On the Argentine tango groups one of the most recurrent and divisive debates is that of the embrace.
 Aggressive line-ups collide and leave dead on the battlefield... on the one hand there are the purists of the close embrace, or rather very close, sometimes even apilado, and on the other hand there are the tango nuevo's lovers who always want the open embrace without exception.
I'm not in it, I'm not playing this game: I'm not interested in participating in this litigation at all... not because I don't want to take a position but because the point/the focus is really something else.
 Already the trend today is to divide the world into good and bad, creating the line-up of those who do the right thing and those who do the wrong thing, and it's a sport that not only does not fascinate me but that I do not even think healthy, but with regard to the theme of the embrace in the Argentine tango have just wrong the target!

The hug is certainly the key point in the Argentine tango because in the hug pass the info, outward and return (yes, communication is two-way and also includes a return, remember it self-centered leaders ;-), but the goodness of the hug is certainly not measured by the centimeters or millimeters that separate the chest of the leader from that of the follower!
The goodness of a hug is the one where there is communication/connection: it can be narrow or wide, it can vary from narrow to wide...we can't say a priori that one type of hug works and one doesn't!
 There are couples who have a wonderful connection in an open embrace, other couples are wonderfully together in a close embrace: the magic that can be created in a tango is not axiomatically linked to a certain type of embrace.

Too often one hears or reads speeches in which one discriminates against one type of hug forgetting that, in my opinion, one must necessarily know both hugs and then play with them, without prejudice and mental rigidity. Always in my opinion, you have to acquire both the technique of the open embrace and the close embrace and do not forget that the technique, fundamental, is not enough! Only by listening to our partner, leader or follower, can we find, tanda after tanda, the right hug, the one that guarantees us more communion, relationship and therefore mutual pleasure!

Too often, in more than twenty years of dancing, I've seen scenes of dancers back to their seats with sore backs because they were scrambled by dancers who squeezed their lives like a mop, as well as leaders weakened by followers hanging mercilessly around their necks... and in both cases they wondered: why does he want to dance in a tight embrace if he can't?

 On the other hand, I also saw scenes of followers who, sitting back, disconsolate, after a tanda in a open embrace, complained that "nothing could be understood"... only arms that were moving unevenly without any criteria. Finally I saw sad and tired leaders after a tanda with a dancer who insisted on dancing in a open embrace but she didn't have the proper technique to do so....
These 4 cases in my opinion are dictated by a desire, more or less conscious, to be on the right side of the barricade ... and here we return to the initial theme: it is very difficult to relate if we raise fences, right?

Dancing tango is dancing together, creating together ... do it in the embrace that seems to you!
 The beauty of tango is the relationship, nourishing and creative: let's not stop at the appearance!