I'm very happy that you are enjoying our site! Of course you have my permission to translate it and use the material. Pages from the site have already been translated into several other languages, so it will be nice to have them in Vietnamese as well. Alejandra and I are glad we can share our love of tango with you and your friends in Vietnam.   
                                                                                View a page posted in Romanian

Doh !!

Thanks for an interesting question. Personally, I like very slippery shoes and floors, so I use a smooth hard leather sole, and often a leather heel also (although a rubber heel is more comfortable, and it works fine as long as the floor is slippery). For me, the slicker the better, because it's easier to pivot, and to step well. And it’s also easier on the ankles, knees, and legs. Of course you need to stay very centered over your feet. As far as sticky floors, I just try to avoid them.

The milongueros are a different story. They are legendary for being able to dance tango in anything and on anything. I’ve seen them dance tango on wet sticky patios in tennis shoes, and even barefoot on concrete at pool parties. And Alej says they're also able to dance on the cobblestones. They don't seem to make any adjustments—they just go. It doesn't seem to bother them. But normally in milongas, they use regular leather street shoes.

While I'm not familiar with many different types of dance shoes, Alej and I are intimately familiar with the different floors in BsAs. Just for the heck of it, let's talk about some of them:

El Beso:  Wood. Slipperiest floor in town. People have fallen down on it, and it's so slick it bothers Alej. But for me, it's the best—if you can find room to dance. (In the U.S., the lawyers would have shut it down long ago.)

El Arranque:  Tile. Nice baldosa floor, but it's that porous type of tile that absorbs moisture from the air. When it's humid, it can be very sticky, and then as the air conditioning kicks in, you can actually feel it begin to dry and get slick. People will say "Muy pesada la pista." (Very heavy floor), and then as it dries, you can actually see the dancing change.

Viejo Correo:  Nice checkerboard baldosa floor tiles, same issue as El Arranque above.

Region Leonesa (Niño Bien):  Good wooden floor, medium slick. When it's clean it's great, but for awhile the owners didn't seem to be cleaning it, and sometimes it was so dirty with spilled drinks that it was sticky.

Celia's:  Great baldosa floor that doesn't absorb humidity. Maybe our favorite floor. Celia keeps it spotless, and Alej and I seem to fly on it.

Gricel:  Absolutely the worst floor. The club is wildly popular, and the milongueros love it... but then they can dance on anything. It's a wood floor that used to have a lot of warped boards. I think they tried to repair it, but now it has cracks and gaps that can really disrupt your dancing.

Maipu 444:  Very nice newer wooden floor. Medium slick.

Canning:  Great slick wooden floor. It's the floor the milongueros love most. Maybe the best in town.

Sunderland:  Tile. A little rough and sticky for my taste... but then it's a basketball court. Maybe too slippery for basketball, and too sticky for tango. But I'm a sensitive guy.

Our floor upstairs:  It's a beautiful new wooden floor, but I was dissapointed, because it ended up being a little sticky. They refinished it—but still sticky. I tried corn starch, which usually works—but still a little sticky. Then I discovered a thing called Blem. It's a brand of furniture polish they sell down here. I sprayed some on, and BINGO. We owned an ice skating rink! The floor guy who told us about it warned me against using it. It must have a little WD-40 in it or something. It was very dangerous—I couldn't even walk on it. Now, we use just a little, and then wipe almost all of it up with a dry mop, and the floor is perfect.

Glorias Argentinas:  There is a door in the back of the dance salon that opens onto a soccer court. One night when it was incredibly crowded, they opened the doors so the overflow could dance on the court. It had a sort of non-slip sand finish over concrete, like they paint onto the deck of a ship or a windsurf board. When you planted your foot on it, it wouldn't slide or pivot at all. We were there with "El Gallego" (Jorge Garcia), and he asked Alej to dance on it. I had already tried and given up, and I really didn’t want Alej to do it because I was worried about her feet and knees. But she went ahead and danced a tanda, and although she didn’t like it she survived. I filmed it, and then a little later, I filmed Jorge when he gave a performance on the regular floor. When I looked at the film later, I could see that Alej was struggling on the sticky futbol cancha, but Jorge danced exactly the same on the no-skid sand finish as he did on the slick floor of the milonga ten minutes later.

Of course, Jorge is one of the only true professional dancers in tango. He had a successful career outside of tango dancing in Nelida Lobato's stage shows in Buenos Aires, and he was quite well-known. (He was also a boxer, a milonguero, and Pugliese's body guard as well.) Interesting guy... and also a friend. He and Miguel Zotto may have the fastest feet in tango. We'll write more about him when we post some of his videos in Chapter 5.

