Open Finishes in Tango

Ballroom Blitz #097

Open Finishes in Tango - Jan 11, 2024

Transcript

Ian: Hey, hey, hey, random dancers from the interwebs. My name's Ian,

Lindsey: and my name's Lindsey,

Ian: and welcome

Ian & Lindsey: to Ballroom Blitz!

Ian: Hello Ballroom Blitzers, welcome back to the channel. We're going back into the world of Ballroom Tango today we're going to have a look at this thing called the Open Finish; let's go.

Ian: To understand why we would use an Open Finish, and not a standard Closed Finish, which is pretty much what you're going to do anytime you bring your feet together; so, any figure you've got that you end with your feet together, pretty much you've done a closed finish to get there. An open finish as the name suggests, and following our Ballroom naming rules, you're going to finish the figure with, instead of closed feet, open feet. So, the leader has taken a step past the follow in a very contra body type style, [a] very Tango type style, to end the figure with their feet open; so, that part is kind of easy to understand. Why would you want to do this? Well, it gives you different follows for one, it also gives you a different appearance, if you want a particular look, and it does give you a different feel. So there's a number of different options. So, when we get used to where our closed finishes, are which are going to be pretty easy to identify because it's when you finish a figure with feet together. So, when we identify those and have a few tricks we're just going to modify the last two steps to get to this open finish it will start to transform your Tango world. You get different looks, different feel, different figures, to do afterwards. So, you get a lot of bang for those extra two steps.

Ian: To have a look at how this works in practice we're going to have a look at two figures. We're going to have a look at the Closed Promenade and the Open Promenade. Now from now on you can think of the Open Promenade as a "Closed Promenade, with an Open Finish" and for all intents and purposes the Open Prominade is the only figure that inherently finishes with an Open Finish; and it has all the regular options for look and appearance and follows out of it. So if you need a little bit more help to try and understand when and how and why you would use this, you could use that as a tool to go towards, you could compare your Open Finish and your, sorry your uh Open Promenade and your Closed Promenade to get a feel for that Open Finish and Closed Finish option. So, let's have a look at both of those figures and we'll see how the last two steps change to get you your Open Finishes.

Ian: So our Closed Promenade and our Open Promenade both start in Promenade, funnily enough. They have a Slow Quick-Quick Slow type rhythm. We're going to take a promenade walk, a quicker promenade walk, close position, and in the closed finish version, we are going to close our feet, change weight ready to go into the next figure; so that's your Closed Promenade. Your Open Promenade or your "Closed Promenade, with an Open Finish" has a promenade walk, and the second quicker promenade walk is the same, but on this one I'm going to step slightly more forward and prepare to step outside of partner, and now I take my last slow in a very contra body fashion outside of partner and you can see here our feet are in no way describable as closed; we have made an open finish. If we have a look at those from the other direction you'll see what we mean with a slow quick side close, for the Closed Promenade, and for the Open Promenade a slow quick slightly forward and walk past.

Ian: And that's really it, the Open Finish. In a lot of ways it has a lot of similarity to what you want to do in a Foxtrot Feather Step. In the preceding step you want to think of how to step outside of your partner and rather than mucking around with a lot of complex descriptions and things like that, basically get out there and try it in your Tango and say "okay well rather than me bringing my feet together at the end, how can I prepare myself to step past my partner? You've got to take them with you, you can't leave them behind, we don't want to twist or do anything strange like that; but, that will guide you in that second to last step. So, the Open Finish is just a modification of the last two steps, usually one's a quick, and then a slow, and in a very feather fashion you prepare to step outside leaders, and then step outside. But, we're going to do that in a very Tango fashion. So, use that as a guiding light for any modification, and then you'll be able to put it into your favorite figures. Use the Open and Closed Promenades as a good practice point to start, but once you get the feel for it it goes anywhere, anywhere you would normally close your feet at the end you can modify it and do an open finish. Once you get there and you get confident with that you can walk forward out into all the same follows as I mentioned before. You can swivel and you can go into Promenade figures, that looks kind of cool particularly with a smoother type tango music. And you can also go backwards into back rocks and other things like that, which is a nice cheeky way of going deep into a corner taking an Open Finish, almost like a check step, and then going backwards so you get a big transformation in your Tango when we can learn to mix closed finishes and open finishes. I highly recommend putting some effort into those two steps, you get so much value for two steps. So, give it a go, try it out on the social floor, let us know how you go. Let us know your favorite one to put it into, and if you're having any trouble converting your Closed to your Open Finishes let us know that too, and if we need to we can do a bit of a deeper dive next year. For now though, that's it on the Open Finish for Tango try it out and we will see you next time.

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