Reading The Tea

I usually get impatient with negative political advertising, but if you don’t know how many houses you own… yeah, you’re asking for it. (Yes, I’m voting for Obama!)

The Etsy Shop Claire La Fay has some lovely sweet-but-not-too-sweet fashions to pine for. The yellow in this slip-dress makes it perfect for summer evenings. Perhaps outdoor dance?

I have a strange habit of taking photos of food before eating. Here’s dinner last night, with artichokes and lemon olive oil butter sauce not pictured. The salsa is heirloom tomato salsa. How decadent! All of the beautiful pottery is made by my mom. It’s much easier to make the table look nice when the dishes are so beautiful to start with.

This was handed down to me by my predecessor. It fell off of one of the trees on Palm Drive.

I dance because I love dancing. This might seem like an absurdly obvious observation, but it’s a concept that’s easy to loose. To me, dancing is not a sport, where I’m trying to make the better team, or like a video game, where I get to “level up” and thus face new and better leaders. Dancing is an experience. Each moment, each person.

I mention this, because I had to reaffirm this to myself recently. I’m an obsessive perfectionist who likes to improve. I spend a lot of time working on my skill and technique in dance. In turn, as I get better, I often feel like I “deserve” to dance with better leaders. I had to take out this feeling and inspect it recently, as I was feeling irritated while dancing with a beginner who cornered me into dancing. Here’s what I concluded: if I agree to dance with someone, I want to put everything into that dance, whether it is a “Tango God” dancing with me, or someone who is dancing for the first time. I want to be fully present (not scoping out my next partner) and I want the tanda to feel great for them — I want my partner to feel like he or she is a great dancer, when dancing with me. A couple weeks later, I decided to add to this. I also want to make it a great tanda for me — this goes partially with the “being present” concept. Full confession: yes, there are some people who are much more enjoyable to dance with than others. But each moment can be good.

This sounds great in theory, but breaks down with one type of dancer: dancers who try to lead more than what they really can. I have had some lovely tandas with beginners who simply walked. I have had some horrible tandas with people trying all sorts of boleos and sacadas and I’m-not-really-sure-whats-because-it’s-not-clear. Practicas and classes are a great time to work on new vocabulary. Milongas are NOT. There are also people who decide that they can jump past elementary things like “frame” and “connection” and jump right into fancy legwork. As a result, I had one leader actually loose his balance and need to steady himself on me while he had me on one leg doing a boleo. I think that leaders feel a lot of pressure to not bore a follow, but from my perspective, I’m not bored if you focus on what you can do, communicating with me, feeling the music. The fancy stuff can wait. At a milonga recently, someone I had never danced with asked me to dance, and proceded to take a very tight close-embrace. I like dancing close embrace (my preferred frame), but this lead didn’t lead from his chest. He led from his legs. You can guess the result. I tried to gently slip out to open embrace, but he held me firmly close. After flung off my axis to the point I thought that I was going to land on the floor, I put a hand on his shoulder and forced an open embrace (something I never do). “Did I almost push you over?” he demanded. “Yes,” I replied. The rest of the tanda became a game for me: he tries to push my over through poor attempts at flashy moves, I try to stay upright. I contemplated thanking him after one song, but didn’t want to embarress him, so decided to see it through. At the end of the second song, he thanked me abruptly in the middle of the floor, turned, and stalked off the floor. [For those readers who don't dance tango, it's generally insulting not to dance an entire tanda -- 3-4 songs -- with a partner. The way to end dancing with someone is to thank them.] I felt a mixture of relief and resentment at the dismissal. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to deal with this type of dancer. Would it help if someone said something to him?

 Touching animation… Necessary disclaimer that Tango Fantasia isn’t my cup of tea, but this is quite worth watching.  

(This is from a follow’s perspective, but I suspect much of it is relevant to leaders.)
    In beginning Argentine Tango classes, instructors like to remind students that it’s just walking. Everyone knows how to walk. I think that this may be necessary to prevent complete overload for people starting out. Recently though, I’ve been thinking a lot about walking. When you’re walking “normally” — out of a dance context — are you really stable?
   Stand up for a second and try something. Walk. Just your normal walk. Are you on your own axis with each step, or are you catching yourself? Isn’t walking really just a series of small falls? Now try walking again, but this time, put all of your weight directly over the supporting leg. The leg you’re on is the trunk of a tree, with roots going deep into the ground. When you’ve taken a step, you are so stable that even if someone gives you a shove, you’re able to keep standing. Grounded. On your axis. Ready to do boleos or change direction quickly.
    Here’s the paradox though: You must be fully stable, while at the same time maintaining lightness, mobility. Another visualization: your core (torso) is suspended firmly in the air by ropes around your torso. You are fully supported, so you don’t need to wobble or lean. Your shoulders are loaded on top of your rib cage with no responsibility — just along for the ride. Your legs dangle on strings from your hip sockets, like a marionette. 
   Now combine the two sensations, and you have a combination of stability and mobility. In modern dance we used to talk about finding stability through mobility, and vice versa.
     Of course, the above ignores that sometimes it’s important to have a distribution of weight on both legs, etc., etc… So many complications. But that’s what keeps it fascinating, right?