It's great to get such an enthusiastic email. While Alej and I are lucky to be able to dance every night in the heart of tango, we actually envy you! I remember when I first began to windsurf, I was so enthusiastic that I couldn’t even sleep when I heard the wind blowing at night. All I could think about was improving so I could get out on the reef and sail the waves with the big boys. Then one of the professionals told me something. He said I was very lucky because I was learning new things every day, and dreaming about sailing, and I had so much to look forward to. He envied me because I was at the best time in windsurfing. He said even though I would get a lot better, I would never enjoy it more… and he was right! I eventually got where I wanted to be, but I never enjoyed it more than the first couple of years when I was trying to figure everything out.

In many ways, tango just keeps getting better and better as you progress. And with a little luck and a little work, you’ll discover incredible things... but don’t feel like you’re missing anything, because there's no better place in tango than where you are right now.   “El tango te espera.” - Rick y Alej

Thanks for your questions. It's nice to know someone is interested in our new pages on technique.

Question 1: “Do you know of any good instructional Videos that one can use to soak up what you describe in Chapter 6?  It would help if I could visualized people doing it."

Ans: I’ve looked at a lot of instructional videos over the years. Some of them display great technique (one that comes to mind is the one Pepito Avellaneda did just before he died), but I haven’t seen any that do a good job of breaking down and teaching the details of standing and stepping. Most simply demonstrate patterns and step combinations. [UPDATE:  I just found a video by a fellow who seems to know what he's doing! It's a video of slow motion walking that you might find helpful. We just posted it at the end of Chapter 6.]

Question 2: “…as I get ready to step, I stand on my heels… and I can lean forward until I feel my toes engage. So I lean forward to that place just before my toes engage…”

Ans: It's great to know someone is thinking about these things!  We just posted page 7 of Chapter Six. The next two pages will be up in a day or two, and I think you’ll find the beginning of your answer there. We’ll discuss working with your forward weight points, which is the preparation for stepping. Then we're going to post a section on using the compas, and after that, we’ll return and finish stepping technique in detail. We’ll also put the two halves of the embrace together. So please hang on—we'll try to clear it up for you over the next few months, and we'll include some video.

Weight on the heels: While our first exercises include finding a balance spot on your heels, that's really mostly for practice. It's not common to have your weight move onto your heels when you dance tango. It's done occasionally, but most tango is danced with the weight centered near the three dance points shown at the top of page 8. As far as your toes, I understand what you mean when you talk about your toes “engaging”. When I was trying to figure out how to stay forward, sometimes I would tense and curl my toes, like I was trying to grab onto the floor to hold myself back. For now, read through the pages we post in the next few days, and think about consciously relaxing your toes. Let your weight center on a spot just inside the ball of your foot, but no further forward. If your toes begin to tense up, you’re too far forward. You want to keep your chest just far enough forward to lead. Good posture, with chest up, and the shoulders down and back, should give you plenty of chest for leading without moving the center of your weight forward past the ball of your foot and onto your toes. As far as stepping, give us a month or so and let’s see if we can clear it up. And don’t hesitate to write again if you have any more questions after we post more.

Thanks for taking the time to help. I know there are still mistakes lurking in those pages, so please let me know if you find any more.

Good questions! I’m very glad you’re getting something out of the pages on technique:

1. Should you land flat, heel, or toe? It can be nice when you take several walking steps in corridas to hit right on the Front Balance point. It’s the most elegant walk, but doing it is like hitting the bullseye. I looked again at the demo, and I’m coming very close—but sometimes it’s hard to hit it perfectly in a milonga with different partners and different things going on. We’ll do a page on the “foot strike” soon, and demo different ways in more detail. For now, the heel is fine in many cases. I do it all the time, but the Front Balance point is a very efficient and balanced way to walk, because you land solidly on the bottom of your foot. So I would think about that when you practice.

2. Weight transfer question: 100% of your weight doesn’t go to the new stepping foot instantly—but it goes very quickly. If you look at the video, you’ll see that because my body is forward, it’s already moving quickly over the stepping leg as soon as it touches the floor. Another way to look at it is that you can see the weight begin to leave my back foot as soon as the front foot hits the floor. We’ll do a page on “bad habits” that will cover in detail what happens when you don’t do it.

