Are you a tango polymath?

 

Are You a Tango Polymath?

A polymath is someone whose knowledge spans multiple distinct disciplines, demonstrating deep expertise or original achievements across them all.  Polymaths have something in common, which tells us how we can be more like them:  They all were philomaths--those who love to learn.

True tango polymaths are rare. Most of us are generalists with maybe one primary area of expertise, but if you love to learn, you will grow in your passion for this art of body and soul.

Below is a list of potential tango-adjacent disciplines. It isn't a job description—just a list of paths to explore. Find your strengths and build on them.

• Amazing dancer:  A tango polymath becomes an amazing dancer by loving to learn all about the dance.  You have danced with this person.  You consider going home after dancing with him or her.  You want the feeling to linger and to settle in.  This is the person may very well be a polymath of tango or on their way, having several areas of expertise, as suggested in the following areas:

• Body Awareness & Mechanics: Deep, practical understanding of how human bodies move and connect efficiently.  Practical knowledge of biomechanics, structural alignment, and injury prevention to keep dancing for decades.

• Music Theory, Practice & History: Real knowledge of musical structure, rhythm, and the African, European, and Latin influences shaping tango—beyond just repeating buzzwords in class.  Musicality classes without this expertise will fall short.

• Cultural Awareness & Etiquette: Navigating the subtle social dynamics of a milonga. How do people greet each other? How are invitations extended?  Are we shunning people as if they are ghosts?  Shunning is a common indicator of a need to increase expertise in the area of Cultural Awareness.

• Breathwork: Expertise in breath control, yoga, or meditation to maintain presence, calm, and stamina.  Breathing and balance in motion might come from tai chi, and other sport arts.

• Spatial Awareness & Navigation: The art of floor craft—reading the line of dance, anticipating movement, and keeping your partner safe.

• Empathy: Sensitivity to your partner's emotional state. Sensing nervousness, fatigue, or stress, and adapting your embrace accordingly.

• Exercise Physiology: Knowing how to pace your energy, manage hydration, protect your feet, and tune into your body's signals over long nights.

• Hygiene & Consideration: Managing perspiration and being mindful of scent sensitivities so the embrace is comfortable for everyone.

• Sleep Hygiene: Respecting the physiological necessity of rest. Prioritizing healthy sleep habits over destructive, all-night schedules.  Experts know the practical application of the advances we have learned about Why We Sleep.  (Matthew Walker's new book will blow your mind.)

• DJing & Audio Craft: Beyond knowing orchestras and history, understanding room acoustics, sound equalizing, and protecting dancers' hearing with safe volume levels.

• Educator:  I highly recommend having a tango teacher in your life.  Perhaps it will be just off and on.  Great golfers, for example, have coaches, especially when they are professionals.  Taking dance lessons is not about being a professional dancer but adding great joy to your dance for you and others.   A good educator brings out your possibilities, your strengths.  Do not wait for the great artistic teacher of tango!  I have met but a few!  Yet, I should add:  Accept the mere mortal tango teacher and their incessant corrections, and what they believe tango is supposed to be.  Then let their ideas sink in and see if it brings out your potential.  Think of your school experience.  Often, despite the instruction which merely corrects and presents "facts," you have only had a few teachers in your life who truly inspired you.  Their best teaching instrument was their passion and not a red pen!

The Reality Check

Many dancers fall into the trap of believing that expertise in one of these areas makes them an expert in all of them.  This is especially true of professional dancers.  Very few stage dancers can teach or even dance social tango well, for example.  Many "wonderful" dancers I see in videos are sticthing together one figure after the other and ignoring syncopations and pauses.  Knowing how to do figures mostly on the beat is not demonstrating expertise in music.

Ask yourself: Which of these areas do you truly hold deep knowledge in? Where are you hovering?  Are you a specialist, a generalist, or even a beginner?

• Deep expertise in one area makes you a specialist.

• Solid capability in three or four makes you rare.

• Mastery across five or more of them makes you a true tango polymath.

You don't need to master them all tomorrow. Aim to be a lifelong learner and a capable generalist. Tango gives us a unique mirror to grow not just as dancers, but as well-rounded human beings.

Which discipline matters most to your dance right now? What did I miss? Let me know in the comments!

Photo credit and great resource to be serious about becoming a polymath:  "The 16 Traits that make a polymath:  How to become a Renaissance Person." 



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Just for fun

Here are some of the more famous people who were truly polymaths:

Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519): Master painter, detailed anatomist, and visionary inventor who sketched early designs for flying machines.

Sir Isaac Newton (1642–1727): Formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, co-developed calculus, and made major breakthroughs in optics. 

Aristotle (384–322 BCE): Ancient Greek thinker who wrote extensively on logic, biology, physics, ethics, and politics. 

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716): German philosopher who independently co-invented calculus and contributed to physics, law, and linguistics.

Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790): American statesman, printer, scientist who proved lightning is electricity, and inventor of the lightning rod and bifocals.

Sustainable Tango is Green Tango

Back in 2010, I wrote about "Green Tango," sustainable tango, a tango healthy for one's body.  How are we doing 16 years later?  Not very well in most of the categories that I had suggested back then.  However, we have made some progress.  Ten years ago, I was met with scepticism from my female friends and some readers about tango shoes and foot care.  Women are more and more wearing nice tango shoes that do not have high heels.  I am curious; please tell me how your Wise Tango is coming along!

18 May 2010

Is your tango sustainable?

"Green-Tango" is taking care of yourself and having a tango community that will last.  "Red-Tango" is a live-for-the-moment tango.

Green Feet: Foot Care for Green Tango
Some tango shoes for women can cripple a woman over time.  Talk to any podiatrist. Green-Tango is devoted to comfortable shoes for women who are currently harming their feet and skeletal systems with high heels.  We all love these shoes, but they represent unsustainable tango.

Green Sleep: The Immune System
Tango usually starts late at night and goes into the night.  Does it have to be that way? Green tango communities have at least some early milongas.  All medical researchers tell us that we need to insist on good sleep.  Good sleep is necessary for healthy bodies, which we need to dance tango in our 90's and beyond.  A person who does not sleep enough is hurting many things, but the most important is their immune system. 

Green Safety:  Social Tango is Safe Tango
Safety on the dance floor keeps people from getting injured.  Sometimes injuries do not stop people from dancing, but out of pain avoidance, dance can be no more fun.  People give up dance if the community is not safe.  The thrill of cool moves and the nightlife, including inebriation, cause danger on the dance floor.  A code of ethics of safe dancing is a necessary part of a green tango community. Unfortunately, too many tango teachers teach little about safety.   The "violence" has typical victims:  Women.  Their bare legs and their exposed feet receive to worst of it.  Teaching boleros, ganchos, sentadas, volcadas, colgadas, etc. needs a bit of instruction about safety for backs and danger to those around you.  Some milongas ban those who are unsafe on the dance floor.

Green Ears
Music positioned at ear level, blasting in one's ear over 100 decibels, creates ear damage.  I always wore hearing protection as a professional drummer.  Always.  Many of my musician friends now have serious hearing loss.  Yes, there is Green Music and Red Music.  The joy of dance will be ruined if you cannot hear it!

Green Tango is Future Tango
Sustainable tango is the dance you dance all of your life because you can--all because of being a Green tanguero or tanguera.


A comment from 2010:
I don't agree that wearing high heels to dance ruins the feet. Many women come to tango after a lifetime of wearing high heels to work and to play, and so already have bunions and other foot problems. If the high heels are used only to dance (and one doesn't dance 14 hours a day unless a stage dancer), then it's sustainable.