November 10, 2008

Amazing dancers

Watching amazing dancers on the dance floor can have several effects. One of them is to make you realize how much you still have to learn, practice and internalize. On the other hand, it is very easy to be blown away and feel bad about sharing a dance floor doing your own thing, cumbersome in comparison. You feel limited by your abilities and less able to give another great dancer a great time.

As a leader, no matter whatever other might say, I always feel guilty about a less good dance. A missed connection, literally. One thing I’ve been dealing with is also to realize that a lot of great dancers on the dance floor are professionals. I want to dance better and better but it is also important to keep things a bit in perspective.

While this frustration may be very hard on you on the spot, at the milonga, it is also a source of energy to work hard and let go of less good feelings afterwards. We need to enjoy the journey.

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November 9, 2008

peer pressure

No matter how much you know that you shouldn’t be affected, sharing a dance floor with people doing beautiful open moves can be tough. Yes, we want to think that is all about musicality, small and beautiful. But it still gets to you. And you want to be able to do it.

Maybe to not do it so much afterwards?

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November 5, 2008

Cooling off

Today I got a thank you in the middle of a tanda. That was good to tame the ego. Far too high lately.

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November 4, 2008

Exquisite musicality

Mostly walking…

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November 3, 2008

Magical dances

Some of my friends keep telling me, when I ask about their tango, that they haven’t had an amazing dance for a long time now. Women. I always wonder about this. I still remember one amazing dance that I had when I was even more padawan. It was everything people normally mention and more.

But the thing is, I’m constantly having a great time out there. I can honestly count with one hand the nights that I’d rather forget. I can always remember something cool about a dance or having fun while dancing with my friends. I do not enter a milonga looking for the magical tanda or dance. I honestly don’t. Come to think of it, I haven’t really put much thought into as to what I think when I enter a milonga venue. I guess I feel the place, the vibe of who’s there and look more or less forward to dancing with who I see.

I don’t practice to get tango highs. I practice because I’m actually having fun by challenging myself and improving with dance partners. I do practice to better express tango the way I feel that tanda or day. I’ve found that being overly self-conscious doesn’t help so I’ve been looking more forward to improving rather than worrying about plateaus or current stages.

I wonder if I should be looking for the tango bliss more.

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November 3, 2008

Still haven’t figured it out

Recently someone commented on my dancing: “Your upper body does something and your legs do another”.

I’m still trying to figure out if it was a compliment or what. I do know what she means (!) but I also know why I do it and why I love doing it…

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November 3, 2008

Port wine

Learning tango is like Port Wine. The longer you age it inside the better and more refined it becomes.

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September 24, 2008

Well, better that than pity dances

I’m going through a lot of tango blog posts. I’ve been more worried about work and dancing than actually writing about it. Going through those posts, I found Sorin’s post about being rudely denied a dance. I mean, yes, it was honest. I’d rather have that than this (I haven’t invited her again). She was brutally honest. She spoke what she felt. I’d rather believe she respects you by telling you the truth than saying her feet hurt or whatever lame excuse you’ve heard before.

I find funny why people expect tango communities to be overly friendly. I mean, just look at the profiles of people that constitute them. Normally, they’re full of all-round ambitious persons that have devoted a lot of time and dedication to the dance. A lot of them have learned about the history, the music and spent countless hours thinking about technique and built their own philosophy to approach the dance. I’d rather have one great dance with someone every month than so so dances weekly. I mean it. I’m not saying you should expect rudeness, but you should not expect fairy-tale behavior from anyone.

One of the biggest attractions of tango to me is getting close to my native background while being in US. I am originally from a country where people speak a lot more from the heart, less chit chat and even less bothering endeavors such as being “nice” or “pleasant” on demand. I expect people to be sincere to me at a milonga and I’d rather have someone tell me I suck to them than pity dances. I also expect any follower that dances with me to be in the right mindset. When one dances, one should put toda la carne en el assador.

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July 11, 2008

El Abrazo perfecto

Una Milonguera has a nice post about what (most I would risk) people are looking for in tango: El Abrazo perfecto. The perfect embrace (click here for the google translation from spanish).

Somehow this echoed back into my personal life, non-tango related. Well, we actually had some tango lessons together… I’ve had the experience of the perfect embrace. The non-tango one that is. This cartoon describes a bit what it was like and the last bit how I felt about it for a while. It’s over and I’ve moved on (or so I want to convince myself):

But I fully understand and realize what the original post is about. It’s that special connection, that moment when you embrace someone and everything around you disappears and there’s no more steps/moves/thoughts. There’s a flow. A perfect flow, pressure free of having to show off or remember to stay straight. I haven’t had had un abraco perfecto right at the beginning of the music. I’ve had embraces that build and reveal themselves over a tanda. A couple were memorable. I still remember them.

The most profound aspect of the post though is how you can make parallels between the embrace psyche in tango and with everyone’s life in general. I know there’s no meaning to life besides Tango but we also love. Deeply. Inside and outside Tango’s walls. The hope of the perfect tanda embrace keeps us going back and back just like we go back to find that someone special after we fail. We all know that it is out there waiting to be savored. We’ve all had glimpses of it. We feed off glimpses, maybes and the concept of the existence of the perfect union between two human beings. Embraced.

Un grande abrazo para vos.

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June 30, 2008

Why?

Why do some followers accept to dance with someone if they’re not really interested in dancing with that person? Is it even enjoyable for them?

I finished the tanda but I believe next time I won’t.

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