3. Will we discuss women’s stepping technique? We’ve already discussed it some in Chapter 3. For now, I would just look at some of the best women in the videos. I think Alej is the best one to study because she is as close to perfect as you can get. (I know I’m biased—but many people say the same. She’s considered to be one of the very best in the milongas.) Anyway, we plan to discuss women’s stepping technique in more detail as well. (And also men’s technique when walking backward.)

4. I’m not surprised no one taught you about walking on a straight leg. I looked everywhere in videos and classes, and no one told me about it either. It took a lot of filming and dancing in the milongas to figure it out.

We don't always respond in this section to nice comments like this one—but we do respond personally by email. (By the way, we'll be analyzing an even better video of El Chino in Chapter 6. It should come sometime in August or September, when we're around page 24.)

Thank you for your kind comments—and especially for the Borges quote. I’m glad you’re getting something from the walking pages. Alej and I will try to demonstrate some of the things we use in the milongas together a little later in Chapter 6 when we have more time.

You’re right about the need for better site navigation. The site is getting big. Huge may be a better word. For now, the way I find things is to go to Google and put in “tangoandchaos” along with the word I’m looking for. It works pretty well—although it seems strange to go to Google to look for things in my own work. I’ll see if I can find a search function to put on the site.

As far as your Borges quote, I talked to Alej a little about it (she actually knew Borges), and I had a couple of ideas about what I thought it means... but then I thought some more, and I realized they weren’t very good ideas. In fact, I realized that not only can’t I explain or add to the quote, I don't think I can even translate it. But it does remind me of something that happened a couple of years ago:

I was with a group of young Argentines. They were soccer players and professionals who had nothing to do with tango, and one of them said to me, “So you dance tango? I thought about trying it... but dancing never interested me very much.” Before I could respond, one of the others said, “Well, tango isn’t a dance…” And two or three others jumped in instantly and said, “Yes, tango isn’t a dance.” After a moment, the one who spoke to me nodded, and said, “Well… of course you’re right.” Looking back now, I think it's connected to what Borges wrote.

Thank you so much for the very nice email. I’m happy the “form follows function” way of looking at tango comes across clearly. It always gives me a nice shot of motivation to get a message like yours.

I think the most important thing a tango dancer can do is to work on basic technique, and learn the lyrics and meaning of the tangos. It's the only way I know to really feel tango, and to understand what's happening in the milongas.

As far as Gustavo Naveira, he seems like a nice guy. After the end of the dancing in this video, he stuck around and helped everyone take pictures, and he was very friendly. I also think he and Giselle are good dancers. They stay balanced, and in the compás, and they move well together—but they represent some things in tango that I don’t agree with.

Naveria (and his ex-partner Fabian Salas) have often said that they don’t believe tango should be tied to the music and culture of the Buenos Aires neighborhoods. They see it as an international dance, made up of movements that need to be changed and used creatively. And I suppose, the dancing in the video is an example of their approach. Like you, I don’t care for it. It just doesn’t seem like a very good way to express the music they’re dancing to—but that’s really their business. What I strongly disagree with, however, is the way they move when they're near the other dancers.

If you look carefully, you’ll see that just as Gustavo begins dancing in the video, he kicks forward toward the camera with his left leg, and then instantly brings it back, so that his foot lands behind him and to the side. It comes very close to Jorge Uzunian, who is dancing next to the wall. Jorge can’t really give any more space to Naveira, but Naveira has plenty of room in front of him. This may seem like a small thing, but it's an impolite and aggressive way to dance in a milonga—and it’s also unexpected.

This is a bit technical, but in a crowded milonga, if you’re behind someone who takes his back leg and steps out to the front with it, then some of the space he vacates becomes yours. He can return to the space, and you need to be out of the way—but you’re entitled to step into it and use if for a moment. If, however, he kicks to the front, and then immediately throws his leg back behind him, it messes up the system. There's nothing new or creative about what Naveira is doing. It's not tango—it’s a karate kick. And if you look for it, you'll see him do it three times. He's using the dance floor for martial arts practice. He and Giselle are very popular teachers, and if they do it here, you have to assume they're teaching things like that all over the world.

You can see in the rest of the video that all the milongueros keep an eye on him, and they give him two or three times more space than they give each other. They keep their distance, because they sense he’s moving unpredictably. Alej and I know all these guys well, and they hate to be touched when they dance. We don’t like it either, but we dance around them in tight spaces all the time with no problems. A little bumping is sometimes unavoidable, but it’s one thing to brush elbows every few weeks, and a very different thing to risk being kicked or stepped on by someone moving like Naveira and his partner. Proponents of this type of dancing sometimes say, “What’s the problem? We only do big moves when there’s room”—but it’s not just a question of big or small moves. It’s the unpredictably and the distraction this kind of dancing creates.

