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| A cabeceo from Mars, being accepted by a humble tanguera's mirada |
If Mars keeps hearing from some of the women who cannot resist dancing with him that they enjoy the feeling of being safe and protected, he might slowly be molded by the mortals with whom he dances. Mars might slowly start to understand that everyone can dance better if we all feel physically safe. Remember that the God of War thinks others are running into him! He needs lots of gentle feedback. Trust me, you do not want to anger him about this: He's a god with an anger problem, and the rainbow of his cabeceo will never beam down upon your shoulders again if you piss him off. So make everyone else to blame, and make it clear that only his divine protection will allow you to melt into his embrace.
Plan A is to no longer feed the ego of the God of War by dancing with him at all. Many women will not dance with him. But many will! So Plan B is to assent to a dance but give him feedback about needing a feeling of safety. Feeding his ego by being silent about the danger he creates a bigger and bigger monster. It is likely that he is OMG-good and is fun, but the adrenaline rush he or she provides you on this divine chariot ride is not good for the community of dancers.
The injury you prevent may be your own.
*This is not a "lie." It is linguist programing, envisioning what Mars could be if he played "defense" and not "offense" on the dance floor. Please be aware that he often does protect you as he uses his body to bounce off others in the way of his self-perceived awesome skills as a dancer. Memorize the script in bold (above) and insert his given name. It's only three short sentences.
Photo credit
http://poesypluspolemics.com/tag/mars/
A guy stepped back in the ronda yesterday. I failed to protect my partner from it and she rightly gave me short shrift - in the nicest way. I now understand the helpless, hands-in-the-air guy feeling.
ReplyDeleteIt's just no good though to urge women who dance with dangerous, unsafe, unprotective dancers to pander to the egos of those guys. The pre-requisite for a good dancer is a safe dancer. It's integral to the definition of a good dancer.
So the only thing women can do with unsafe dancers is not dance with them at least in crowded situations. A girl can't relax with an unprotective partner. If you're not relaxed, you can't really dance. Equally, a girl should watch for irresponsible guys who while they might protect their own partner, cause havoc for other people by weaving, stepping back etc.
In many milongas people find their dance match but there are always bottom feeders and, sadly, women, nice dancers even who accept them. I watched women being manipulated by guy class-goers (who evidently don't dance in the other role) in the milonga and then watched one of the same women (a new dancer) dancing with an experienced dancer and it was a pleasure just to see the difference in her.
The two things that would drive up the standard of guy dancing (a pre-req for good women dancers) is more discernment from women and more guys dancing as girls first.