Where can I dance Monday (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday etc...)?
If I know about an event it is posted on TangoSanDiego.com. If I know that it has been cancelled, it has been taken off of TangoSanDiego.com. If you want to double check if there are no last minute cancellations you should contact the individual milonga organizers. There is contact information for all the milongas on TangoSanDiego.com. Can you tell that I want you to read TangoSanDiego.com before you ask me a question?

I'm visiting from _______ how can I get to the milongas?
This is a miserable town for mass transit and our milongas are spread all over the city. If you are staying in downtown, the only nearby milongas are Tango Addicts Milonga which is a somewhat affordable taxi ride from downtown, or probably doable by bus if you're brave and Milonga Sin Nombre which is near the trolley line. If you manage to get TO the milonga and let the organizer know that you need some help finding a ride home,they can often (usually?) hook you up with a local travelling the same direction.

For the rest of the milongas, if you are not renting a car then your best bet is to post a message to our Yahoo Group to see if anyone will offer a ride. If you don't want to join the group, email me and I will post your message. People seem pretty good about offering rides, we all know if we were visiting your city, we'd need some help too. Also the tango community in San Diego sees a lot of each other, so we are generally willing to go out of our way to facillitate some visiting fresh faces getting to our milongas.

Which milonga is the best?/should I go to?/do you like?
I assume you got here from TangoSanDiego.com but if you didn't, then check it out for the unbiased overview.
Also read the messages at the San Diego Tango Yahoo Group for the latest info and special events.

Of course I'm partial to the Tango Addicts Milonga Thursdays in North Park (seeing as how I'm the DJ and can play whatever music I like). But I'm not the only person who likes it. The music tends to be mainly classic, with a few modern variations, and well thought out (thank you, I know, I know. I'm too modest). The floor is good, (but used to be better) and the atmosphere is warm. Downsides are that it is Thursday night and that there are less people than the weekend milongas and parking can be a nuisance.

Milonga Sin Nombre Fridays at Pattie Wells Dancetime Center. Nice, pretty advanced crowd (I'd say the second biggest crowd after Saturday night), great floor, friendly attitude. I would say that this is the youngest crowd in San Diego since the organizers and DJs are all UCSD students and there tends to be good representation from UCSD. The music here is also the most avante-garde of the regular milongas, sometimes a good thing, sometimes not.

Milonga Pensalo Bien (second sunday of the month) at Dancefor2 Studio is usually a great time, frequently drawing some visitors from Orange County and LA. DJ Sabbah is the most universally praised DJ in San Diego and this studio is very warm and inviting. The floor is small enough to force people to practice good navigation at peak hours. Milonga Nocturna is also held at Dancefor2 Studio (last Saturday of the month - sometimes get cancelled due to conflicts - be sure to check the website). This is now a "late night" milonga instead of "all night". Probably for the best. Going to sleep at dawn isn't all that good for me, even if it was only once a month!

Ciao Bella: Another entry into the cafe/tango scene, this is an charming italian restaurant owned by two tango dancers who open it up for dancing two days a week. Jan Wilcox DJs on Wednesdays, he can generally be counted on for some rock solid traditional music with some alternative spice thrown in. Linda Garwood organizes the event on Saturday with ALL traditional music. The floor is small, but the atmosphere is very inviting, and the food is great (especially the tiramisu). This venue tends to attract close embrace dancers, due to the constraints of the floor, especially on Saturday. Wednesday is a pretty hardcore group of dancers, who else would be out mid-week?


El Mundo del Tango: People who learned to dance here think it is the best place in town. I used to go nearly every week. They've done a great job with their remodel and new floor and the place has a much better atmosphere now. Some people find this milonga cliquish there first few times there.

Now I've just never gone much to Milonga Gricel Sunday at DNC, mainly because of the geography (takes me 35 minutes to get there), so I really can't say anything about it. I hear the music is very classic, and I know the floor is great, but I don't know how the crowd and people are.

I'm starting to learn to tango in San Diego, where should I take classes?
It doesn't matter, just start! If you decide that you like tango then take classes from as many different teachers as you can. In my experience no one teacher has all the answers, but if you study with several and take from each what works for you, then you'll be on the right track. There are a lot of great teachers in San Diego and who is teaching each month varies so don't obsess over finding the perfect teacher to start with. Find a class with a time and location that fits your schedule so you will be able to stick with it. If you get bitten by the bug you will end up with so many teachers you won't really remember the first one. That said, if the first teacher you try doesn't inspire you, don't give up. There are a lot of different teaching styles in San Diego and not all of them work for everyone. Try a couple of teachers with different backgrounds before you decide to take up salsa instead.

