Move you leg but not your body is the theme of video #3 in the series on how to improve Technique for Dancing.
This video might look a bit like a ballet exercise and it is my lazy version of a rond de jambe. This literally translates as circle of the leg, which is what you are basically doing: circling just the leg, not the hip, or the body.
I have found in tango that often we are so tight in our hips, probably from sitting all day long, that we forget that our leg is a separate entity: in a lovely ball and socket rolling configuration at the southish end of our pelvis! So this video is to bring awareness to that femur (top leg bone) moving separately inside the joint. This will greatly assist us in our walking (both as a follow and a lead) in the dance!
We are working our stability here in our standing leg for balance as well as mobility in that “free”/unweighted leg as it is moving about. I am a big fan of starting little and getting bigger in the circles of the free leg. And check what happens when you bend the standing leg? Just don’t move your pelvis or torque that leg when you bend that knee!!!! And as always you can use a chair, a kitchen countertop, a wall, to assist you in this exercise. Remember to do both legs!
All the videos in the series can be found on YouTube as a playlist.