By the way, you're very kind to use the word "brilliant"—but there's really nothing brilliant by Alej or I here. After looking at this video again however, I realize it does contain something truly brilliant. Check out the double giro by Miguelito. He does it after Naveira moves out of the way. He goes around twice, and then walks out backwards, toward the wall. That is brilliant. No exaggeration.

Wow. These questions are hard! Now I realize why I never put a comments section on the site for the first five years. I’m getting called out on all sorts of things—but I’ll try to do my best on this one.

First, I really like what you say about it taking 3 to 5 years of diligence to begin to understand walking. Very smart. (I would emphasize the “begin” to understand part.)

Second, as far as the people you mentioned, I’m familiar with the first two, and I checked out the last one (Moreno) on YouTube. My opinion, for what it’s worth, is that they’re all excellent dancers, and if you want to use them as role models, or as teachers, you couldn’t do any better—with this caveat: They all have both feet planted pretty firmly in the academia-performing world, with only a toe stuck into social tango. The type of tango you learn is your choice, but if you want to be a good social dancer, I’d be careful about learning some of the more complex and showy parts of their dancing. My advice would be to use them to learn good basic technique (which they definitely have), and then try to dance a lot in milongas. I know this isn’t always possible outside of BsAs, but if you can find a way to get several thousand tangos among accomplished social dancers, the “steps” will come. I don’t know exactly how or why, but you’ll begin to absorb things from the other dancers, and the music will begin to pull the steps out of you. I think it’s the best way.

If you don’t have that opportunity, then I think you should watch videos of the best dancers over and over. Don’t necessarily copy steps, but try to absorb their posture, cadences, and movement. Also, try not to watch bad dancers. There are lots of them in the milongas, and there seem to be more and more on video and on the Internet lately. Look the other way.

Now comes the part of your question I don’t really want to answer. Tango styles. There’s really too much to say here, but I’ll try to be concise: I speak very strongly against the existence of identifiable styles in social tango, but the truth is that no one can really say for sure whether they exist or not. Here’s what I’m sure of: 1. Alej and I have danced everywhere in BsAs, and filmed everywhere, and we can’t really identify any styles. 2. Almost everyone who dances all the time in the milongas will tell you they don’t exist (and that includes most of the best milongueros—including several from Villa Urquiza.) 3. The people who do believe in giving names to separate and distinct styles of tango are almost always from the academic-performing world, rather than the milongas.

That’s about it. For me, it’s not really important whether tango “styles” exist or not. This group of very good dancers that you mention do have a lot of similarities in their dancing—which makes sense, because they practice and perform together. I’ve studied Javier before, and they all seem to dance with great posture, and they step onto their heels, and then quickly flick their feet down onto the floor. It’s looks nice, and if they choose to call it the “Villa Urquiza style”, they may be correct. In the end, however, I think the important thing is to have good technique, dance a lot in the milongas, and don’t bother your neighbors. If you really feel and enjoy the music, sooner or later, your own style will come. What you call it is irrelevant.

Finally, as far as Fino, I think he was the best. Period. He set the standard for modern tango dancing. If you define the Urquiza style as the way the people you mentioned dance, then I would say no. His basic technique has a bit more forward energy, and the way his foot contacts the floor is different. Not a criticism of them, but for me, his technique is different.

Response by Maurice:
Regarding styles I came across an interview with Andrea Misse and she said they danced salon style, and Villa Urquiza is just a famous place where there are many good salon style dancers. Javier stated "there are only two types of tango, one is good, and one is bad. To dance good tango is not to show off the steps and technique, but rather the essence of tango is how you feel and care for the woman, how you let her dance beautifully. You want the lady to sleep and dream with the music in your arms; not tear her hair out trying to guess and follow your next move."

To me this seems good advice and maybe Andrea answers the question of Villa Urquiza. I came across the section on your site where you basically divide tango into two classes—social and stage. This makes sense to me. Back to the walk—I have heard from many teachers that you flex into the supporting leg before moving. Now, the dancers I like seem to move exactly as you describe, although they may step with the heel first.

Ans:
I can't think of any reason to bend your weight bearing leg from floor contact through the middle of the step, but there may be times when you bend your supporting leg at the last moment to help push off into an extra long step. And you might also use it occasionally for emphasis when exiting a pause—but I don't think it's something you should do all the time. We'll cover it more thoroughly soon, and give some examples in Chapter 6.