OK, but if you HAD to recommend someone to start with, who would it be?
Fine, if you insist. If you start at the right time there is a nice series of classes offered by the UCSD Tango Club as well as classes through the Rec Department. Some of those classes are taught by Isabelle Kay and Florentino Guizar, who are excellent teachers and have other classes listed on their website. I also highly recommend Linda Garwood who specializes in Milonguero style. I will be doing a free intro class before Milonga Sin Nombre starting in the late spring, so be sure to check that out.

What do you think are the most important elements to learning tango?
Get out dancing! What good is learning to tango if you don't go out? Seriously, if you go out dancing, you will get to dance with different partners which will teach you to lead or follow and not just repeat what you learned in class. Also you will have the opporitunity to listen to a lot of different music and really start to feel it. LISTEN to the music! The more you listen to the music, both while dancing and any other time, the more you will be able to dance TO the music. The simplest steps can be sublime when danced musiclly and complex figures can be torture when done out of time to the music. And most important, be patient! This is a deceptively difficult dance. Seemingly simple things like walking can take years to feel right. Developing connection and the fabulous tango experience that it gives is very subtle. But if you persevere, you will be glad. This is a dance like no other and if you stick with it long enough to really get it, there is a spiritual aspect to it that will blow you away.

Who did you study tango with?
Locally I started with Lowell Gosser, then I took classes with Bill Colvan at El Mundo del Tango. I took classes for quite awhile from Marizabel and then with her and Todd once they started teaching together. I have studied with Metin Yazir and Leandro and Andrea, and Robin Thomas nearly every time they've come to San Diego. And I have taken a few classes with so many visiting instructors that I can't even remember them all!

Who did you learn the most from? Who does your style most resemble?
I like to think that I have my own style. I've learned something from everyone that I've studied with. My style is an amalgamation of elements from all the teachers I've studied with, fit to my personality.

You have a really fabulous tango collection. How can I get a tango collection like yours?
Get CDs sent by the kilo from Buenos Aires.

No seriously, I want to buy Tango music, where do I go?
Locally, both Borders and Tower Records have very small selections of Tango. Be careful, it is difficult to get good Tango from a general music store. If you want to buy in bulk, it doesn't get any better than Zivals. Their prices are around $10 per CD, but the initial shipping is about $20. That doesn't go up much when you add more CDs though, so if you are buying 10 or more CDs, it starts to really be a good deal. They have a great selection and you can listen to clips for a lot of the CDs. I've been consistantly happy with how good their customer service was and amazed at how fast their shipping is (3-4 days- from Argentina!). If you are just getting a couple of CDs then I recommend Bridge to the Tango. Their customer service was very good, their prices are pretty much the same as all the other specialty Tango stores (but you won't have to pay sales tax...) and their shipping was reasonable and fast. They are also a great source for Tango instructional videos. Danza y Movimiento is a European source of tango music. They have premium prices and shipping is high, but sometimes when you can't find it anywhere else and you just have to have it, they're the place to try.

I have been seriously coveting the hand cleaned music set that Keith Elshaw has produced. It is a little hard for me to rebuy tons of music that I already own, but the fidelity seems awesome. He has some cds of only milongas and valses which can be useful if your collection is lacking in those. You can also buy CDs arranged as tandas which can be useful if you just want to have a party and have prerecorded music. On the other end of the spectrum, if you want a lot of low fidelity music for not much money, you can buy mp3 cds from Todo Tango. Just a warning, I have found that quite a few of these are not just scratchy quality, but terrible, terrible quality that I played once and took out of my playlist. And this is coming from someone who is used to the poor sound quality of tango music! I do not know what percentage, but I would say that it is less than 25%, maybe closer to 10%. I still think it was worth it - I mean it was 1200 mp3s for about $120 shipped...

