What my teenage son taught me about tango

My son, Ben, told me about my face when I dance.  He also commented about my partners' faces too.  He honed in on what women would say after a tanda or in between songs to me.  I was sometimes amazed at how well he heard from across the room. What I learned from him was that women are best advertising for male dancers -- or the worst.

Ladies can be beacons sending out beams of blissful looks, or their faces can be blinking red lights of "Warning! Danger! Torture!"  Or maybe their faces are less dramatic with, "I am am bored out of my mind."

Men are getting scared all the time on the dance floor.  So distressed looks might be part of our job.  At least, I know that I get distressed that the lady in front of me with naked legs might get hurt by the couple near us if I do not watch out for her.

Men also may have the overly pensive look from listening to the music, reading her level of ability or how tired she is.  We can have all sorts of faces, and I think that no one really cares much.

Women are different.  What they advertise says it all to other women.  And are the men looking at my face or her face?  If she looks like she is in a blissful trance then men will want to dance with her, rather than a woman who looks as if she is wasting her time with someone below her level.  This is what I call the female prerogative in money and in tango skill.  In both areas, statistically women pair with men who earn more money or dance with men who have more skill than she does.  Even is okay too.

My sons, Ben and Toby came to a milonga with me, as I said earlier.  They are both musicians and I wanted them to hear the orchestra.  I danced with a tanguera mexicana, who is one of my favorite tangueras.  Ben asked me if I thought that she liked dancing with me.  I said, "I know she does.  We talk about it, and she comes and seeks me out.  We have practiced together." Ben said, "She looked bored.   She looked bored with not just you, Dad," he assured me.  I knew that she often looked bored as she was dancing, but I imagined that she was smiling with me.  This is called delusions of grandeur.  Not quite, however.  I really did know that she was having fun.  I started watching her and she always looked bored.  Then, being the perfectly frank teen that he is, Ben told me that I looked like I was in pain.  "Well, that is the blues musician look that I developed long ago," I said.  "Also, if you understood the lyrics you might understand my look of despair."  But what great insights!  I thanked my teen son for his honesty.  I really did not want to convey pain in my face because I am having so much joy in my dance.  It turned out that my tanguera mexicana had heard from ladies about looking bored, and she said she really had to work on changing that!


Some have said that in tango it is okay to "fake it."  Hmmmmmmm.   I don't think ladies need to fake it.  I think that they might need to watch videos of themselves and then ask themselves if they really are being fair to the feelings they have.  There is way too many overly serious looks on the floor.  What happened to the adage:  "As in life, so in tango"?   Do we want to look so serious when we are in bliss with our friends and family?

Here is a picture of me dancing with a delightful person and fun tanguera before my son told about my look of pain.  I look like deeply saddened man during a moment that I still remember in Denver last summer.  It hurts to share it, but here it is below.  I am in the background with the face of pain.  The women on the side of the dance floor probably are wondering what she is doing to cause such pain and doom in my face.  Pretty funny, really, because I look pitiful but I am in bliss!

Okay, having said that I look in pain, let me assure you that I was not.  The below picture reveals the wonderful tanguera both in personality and ability with whom I am dancing.  Thank God she wasn't "advertising" what I was!

I am now trying to inform my face about my joy and happiness.  As a musician people said they liked to watch my facial expression, but this is tango.  Those music performance days are over.  I have no desire to play publicly anymore because tango so fills my need to express myself musically.   This is a new era for me.  It was once being on stage and performing for many.  Now it is a duet with the soul in front of me.  And IF someone is watching, I wish not to advertising the wrong thing for what I am feeling.  I also have an obligation to tell everyone what a wonderful dancer I have in my arms, no matter what her level.  Ethically, it is downright mean to have a tortured face behind her back (close embrace) or to her face if she is doing her best in open embrace.

When I can do that, I can only hope that the ladies I dance with will do it for me too.

Can You Know? (poem)

Can you know if you will hold me again,
Or will it stay a mystery?
Do you know if you will hold me again,
Or if it will be in our history?
Life gives us what we most need
And then takes it back again.
That is not cruel but just how life leads.


I know I have promised you,
That I will hold you again,
But can I know if you will hold me too?
Will your heart escort your arms?
These things I cannot know.
That is not cruel but just how life leads.


For now we have two songs to go.
This tanda may be our last on earth,
So hold me as if I were the only man left,
I will hold you as if you were my last love.
That's the wisdom and wonder of our dance--
We embrace life by embracing each other.


That's is just life and how our script reads.
That is not cruel, but just how life leads.



M Thomas Word




Note:  This is in fact a tango poem.  The music I wrote to this is paradoxically a bossa nova.

The End of Leading is Near

No, not "the end of the world is near" but for tango -- "the end of leading and following is near." 


