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The tangueros of the last twenty years have been affected by the boom this dance has experienced for a few decades. We belong to a generation that enjoys the privileges of technology, the possibility to access cultural material through CDs, DVDs or books, or any other kind of audiovisual material; that can buy low-cost tickets to cross the ocean and enjoy a tango event anywhere in the world; that has the internet and all the information which, for better or worse, feed our senses and bring us closer to even unimaginable content.
We are a generation that is nourished by multiple trends, styles, basics, patterns, systems, etc, to such extent that it becomes too difficult to find only one goal when structuring a dance that is so free and so full of possibilities as Tango.
Having access to information from different teachers, face-to-face or through audiovisual media positively influences one’s awareness to the many possibilities in Tango. Yet, the more information we acquire, the larger is the uncertainty at the moment of having a clear idea about what we have learnt.
This is mostly because Tango is a dance with no international classification of contents, although throughout the years some teaching systems have been created which have succeeded more or less in their application and later effectiveness. There is, for example, the well-known basic system of eight counts. It is the most common system which most teachers have used to learn and to teach, but do not use when dancing. Moreover, it has not proved that, on the dance floor, a dancer has freedom, is free from outlines (if you start from outlines, you have to leave them behind).
It is true that globalizing a teaching methodology suitable for learning Tango which assures content acquisition from the beginning to superior levels, would be a too much inmense venture for us taking into account the difficulty of bringing together all the energy from teachers, pseudo-teachers, professionals, and opportunists or the majority of them in order to create a direct, practical and simple system.
With a teaching system as the eight-count system, although it has no practical application on the dance floor, many teachers cling to its structure to lead students to a relatively familiar path (ignoring the difficulties students can face in the future) and thus begin a class without insecurities.
One of the disadvantages of this system is that the first step is backwards, when it is clear when educated dancers to be followed do not approve those who surprisingly step backwards stepping on their female partner because those going backwards cannot see where they are heading. At this basic level, dancers do not experience walking forward with their partners.
The most logical movement would be the man going forward if he has the chance, or sideways closure if he cannot advance.
Another disadvantage is that dancers sort too much to their "tics" and after having passed them, they continue to perform -apart from the backward step- a three-movement closing sideways (the closure) which remains in dancers as a bad habit for a long time.
I also suppose that the faulty of this system leaves more questions when some fundamentals are skipped quickly to go on directly to attractive figures.