Wow! I had no idea there was so much tango music out there. But I don't know what to buy, what do you recommend?
That's a tough question. It really depends on how long you've been dancing and what kind of tangos attract you. For vocal tangos I suggest starting with Calo, Troilo and Biagi. For instrumentals I like Troilo, Pugliese and Canaro. Of course there's thousands of great songs out there and every orquestra has a distinct sound. If you have no idea what you like, I suggest you start with a compilation and listen to see what you like. Pa' Que Bailen los Muchachos from Bridge to the Tango was a good one. Others exist, but I don't know how to locate them at the moment. If you find a compilation just make sure that it is the original artists and not some reader's digest version (embarrassingly I made that mistake - in my defense I bought it 5 years before I even started dancing Argentine Tango and I knew it was crap the first time I listened to it!). If you want to jump right into buying from specific orquestras then check out this list Music for Beginning dancers

OK, I bought a compilation and listened to it, now I'm ready for more, What should I buy?
Well, now it is time for you to start deciding for yourself what kind of tango music suits you. The site that I referred to daily when I was building my collection is tango music for social dancing. A slightly more historical approach is To Tango, Steve Elshaw's site. He is a very knowledgeable music guru who is involved in a project to restore tango recordings.

Here's a CD will you play track #9?
Hmmm. Probably not. If you have some tango you really love, send me an email with the name of the song and the orquestra and I'll see if I have it. If I don't, then send me an mp3 or make me a copy of it and I'll try to work it in,. I generally set my Tandas up ahead of time so playing requests of music I don't know on the spot can be difficult. I really like to set up the evening's music so that it has a flow to it and throwing in a random piece of music that I'm not familiar with can really disrupt the mood that I am trying to set. Again, if you really love a piece of music, send it to me ahead of time and I will try to work it in (If you want it played, please, please tell me the title and name of the orquestra, I have OCTD - obsessive compulsive tango disorder - nothing goes on my hard drive or gets played unless I know the name of the song and who performs it).

Why don't you play Piazzolla at your milonga?
Because I don't want to have to pass out Prozac at the end of the night. Why do you keep asking me that? Piazzolla is very interesting music. I listen to it sometimes when I don't feel like dancing. It is the only tango that my jazz-loving, tango-hating co-workers would ever let me listen to in the lab. But by and large, it's not dance music. I will very occasionally play Oblivion or Ausencias late at night when the mood strikes me, but mainly I like to dance to golden age tango and so that's what I play. I've been getting mainly positive comments so I'm going to stick with what works.

So what is the big deal about platforms? Do you feel like you lose contact with the floor?
I LOOOOOOVE platform dance shoes. I bought two pair in BsAs and I can't imagine going back. I am more comfortable in my 3.5 inch heels with platform soles than I am in my two inch practice shoes without them. They are especially valuable if you are dancing on a less than ideal floor (stone, tile, wood over concrete). You do lose a little bit of the feel for the floor (the feeling of pain when you have been dancing for 5 hours...) but I found that I adapted quickly and now the feeling of being in suede bottom or thin leather soles is excruciating for me. Not all platforms are created equal, however. Make sure that you get a high quality shoe with a flexible platform. A stiff platform make me feel like Frankenstein's monster when I am dancing. My original pair from Fattomano are dreamy. My red and black pair from The Tango Shop are a little less flexible, but I am giving them a chance to break in a little. (Update - almost a year later and I LOOOOVE this pair of shoes. The platform softened up nicely and the suede is sooo comfortable. They so comfortable that they are my official workshop shoes.) I also recently bought a pair of platforms from Tara Tango Shoes (model "Alma") and I love them as well. They are currently my second favorite pair of shoes, after my red and black platform pair, mainly because the suede is softer and I have had a bunching issue with the footbed liner (solvable but annoying). I didn't like the platforms I got from Mr Tango Shoes at all, they are very stiff and I find it difficult to dance in them.

I love your shoes. Where can I get some?

Take the Subway Linea D to the Scalabrini-Ortiz stop. From there it is only a few blocks to Fattomano at Guatemala 4464, Palermo. Yes, the shoes will take twice as long to get made as he tells you, and he only works certain hours, and good luck getting them sent to the US (believe me, I've tried) but so far his shoes are the best I've had. The pair I own are four and a half years old and while they are well worn, they still function beautifully. They tend to be a little more practical looking than some of the flashy shoes like Comme Il Faut or Neotango, but they make fabulous everyday dance shoes. These were the only dance shoes I wore for 2.5 years!

4.5 years old and still the best shoe I've ever had!

OK. But if I'm not going to Buenos Aires anytime soon, where can I buy shoes?

