tango: walk this way

I haven’t ‘blogged’ about my experience as a dancer in almost 4 years.  While I don’t plan to pick up the blog again, anytime soon. There are some things that I really want to get off my chest. I have debated with myself to post this or not to post about this topic because I knew how it would be seen from multiple vantage points. I went with posting it because its something that needed to get said….and I was simply tired of holding on to it. Let me qualify a few things before I rip this topic apart.

1.) I am *NOT* speaking as a teacher of the form, but 1 dancer to another. Those from other dancing disciplines may not fully understand the world of argentine tango, its only after a long while of studying the form (over the last 5 years, daily) from multiple perspectives of the form that I have the luxury to speak in the following fashion. For those just learning the dance, don’t be put off by what follows, these are all the things you don’t want to do, think of it as a do and don’t list that’s very said with a lot of vim and verve!

2.) I *AM* the sole of all my tango wisdom, which is to say that I know what I know.  I am not looking to change the world or to make your world any safer, because I realize I can’t do that.  I also realize that I am one man, and I can’t change anything.  But I do know a few things about what I have learned, and experienced, and its from that perspective that I am coming from.

3.) This is going to sound arrogant.  Too bad, get over it.  I make no apologies for my view point, none whatsoever.  I refuse to counter on this one, and I refuse, I absolutely, steadfastly, blatantly REFUSE to back down.

4.) I honestly don’t care one iota what you think or believe about this topic, and if you want to comment, you can comment to yourself, because to be honest with you I’m not spending another minute of what’s left of my life in pain.  If you want to, that’s up to you, but for me, my back, my arms, and my chiropractic bill…and the money in my pocket, again…I know what I like, and I know what I don’t like.

and lastly…

5.) Just because of the date, and you know where I am geographically, DO NOT make the assumption that I am speaking about any one person in particular.

That said:

TANGO PAIN.

My definition of pain over the years that I’ve been dancing tango has changed, but not by much, and actually its gotten more and more refined as time has gone by.

Let me back up a bit and tell you a story.  I was in a series of private lessons with XXXXXXXXXX (and no I’m not telling you who it was) a few years ago, and the lessons were on “Leader Technique”.  Which was designed and disguised deliberately as a way to get my mind and body around the fact that some people are different in tango and that that difference is a good thing.  We went over several things that I had experienced in dancing with certain people in the San Francisco that I had termed as ‘bad’, or ‘painful’.  My teacher explained to me that I was being an arrogant SOB, without saying the SOB part, in a very, very, charming way that my teacher had.  During these private lessons, we would go over how to handle those situations that came up.  One day it was heavy, slow followers.  Another it was the ‘Steel Cord’ embrace.  And still another it was, ‘COMPRESSION!’.  And on and on until I had exhausted my topics.  Throughout all of it, we ended up in the same place every time with three simple things:  1.) Breathe! 2.) Smile!  3.) Light and Soft Miles…Light and Soft.

My teacher would, rightfully, tell me that I was arrogant to think that I know better…because I had been dancing a short amount of time, and that my experience would change as time would go by.  It did.  I changed.  I became more accepting that some people’s ideas of a pleasurable experience via tango was well…painful to me but pleasurable to them.  As time went by, not only did I become more accepting, I started to teach what I knew to be true, and how to help others deal with what I came to call Tango Pain.

So what is it ?  In short, Tango Pain, is what happens ot the human body, and nervous system when it is subjected to an embrace (physical, mental, or emotional) based on Physical Compression, Heft, Severe Weight, Shear Laziness, Lack of Presence, and lastly … Ignorance!

“People will drink the sand because they don’t know any better” – Anon.

I say this all the time to my students and anyone that will listen especially when I point out the fact that their embrace is painful and hurtful to me as a dancer.  I have been unfriended on facebook because of how I present this factoid, I have made certain enemies in the tango world simply because of how I have told someone that in my experience and my way of dancing, their way of dancing was painful for me.

What is painful to me ?

1.) Carrying a 125,30,35,40,45,50,60,70,80,90+ pd weight around in my arms!

2.) An embrace that compresses the hell out of my spine.

3.) The ‘Tango’ Arm around my neck, and literally hanging off me.

4.) A ‘steel cord’ follower right arm into my palm, hand, and arm.

5.) A vice grip around my body, like a python swallowing its dinner.

6.) A follower left arm compressing my left arm, as a lead, with either the forearm, hand, or both!

7.) A hand that squeezes so tightly that my connecting hand loses feeling.

8.) A leader that pushes me.

9.) A follower that will not move her body on her own!

10.) A leader that pushes me everywhere no matter if I move on my own.

11.) A leader that doesn’t create the space for me, so I have to do the job myself.

12.) A follower that refuses to extend her own damned legs and I have to move her in time to the beat.

