Everytime I close my eyes I imagine myself dancing tango. I smile and a sense of bliss comes to me.

I imagine myself being good enough to lead a follower that I could not get my eyes out of on the dance floor. Is this a tango dancer crush? I didn’t dance with her. Maybe in some months I will see her again.

She also leads. When I close my eyes I imagine we dancing a tanda where we exchange leading and following (I love to follow too). A blurry 20 seconds role exchange after each music, giving the leader of the song enough time to feel the music. I imagine we closing eyes in turns and just smiling at the mutual pleasure of both roles in a dance. Of sharing with each other the roles interpretations. Of getting really intimate in the dance.

We actually introduced ourselves to each other early in the festival but after I saw her dance I was never bold enough to venture. I took the platonic route. That keeps alive the dream of a dance. There’s only one way to keep alive a platonic tango crush. And it helps if we go unnoticed

Dancing tango can be dangerous. The feelings it creates are so strong…

ModernTanguera (MT) has a post concerning a Pugliese Tanda. She details what she considers essential for her enjoyment. I don’t know about people that don’t like dancing to Pugliese. I’m sure there are but I just can’t not dance to it. It’s traditionally considered a special tanda and people tend to save it for their most special person.

What I need to have a follower be able to do to enjoy a Pugliese tanda:

• Balance and lots of it. I need great control over the timming of a walk, side, etc. Throwing me out of balance will make it impossible
• Musicality. It takes two to tango. If I’m the only one interpreting the music, the experience doesn’t work that well. I’ll give you all the time in the world… I expect you to take advantage of it !
• Sharp with picking up the mood and big changes of rhythm.
• Knowledge and control of a floating axis

I had a tanda of Pugliese last weekend with a follower that is a better dancer. It was amazing. I could fully and reciprocally express my musical interpretation. We were very happy at the end but I’m sure she’s had better Puglieses. I’m gonna keep trying to take my Pugliese interpretations further and further…

I am deeply in love by Pugliese’s music. Dynamic, rhythmic, full of suprises. It breathes the essence of what Tango really is. Inside and outside the milonga event.

Tango is a way of life, not taking some classes with the currently famous dancers and living like a gringo for some weeks in a different country.

Someone is putting some sense in the nonsense that has been going on for the last days (concerning nuevo dancers)!

There is nothing inherently wrong with nuevo. However, its culture is different from the culture of contemporary Argentine social tango. There is nothing wrong in separating them into different niches, i.e., separate events. Each can have its own atmosphere. Dancers can attend these different events and respect the environment intended by the event organizer. Just as they do in Buenos Aires. Some people may go to both types of events, adapting their dance to the environment they are entering. Doing this respects the unique characteristics of both and allows each its environment to flourish. It reduces the conflict between people who have different interpretations of tango.

Ron in Tango-L.

The more I go to milongas, the better I can see and appreciate a good social milonga floor craft. This means that I’ve started cringing when I see people switching back and forth between lanes, overtaking, and making everyone else in the dance floor cautious about getting hurt. Truth be told, I may even not dance if two or more couples of kamikazes are on the dance floor. It’s just not worth it.

I’ve been reading a bit on blogs about how you behave and respect others on the dance floor. This of course implies that you can dance small and are mindful of everyone else in the floor. I see a lot of debate about what makes a great dance which always include, obviously, how you approach and dance with your partner. You need to put your heart in it. I don’t – at least as prominently – see people talking also about how social dancing implies everyone else on the dance floor. It is totally different to dance in a smaller setting where you are totally relaxed, not worried about anyone hitting you or being less mindful and a more guerrilla dance floor where you want to have a great dance but you know some kamikaze may ruin it.

I get joy of respecting and sharing the same floor in a respectful manner with other dancers. They are my tango friends and peers. Why isn’t this respect more widespread and why isn’t tango culture doing a better job at cultivating the joy of a shared experience? It is real.

During a milonga, dancers on the floor tend to follow a bell-shaped curve. This means that at the peak time, there’s very few space for each couple on the dance floor. My ability to drive around the dance floor is still improving and I feel that my most common “mistake” (or less considerate action) is to not occupy the space left ahead of me as quickly as I should. Happens more often if I’m having a blast and doing very small and simple stuff on the spot.

But I’d like to bring your attention – and help – to another matter. Sometimes, I will get a couple that is right on top of me, just behind me. As in, 1 inch. I like to keep a small space between me and the next couple. Enough for him to setup a giro, 1-2 small steps, etc. At yesterday’s milonga, for a couple of times, the couple behind me was just right next to me, giving me virtually no space. Is this normal? What’s the best way to cope with this?