Finally a new pair of shoes from The Tango Shop

I finally have a new recommendation!!! And not a moment too soon. A proper tango diva can only survive so long with only one pair of tango shoes (even if they are as fabulous as the the ones above). I just got a new pair of shoes from The Tango Shop and while I don't love them quite as much as my Fattomanos they are much better than the other pair I bought recently. I was able to have a platform added to them, get leather sole and choose a heel height. This pair is suede and they were soft, high quality feeling from the moment I put them on. The platform is decently flexible (this is NOT the one inch platform you see on some of their shoes). Not quite as flexible as my Fattomanos, but they also haven't been truely broken in. They are the first shoe I've had since my Fattomanos that I didn't feel like I needed to break in, the leather is already soft and comfortable and the platform flexes reasonably with my step. I do hope that the platform gets even more flexible as I dance in them, but that is the only thing that I hope breaks in really. I do not know how well they will last in the long run since I have only had them a couple of weeks, but my first impression is that the quality is very good and the prices are about $50 less than Tara Tango. They did take closer to 6 weeks to deliver than the four weeks quoted on their site, but they were well worth the wait.

I have purchased three pair of shoes from Tango Wear. I ordered two pair of platform shoes and ended up with a pair of HOT blue stilettos that didn't fit my housmate. They are ok, but I don't LOVE them. I will try to give more details on exactly WHY later. Other people have had big problems getting the right size from them (which is how I ended up with my housemate's shoes) but the two pair that I ordered were fine (they didn't have the right heel that I ordered though...)

I have an pair of Tara Tango Shoes in one of her old styles (5 or 6 years old, Malena in black suede with the 3.5 inch thin heel) as well as a new pair of platform "Alma" shoes. I really like her shoes and find her platforms to be nice and flexible. My general impression is that she uses high quality materials, and you pay a premium for that, but in my experience I'd rather have one pair of her expensive shoes than three cheaper pairs (my The Tango Shop shoes excluded). I've recently been buying more frivolous pairs of shoes to wear every once in a while when I am feeling like being funky. I now have three pair of Comme il Faut. I like them, but I don't love them like some people do. The stiletto is great when I want to be really flashy, but I find I get more bang for my buck from two my favorite pairs of platform shoes. I can dance longer and I feel more centered. I got GREAT service from Debirah Designs though I did pay a premium for shipping from Canada. It was worth it to get the perfect pair of shoes though. (She also carries Neotango which are high on my list of shoes to try.) I bought another pair in person from Carrie Chelsea at a festival and she was very pleasant to do business with, but I cannot vouch for her shipping, but I like the previews on her website. My housemate has ordered a couple of times from Jenninfer Bratt and while she has been satisfied overall, she has been a little disappointed with how long it takes these instock, shipped priority, items to get to her. There are many other places to buy Comme il Faut - Air de Tango, Diva Boutique, and Julia Bella (email for selection) are ones that I have bookmarked.

I have also bought two pair of shoes from Traspie. These shoes seem to be sold by three different ebay ids Tango 8, Tango Direct, and Traspie Shoes. I've ordered from two of them and had no problems. I paid about $60 (with shipping!) for each pair. For frivolous shoes they are pretty good. They run SLIGHTLY large (but probably not large enough to go down a half size unless you are right on the edge). I also ordered one pair from Darcos. I don't like these as much. I found the balance on the pair I bought to be a little odd. They were also a half size (and maybe a little more) too big. They were a REALLY frivolous pair though so I just put an insole in them. They also have a store but I would never pay that for these shoes. Ebay prices are about right for the quality of these shoes.

My current wish list is: Neotango, Madreselva and Neotango in that order. I REALLY need to get back to BsAs so I can buy LOTS of shoes... Someday.

Jorge Nel's Mr Tango Shoes has a large and customizable selection. He also has the platform style available in several models, but his platform just doesn't work for me, it is very stiff and makes me feel very clutzy (I can't use my feet the way I am used to in his shoe). They are nice looking, but they just aren't quite as comfortable as my Taras or my Argentine shoes. The leather is a bit stiffer and they just don't mold quite as well to my feet. Linda sells these shoes for him, so you can contact her for a custom fitting. She also has some models and sizes in stock.

If you have to try on shoes, or need them now, then try Carmen's in the College Area. These are ballroom shoes, which I don't like as much for tango (I prefer a leather sole over a suede sole), but she stocks a great selection.