13.) A leader who can not:

a.) follow the line of dance.
b.) find the primary beat in the piece of music and walk on it.
c.) find ANY syncopation in the music he’s hearing or thinks he’s hearing.

14.) A leader who talks to me while I am dancing with him.

15.) A follower who wants to engage in inane conversation while Im dancing with her.

16.) A leader who corrects me WHILE I’m dancing with him.

17.) A follower who corrects me WHILE I’m dancing with her, and she doesn’t lead…at all!

18.) A beginner tango dancer who shares their viewpoint of arrogance.  (we’ve all done this)

19.) An advanced dancer who’s an arrogant SOB and literally being disdainful of me.

20.) Watching Bad Show Tango Tango or watching the Fishnets and Fedora crowd at a milonga acting out some tango fantasy that has absolutely NOTHING to do with Tango.

Now I realize that the verbiage is circumspect, that its prone to interpretation, and that it subjective.  That said, there are some truisms in those 20 things that are painful to me:

Moving Someone Else: Instead of them taking the intention and going where the intention asked them to go, they react with a sluggishness akin to a old horse or a donkey.  Yes, what I am on about is a bit like reading someone’s mind, because it means that you may be accused (as a follower) of taking over the lead, when in fact (as a follower) you’re literally just doing what was asked of you!  Realistically this way of dancing, of Intention Based Dancing, can be done, and I do it all the time, there’s so much more in being subtle than in being loud.  Think of it this way, when we start out dancing, we SCREAM ‘OCHO, OCHO, OCHO’ at who were dancing with…and later on, it becomes a whisper, and then much later on, a suggestion, and still much further on, a thought.  Along another line of reality, truthfully there’s only so many things that you can do with tango…its a limited subset of motions and options, so its really not that hard to move your body and literally place it where it needs to be.  And if you get it wrong…not to worry, there’s another chance to screw it up over and over and over again, until you don’t screw it up any more.  It takes time and patience to literally LISTEN to what is going on.  It requires a skill level and literally retuning your nervous system to a whole different way of listening as a leader and a follower to MOVE!  So…take the intention and run with it!

Compression: I tell my students this all the time, that there is no good compression in the tango world.  That’s not true.  There is a good form of compression but its so under used and misunderstood that its almost not worth describing.  But I’ll give it a go.  Compression can be used to literally pull your partner into you but without sacrificing movement and motion, or suppressing anything in the dance.  And you actually want to pull your partner into you, and them you.  However, far too often compression isn’t compression as I’ve just described its use, its actually laziness because someone hasn’t refined their listening skills, in either a leader or a follower.  As a leader this is known as the VICE GRIP, as a follower its known as THE HANGER ON.  In either case, both are not preferred.  Let’s get this straight kiddies so that you hear it: YOU DO NOT NEED TENSION AND FORCE…EVER!

Talking: Shut the **** up!  Look if you can sing, sing in my ear, sing to me.  I like that.  Everything else…its a social dance, and the last thing I need to hear in my ear as we dance together is your profound prose on the state of X, Y, and Z.  In other words, we have the music, the dance floor, and us….otherwise SHUT THE **** UP and DANCE.  If its a practica, and you’ve asked me for feedback and vice versa…that’s one thing, but its a milonga, and I am there to dance.  I don’t care if you’re a super star dancer/teacher and you’ve got this burning desire to tell me all the things I’m doing wrong, SHUT THE **** UP!  Got it ?

Pushing & Pulling: Dude.  Let’s try this one more time.  If you need to push to accomplish your goals, that’s force, and you’ve learned the wrongs thing from the wrong person because that teacher has reached the wrong conclusions about what they’ve witnessed and been taught.  I am telling you in no uncertain terms, the use of force in tango is not an option…ever.  I refuse to dance with anyone that needs me to push them around the damned floor for any reason and vice versa.

Lighter, Softer: EVERYWHERE!

Lastly, while this may sound like whining, as a teacher, who has helped craft some really wonderful dancers who have gone out into the tango world and people have marveled at their abilities for such a short time in dancing, I can safely say this:  I am an arrogant prick about certain things, and tango pain is one of them.  I refuse to have a bad tango experience any more.  I refuse to dance with people who think the above is fun.  I refuse to teach, ever, that the use of force under any circumstances is ok…its not.  EVER!  and lastly, I refuse to put up with followers that refuse to take responsibility for their side of the embrace…and leaders who use force.  Trust me I realize that means Im only dancing with 5% of the room, and you know what, that’s fine with me.  Because you know what, the next morning when I wake up, I will not be in pain, I will not be making a visit to the chiropractor!

I’m done now and what’s worse I’ve probably pissed off a whole bunch of people because I wasn’t gentle or nice, or kind in how I presented how I feel about the dance, and more over I wasn’t apologetic about it.  Get over it.  I have.  Moving on to other things that are far more important….