home and danced by myself for 10 minutes. I didn’t want the state of my body and mind to betray me when I got on the dance floor for that first tanda.
Often what I discovered in those 10 minutes would surprise me. Some days it seemed I had no balance whatsoever. My shoes didn’t feel right. My mind felt distracted. The clothing I was wearing was all wrong. I was being self-critical. Or the opposite would happen. I was pleased by the stability I felt, or by how expressive or creative my solo dancing seemed. How light and free I felt in my movement or how focused I was. These states of being change and can catch us unawares until we get into our bodies.
The same thing happens when I get on my yoga mat. This is often the first time of the day when I allow myself to tune in to what’s going on inside, the sensations I feel in my body, where my thoughts are, and what emotions I’m feeling. Many times I discover something I was not expecting.
Later, I started adding on to this practice of tuning in before dancing by spending a few minutes watching a video or two of some dancers who inspire me and then filling up on the excitement I felt from watching them. My dance seemed to transform. You know what I’m talking about if you’ve ever watched a performance at a milonga and felt like your own dance came alive after the performance, your inspiration and creative juices flowing through you and giving your dance a completely different, more raw and soulful expression.
There are many ways to get present in your body before you dance, and what a gift this is to your partner.
If you want to learn more about how presence can change your embrace, check out my blog post How Attention to Breath Can Enhance Your Tango.
Today I want to share with you a 10-minute, full body yoga warm-up you can do before dancing. You can even do this in your tango clothes. I recommend doing it barefoot or in street shoes, unless you want the added challenge of being in your dance shoes. When you don’t have time to do a full yoga practice before dancing, this is a great way to spend a few minutes to stretch, strengthen, energize, and become present in your body.
This brief sequence begins by getting grounded and warming up the joints. Then it moves into opening up the feet, spreading the toes and bringing awareness to how you distribute the weight across the whole foot.
Next, a few poses to warm up the front and back body, opening shoulders, stretching the side-body, and warming up the major muscle groups. (Similar to the purpose of Sun Salutations A and B in a Vinyasa practice.)
Then we open the hip flexors to promote a nice tango stride, and activate your twist to help torsion. Finally, we go into a deeper twist and hamstring stretch—also facilitating your stride, and finish with a little core warm-up to assist with balance, get the blood flowing, and energize the body in general.
Wrapping up, we take a few moments to bring the attention inward, focus on the breath, and tune in to our thoughts, emotions and state of being before heading out onto the dance floor.
I encourage you to use this sequence as a guideline and add or omit poses that you feel your body needs or does not need to warm up before dancing. If you are doing this sequence at home, in comfortable clothing, you may also add some floor poses, which I have not included here so that the routine can be done in your tango clothes in any space you find yourself.
For more information on how to compliment your tango dancing with a yoga practice or to try out some free yoga classes designed specifically for tango dancers please visit my website verokrutayoga.com or feel free to get in touch. I am always open to questions and feedback of any kind!
Happy Dancing!