Thank you so much for your very kind and interesting email. And thanks for the link to the video of Ruben. He’s a friend of ours, and we were very happy for him when he was recently able to get a visa so he could travel to the U.S. and teach. We have tons of video of him—although I haven’t had a chance to put any of it on the site yet. I’ll probably put some in Chapter 5 when we get time, but he's dancing great in the YouTube video, so we might as well let someone else pay for the bandwidth, and encourage people who want to see him to follow the link you provided. (One of his best friends is Ismael, the first milonguero shown in Chapter 5.) (Also, the music in the Ruben video is great. We translated it a while back, so we'll add it to Chapter 4 when we get time.)

By the way, I’m just finishing a page in Chapter 6 that has a great video of Ricardo Vidort. It’s one of the first videos I ever took in BsAs of him dancing with Alej in an old house in San Cristobal. The quality is terrible, but for me it’s beautiful. It’s from the time I first met both of them, and Ricardo is dancing with tremendous power and enthusiasm to Vargas’ Adios Arrabal. I just discovered it, and I think it’s his best. Even though the video quality is terrible, it’s a true clinic on how to dance tango.

More difficult questions... but thanks for writing! I'll do my best:

Learning lyrics: Every time I learn the lyrics of a new tango, the enjoyment I get from it increases tremendously. The music seems to come alive, and then when I hear it in a milonga, I can’t wait to get up and dance. It’s like getting up to greet an old friend. You’re probably right when you say that learning compás, posture, and step, should come first, but when you feel ready, try picking a tango you like in Chapter 4, and learn the words. See what happens. If you don’t like it, don't do it any more—you can still dance well without knowing the lyrics. But if you like it, then try another one. Don’t rush. Learn at your own pace. If you get interested in a tango, you may naturally want to find out more about it. Just getting to know a new tango every few months adds up, and over time, I think you'll notice that your dancing will begin to change. The more you listen, the more you'll hear, and the more confidence you’ll have on the dance floor. Your dancing will begin to flow naturally from your deeper connection to the music. This is a process that goes on for a lifetime, and it’s a big part of the fun of tango.

Compás: Most of the dance tangos have a clear compás (most of the time). Tap along in your car as you listen. First the strong beats, then both strong and weak beats. Then, practice tapping to only the weak beats. If you have trouble finding the compás, there's usually someone around who knows music or who dances a lot who can help.

Dancing to different orchestras: I’m not sure you can say you should dance in some specific way to each orchestra. The great orchestras played different tangos in different ways. The most obvious difference, even for a beginner, is the cadence of the music. A faster cadence means you have to take faster steps to stay in the compás. After that, it pretty much depends on every dancers artistic interpretation. If you look at the different milongueros dancing in Chapters 5 and 6, you'll see a wide range of ways to interpret different types of music. As we get further into Chapter 6, we’ll begin to look at this in more detail, and this may help to answer your question. We’re currently on page 20, but we’ll soon post a page that discusses a couple of stepping techniques that can be used for different types of music.

Recommending teachers: We're often asked to do this, but I’m sorry to say that we can’t. I mean it—I really am sorry. If I could say, “Go spend a month with XX, and you’ll be a better dancer”, I’d do it in a second. But the problem is that Alej and I don’t take classes, so if we started making recommendations without taking a million classes and acquiring a first hand knowledge about lots of teachers, it wouldn’t be accurate or fair. Here’s a suggestion: On this site you have some examples of the best social tango dancers in the world. Look at them very carefully, and think about our discussions of the techniques they're using. If you like the dancing, and the discussions make sense to you, then do your own research. Look around and talk to some teachers and students. Tell them what your goals are, and take some classes. Look for someone who knows what they’re doing, and can help you move forward in the way you want to go. But remember, other than mastering a few difficult but basic techniques, the road through tango is very personal. It belongs to you, and no one can tell you how to dance.

Response by Joe:
Thank you so much for your reply. I realize that learning to dance Tango is a personal experience. It's also something that you can't buy off the shelf at your local supermarket. So, I'm enjoying the journey and I don't take myself to seriously. What I want is to dance "elegantly". Now that's a big theme that has many things connected to it.

Other than the literal translation (a simple, unadorned milonga—maybe without traspie, or a vals that originates in the countryside and is danced or played by the native Criollos), I don't know. Maybe you could email and ask the couple that posted the message, and let me know if you find an answer. We’ll also ask around in the milongas to see what we can find out. I'm sure some of the milongueros, or DJs like Dany, Natu, or Orlando will know. (Anyone reading this is also welcome to respond).