I predict (and pray for) the end of leading and following in tango!  This model is so unfortunate -- a misguided analogy.  It worked for centuries.  A new paradigm is needed to describe gender roles in tango.

Tango teaches us some great lessons about the nature of roles, and we are mostly missing its wisdom.  "Lead/follow" was how a culture and an era of machismo described what tango was.  Machismo is not evil.  But it is a limited way of expressing role differences.  I do believe that tango has so very beautiful expressions of machismo -- its more enlightened side, but that is a different topic (what it means to be a gentle-man).  

Count Basie and Tango
It occurred to me to use an anti-lead/follow analogy with a woman who was so far behind the beat that it was unnerving.  She was "rusty," she said.  She hadn't been dancing for a year, but I sensed that her delay was that she wanted me to interpret the music for her and not hear it for herself.  Something that Count Basie said came to mind.  His principle for good music was that it is not what you play, it is what you don't play that makes the music good.  So, assuming that Count Basie was right, I suggested that the woman is the "rest" or pause (that which is NOT played) between the man's "note" or impulse.  I also suggested that the music was the true leader.  The most magical thing happened.  She danced about five levels higher after that.  Since sharing this with other women, I have noticed a huge change in our creativity level.  Free at last for both have a say in the creativity of dance.  

The True Leader is Amazing

If there is no leader we have a problem.  I agree fully.  What in the world are we doing out on that floor?  Why are we moving?  Who starts the dance?  The leader!  The reason people start moving is because the leader is speaking to them to do so.  And, of course, Music is that leader!  The true leader.  It leads us not into temptation, but delivers us from the evils of tortured dancing.  Translated literally from Spanish (la música), we should say, "She leads us."  Movement is up to the couple, but She has attempted to lead us.  One person plays the "note," the other allows the pause between the notes (not pulling into the next movement but allows it).

With these two philosophical agreements with a partner (that the music is the true leader, and that the woman is the creative pause between notes), I find that dancing feels "enlightened." I see women making a huge paradigm shift in the way they dance.  I no longer have have to translate la Música's lead, but we co-create what She has led.  Women who are even beginners "lead" me to new discoveries.

Other Analogies for Role Behavior in Tango

The biological model of man and woman indicate that the man gives impulse and in the woman's womb something new is created.  Lead/follow and talk/listen and me-Tarzan-you-Jane models do not describe the biological model of creation between a man and a woman -- nor the beauty of tango.  Other analogies may also help get us closer (but they are only analogies): Yin and Yang / magnetic poles / note and rest / director and producer.  These analogies maintain role separations as being absolutely necessary while not diminishing one or the other.

Sociology of Roles

I just met a woman sociologist and she teaches her students to break away from role limitations.  Are roles automatically limiting and bad?  Tango, she said, dampens her spirit, but paradoxically she likes it.  I agree with her struggle with how her teachers mostly have presented tango as "man-do-talking/woman-do-listening." Tango has a lesson for her (and all of us): That making the sexes all the same and having equal roles is going to the other extreme by eliminating roles altogether.  Role switching is perfect for somethings.  For example, good conversations are trade-offs on lead/follow and talk/listen.  So roles can switch, but conversation as an analogy for tango is problematic.  Lesbian/gay couples are ahead of the rest of us for switching roles, but for the rest of us, extreme listen/talk roles or role switching is not the result we are seeking.  So the question is why in the heck are we using this analogy at all to describe tango?

The Great Feeling of a Woman "Leading"

With a woman who attends to her very active role of creating the next moment after an inpulse, I want to say to her, "Because of you I was taken to the next level."  Such women bring me ("lead me") to a level of joy that is nothing short of magical.  Often after I have said this (and it happens all the time), my partner self-deprecates herself by saying: "I just followed what you led."  No, sorry.  I was the note and you, mi tanguera maravillosa, were the rest, the creative pause.  Without you "we" would not have happened.  The music-of-movement was "us" not what a mere mortal led.  

Counting on the Count*
Mr Basie was right.  The most wonderful music is created by the rests not by the notes alone.  Ladies -- you inspire me.  It feels like you have led me somewhere I have never gone!  You must feel the same thing because you often tell me, "you led that so well."  I am sure now.  I experience this at every milonga:  La Música leads us both.  We listen to Her.  I give an impulse, I am the note, and you allow a wonderful pause.  I move into the next impulse because you create that moment.  I do something I had never done before.  It may feel as if you led it or you may feel I led it, but really, I was the note and you were the pause; I was what was played and you were what was not played.  Honey, we make beautiful música together.

*Regarding Count Basie.  I suggest a book by Dizzie Gillespie:  To Be or Not . . . to Bop.  A whole new brand of Jazz musicians came out of what Count Basie was doing -- playing less and pausing more.