I have a passion about human nature, both in a social context and as an individual. Most of my attention span is almost always a bit split between what I am doing and observing others. It’s a passion. I love to see how different people react and how that fuels the building of social texture that we all share.

While going through some older posts of some tango blogs in my news reader, I ran across this post in Mark’s blog. It bridges current scientific knowledge about performance at high levels and how it can be applied to the tango world. Broadly speaking, it applies to every activity really. The bottom line is that perseverance in pursuing your defined goals will pay off. It is interesting to stress the – now famous – expression called deliberate practice. Here’s a rough explanation from here:

The best people in any field are those who devote the most hours to what the researchers call “deliberate practice.” It’s activity that’s explicitly intended to improve performance, that reaches for objectives just beyond one’s level of competence, provides feedback on results and involves high levels of repetition.

Mark did a great job of summarizing a lot of Anders Ericsson’s work and translating it Tango (for fun, also read this articles by Steven and Stephen). After reading Mark’s post and some original research papers (I am geek, I’m sorry) I immediately looked into what has been my experience as a tango dancer. First and foremost, I have not deliberately practiced as often as I should have. In class or practicas, it’s easy to default to things you already know and just enjoy it along with the music. This is easier said than done because sometimes absolutely beginners make puppy eyes and you can’t escape dancing with them. Also, getting a serious dance partner would probably help a lot at this stage.

On the other hand, it got me thinking as to why some people don’t have a serious drive to improve. Roughly half of the persons in my community aren’t seriously into technique. When talking about professors, most of them say that my teacher moves too slowly for them. I agree. Too slowly in giving you moves. But the professor makes you realize how you can’t even properly do simple things with absolute control. It requires a lot of technique and not guesswork. It requires countless times of trying it out and thinking hard about what makes what you’re trying to do work.

I have come to realize over many years of different physical activities that technique is important from a physical point of view but also from a mental one. Normally, people think of technique as a mere physical outcome. The more technically talented persons I know, the more I have found that they have deeply pondered about ideas, concepts and surrounding affairs concerning what they excel at. Concerning tango, they’re not amazing dancing robots. They have developed their own ideas through countless hours of practice and discussions with others. They’ve tried different approaches and conceptualized ideas that they are willing to share with others. That is, in essence, one of the reasons that keep persons motivated and actually deliberately practicing. By constantly assessing where you are, where you want to go and how to reach it – by thinking hard about it – you are always creating new goals to achieve. Newer pieces of the puzzle that make perfect sense.

My naive observation at this time is that communities tend to create subgroups of persons depending on how they see and live Tango. It is my wish that the technique focused ones will grow at a faster rate than the others.

When followers compliment me, usually it’s my musicality. I play and hear a lot of music so I thought that would be normal. However, honestly, I always thought that was a way to say something positive since my technique clearly is lacking in most areas. I believe in respecting everyone’s feelings and in a social setting like a milonga, I don’t care about mistakes or not doing it perfectly. I care about having a great moment while dancing with a person.

But, “musical” is good and I proud myself of that. And honestly, you don’t need crazy technique to have a wonderful dance. You just need two persons opening their heart for some musics or a whole tanda. I decided to tell this story because while reading this post by sallycat I remembered how important it is to dance with your heart open. And that’s what I learned at my last milonga.

A follower I know went to dance with a leader she considers amazing – he looks amazing to me too – and the person sitting next to him was a follower I had never danced with. I decided, why not? She looks friendly and I should capitalize whenever I feel like dancing with a new person. She seemed very humble and happy to dance a bit more before the milonga was over. I didn’t feel any of the “so, are you that good to invite me?” vibe or the more usual “ok, let’s dance, I’d rather dance than just be sitting I guess…” vibe.

At the beginning of the dance I told her that I was a beginner. I know I shouldn’t have: it’s too much information. But I immediately felt we had an open channel of truth and she just smiled at me. I danced very slowly, very simple and just trying to get to know her, how she moves and how we were connecting. We only moved around half the room. Simple, slow movements, with the music. On the second music I felt we were connected and in sync right from the start and I danced with my heart. I moved like I felt like and only did things that my body knows by now how to do them on its own. Things I’ve practiced enough times to be confident enough to play with their timing. Simple things of course, I’m a beginner.

It was clear to me that she was enjoying the simple moves, the slow turns, the pauses. At a point in the music, we stayed together for about 10 to 20 seconds, just feeling the music, the pause in movement, the moment that made that dance magic and unique. We moved a quarter of the room. When the music ended she said “You’re not a beginner“. I smiled back.