Response by Christopher Everett — July 30, 2008
Milonga Lisa is milonga sin traspie, with very simple sequences of forward, back and side steps. Vals Criollo is a subcategory of vals. I've also seen Vals Peruviano and Vals Boston in discographies, for example. There's a species of Argentine folk music that is also 3/4 time like vals, but it's clearly music for people wearing muddy clodhoppers (but great for training newbies to hear the 1-2-3-1-2-3 of vals rhythm). I'm not clear on the specific distinctions, but I know that it has to do with phrasing and rhythmic structure. Hope this helps.

One reason Alej and I stopped dancing outside of BsAs is because we felt that most people didn’t want to take the time to understand tango. Too many people were re-inventing it for their own purposes, and we eventually found that it was just no longer fun to be involved. But the comments we’ve received since we added this section are amazing! There are emails from all over the world, and even though English isn’t always the writer's first language (or maybe even second or third), the passion for tango shines through.

I used to think there was something in the air or the water of Buenos Aires that gave people the unique ability to understand tango—but now I’m not so sure. Even in BsAs, it’s a rare thing to feel tango the way the milongueros and milongueras do, but now I’m beginning to think that there are milongueros and milongueras all over the world. They may not have the opportunities we have in BsAs, but the passion, the humility, and the hunger for tango is there. Thanks for your beautiful email.

Leo, thanks again for your excellent help and attention. It’s surprising how many people read these translations, and they should be correct. So I changed the literal translation of “attached to the boot sole” to “attached to the harness”, meaning, attached somewhere on one of the harnesses. I think that’s about as close as we can get.

The next question is also tough:  Does “barranca” refer to a specific hill, in which case it should be capitalized, or is it just any hill? I think we’re splitting some pretty fine hairs, but it’s a fun discussion, so let’s keep going. It seems to me it could be either one… but if had to guess, I’d say Manzi and Vargas probably didn’t think about it that much. Maybe they just needed a hill to make the story more interesting, and putting in “la” or “una” didn’t fit well with the music.

Anyway, BsAs is pretty flat, and most of the barrancas I know of slope downhill toward the river. And the route from Once to Pompeya is toward the Riachuelo, so you’d expect that if there are any hills, Manoblanca would be more likely to descend rather than climb them. However, in the interest of historical accuracy and academic rigor, I am prepared to go the extra mile on this one… literally! So, if this freezing, grey weather ever lets up,I’ll ride the route on my bicycle, and look for hills! The only people who are more aware of hills than horse cart drivers are cyclists, so I’ll follow an approximation of the boy’s path from Plaza Once to Manoblanca's monument at Centenara y Tabare. And if I find any hills, I’ll ask the locals if they have a name (and maybe also if they ever saw Manoblanca trot by). So stay tuned, and I'll report back. (Meanwhile, if you haven’t heard it in awhile, you might want to listen again to Manoblanca. Vargas is always great, but he’s even greater in this classic tango.)

In music, and also maybe in ballroom dancing, they have a standard method for counting cadence. I don’t have any training in either one, so in tango I simply count the dos por cuatro of the compás as a strong beat followed by a weak beat. To do it in a simple tango walk, you might say “strong” each time your foot strikes the floor, and “weak” when your ankles pass. You could also use “tick-tock” instead of “strong-weak”.

If, however, you decide to step on the “weak” beat that comes in between, you will have to step faster (twice as fast) to hit it. Here’s how your walk would sound if each time your foot strikes the floor, you call out the name of the beat that you're stepping on:
“strong……strong……strong……strong..weak..strong……strong……strong”

Now, let’s substitute numbers:
strong……strong……strong……one..two..three……strong……strong”

Here’s a 5-step corrida, that hits two weak beats in a row. The result is to step on 5 consecutive beats:
“strong……strong……strong……strong..weak..strong..weak..strong……strong……strong"
"strong……strong……strong……one..two..three..four..five……strong……strong”

I don't think there’s a right and wrong way to count the cadence in tango. This is just what I use to understand the corridas that I see in the milongas. Demos of stepping on the weak beats begin on page 16 of Chapter 6, and there are some examples of counting the compás of milongueros on page 20.

As far as people who walk badly on the street, I know all about it because I'm one of them. But I've practiced and worked on it so much that I've been able to overcome it when I dance. Later in Chapter 6 we'll add some of the walking and balance drills that have helped me.