Next post:
What women "leaders" teach men about being a man.  This will be provocative.  More on the sociology of roles and what it means to be a man, and why "leader" women have difficulty protecting their partner.  Yes, provocative.  Sharpen your pitchforks!  The End of Leading is Near (part II).

Embrace the Moment (poem)

My heart pours over with desire

For the moment I see your walk,

Your form at a distance.

"Vibraciones del Alma" 

Plays in my heart.

I see us now embracing.

The smell of your skin

Knocks at my memory

Of a thousand moments before,

But I hold them back to have

This one moment

As if it were the first.

I hold back my tears of joy.

But now I can only wait.

I count the moments that remain.

Before I hold you and wish

I could hold the moment as well.

Pre-Embarassed Phase of Blissful Ignorance*

Men, try to get to the place where you know that you suck at tango.





I wish I could say that (a) I didn't have black and white shoes that I occasionally wear, and (b) I have gotten beyond the pre-embarrassed phase.


But in spite of conversations like the above video clip, I somehow have manage to maintain my bliss.  Some people never evolve into kindness, and so the best defense mechanism is to be blissfully ignorant.   For this reason, I have taken up residence in "the pre-embarrassed stage of blissful ignorance."   


I like it here.  It's warm and cozy, kind of like snuggling with a kind and tender-hearted tanguera.


*The real title of this blog is not about "blissful ignorance" but kindness and evolving.  It takes work for me and -- I would venture -- most people.  Some seem to have been born with the talent of kindness.  They dance all night and if they have balance and boundaries to their kindness, then they are dancing with other kind people (or at least good dancers?).

A woman and her Shoes: Bad News. Really.

Men are dolts.  I keep hearing lately how stupid we are via tango blog chatter.  The newest thing I hear -- in jest -- is that men see only if shoes are dark or light.  Shall I tell ladies the truth?  That we are not dolts?  That we DO see shoes in more than two shades?  That we can wear nice clothes.  That we do take a shower?  That we like dancing with women who are first kind and second good dancers, first kind and then beautiful?  Now the secret is out.

Not that all women think men are dolts.  The ones who beam and love life -- the women and men around them; the women who don't rely on anyone for their emotional wellness, they are dancing and having fun.  They are not bitter about men.  Those women, I believe, are who are bitter are those who have been misguided by thinking that they must follow, men must lead; misguided that men talk and women must listen; misguided that women should be seen (be beautiful) but not be heard (participate actively in the dance); misguided that women must sit and wait and the man must choose (OMG is that naive, or what?)  They are bitter beings, and have few good things to say about men.

All of this is caused by the misguided world-view of way too many tango teachers who have chosen the machismo of Argentina to explain the phenomenon of the beauty of tango.  Oh, I am sorry, machismo is not an issue in Argentina or Latin America?  Not everything from any culture is all good, and even machismo is not all bad, but the question here is does the macho-world view of Argentina describe the interaction between a man and a woman who are dancing tango.  Short answer:  "No!"

But this post is not about my usual rant about Me-Tarzan-You-Jane tango philosophy.  It is about men being belittled -- even in a joking way.  And it is about the truth about men not being dolts.

Humor reveals interesting hidden feelings, like the video clip:  "Men don't even notice your shoes.  They see that she has on either light or dark shoes and that is all."  Funny -- but women will add, "...but oh so true."  

If women who buy too many shoes only knew how important their shoes are, then they would only buy more shoes.  That is why any man who is a gentleman will not say anything about how important her shoes are.  I don't advocate buying a bunch of shoes, but let me say, shoes make a big difference.

Okay, guys -- especially with shoe-craving wives, please forgive me for revealing the truth about us men not being so stupid.  I really should say nothing.  Cosmopolitan Magazine will get a hold of it, and women's obsession for pretty shoes will only go up.  The overloaded increase in demand for shoes may cause violence in shoe stores as the lines get longer and longer and the buyers more desperate.

But the truth must come out.  Men DO notice shoes.  I can even tell without looking if a woman is using salsa shoes or tango shoes.  I avoid looking into anyone's eyes watching on the dance floor periphery as I dance.  I look slightly down.  I see a pair a shoes.  I say, "I want to dance with the woman in those shoes."  And later I look at her eyes and nod (actually look down at her shoes) and then we dance.  Some people call this nod a "cabezeo."  It is actually the wobble of a man's head as it goes from eyes to shoes.

Then when I see that she is taller than last time from her stilettos, I restrain from saying in a low, soft, sexy voice in her ear, "Querida, size does matter."  At the end of the night, I insist on helping her get out of her shoes.  Her husband's eyebrows go up, but she lets me. He wants to kill me, but not because of my hands on her feet but because NOW she knows, and their budget for buying a house has been trashed.

I told you; this is not going to make things better.  I am taking down my sign outside my door that says "Cabellero."  I just realized something.  I am a dolt after all.  This was all bad news.  Really.

P.S.
If you want good news.  Here is something for you:  http://melinas-two-cent.blogspot.com/2010/11/good-news-really.html  
Please note how the good news continues in the comments to this blog -- how nearly every woman agrees with the good news that men are truly less then the better half of the world.  Shoe sales will stay stable.  That is the good news.

"There is no such thing as a Tango Waltz"

Tango Waltz = vals cruzado or vals criollo.  This is the Spanish term for the most beautiful expression of 3/4 time in the world in my not humble and limited opinion.   [Note that I italicize foreign terms in my blog.]

I was duly corrected by a "person who knows all things tango."  And he was right.  I learned something.  The proper name is vals criollo or vals cruzado – in Spanish, that is. Having a blog and being corrected by brash anonymous writers is a great way to learn new terms and the depths of my ignorance.

But I also have a lot of feelings behind people who mean well but confuse others while using jargon.  Vals Criollo or Vals Cruzado, is a perfect example.    My ignorance was only of a Spanish term.  But “Tango Waltz” is a perfectly good translation.

Let me explain:  I was living in Mexico and the church I was going to was bilingual.  They had a bilingual service although everyone there could speak Spanish.  The little church refused to have a service in just Spanish because the founder and philosopher behind the religion spoke English.  I argued the case as the ONLY native speaker of English in the church that it was nonsense to have a bilingual service when the church was filled with mostly monolingual Spanish speakers, who just sat there listening to WORDS THAT CONVEYED NO MEANING.  Monolingual members of the church came to me secretly and said, "Only you could have argued the case. Thanks."

Then I lived in Boston and started a Spanish speaking church service.  I gave out Spanish Bibles.  Now I was being criticized by my church that the prisoners should learn English, and that the writings of the Founder of the religion's writings really only could be understood in English.  Those behind bars were often young "burros" taking cocaine into the country, thinking they were carrying a load of things for Aunt Anita in Boston, MA.  They were young, naive, monolingual and in jail.  Learn English?  Are you on coke?

This church was very critical of the Roman Catholic Church because of many things, but one was how the Church made Latin a holy language, although the original texts were in Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic.  Now my church was doing the same thing with English.  Agape was really hard with these nut cases. J

2010 November.  I am sitting in a briefing for newcomers at Walter Reed Army Hospital, and I am stopping a briefer who is throwing out acronyms left and right.  "I don't know what MDT means," I say.  I stop him over and over, mostly because I DO understand but know that the newcomers mostly do not know what a 2487 is or that ASAP is not what they think but “Army Substance Abuse Program.”   In several cases he didn't know either what an acronym meant.  Poor guy.  Well, why was he using terms that he didn't even know?  And with new people?  He had what I call, the command of words without meaning.  Sound like some tango classes?

Today I got an email from a tanguera (woman dancer) living in Australia.  She was told to learn Spanish.  Yes, I would agree that if you really love tango and want to go to Mecca (Buenos Aires) that you should learn Spanish for practical reasons.  Knowing terms in Spanish is good because there is a certain tango jargon world-wide.  However, she could go her whole life without knowing the term "vals criollo" without being the lesser for it because a damn good English term is:  Tango Waltz (borrowed from Spanish and German, “Waltzer”).

But isn't it fair for us to pay attention to names?  “Tango criollo” is not a name of a person or deity but a musical term.  Do you know what the English translation of “mambo” is?  Sure you do.  The English translation was made up in New York City.  The word is “salsa.”   Salsa is not Spanish, which means “sauce” or “dressing” and tomatoes may not be even inside it.  It means “hot, chunky tomato ketchup” to most Americans.  Or “that music that is tastey, hot and Latin.”   And what about tomato “ketchup”?  From whom did we steal this word?  China.  Ketchup is also not a foreign word any longer.  Don’t hold your breath on “vals criollo” going the way of salsa and ketchup, okay?  It just isn’t going to happen.  Tango waltz means something to us like salsa and ketchup do.  These terms convey meaning. 

So following the above logic, denying a term like "tango waltz" even exists or is "wrong" feels to me like the holy language stuff I have already rejected in Mexico and Boston.  Will we need, like the Priesthood of Tango like the Catholic Church had -- a group of people who can use and understand the original language of tango?  And will those who have a command of words without meaning, just as the Church have special people with pointed hats and distinctive collars?  And how long will we play that game until someone allows a translation that the normal person can understand?  Or are we like the Armed Forces, talking jargon to each other and the newcomer's perspective is not even taken in consideration?  It feels that way to me, but as I have already confessed:  I have unresolved baggage.  I am still fighting a fight with the church.  And the US Army nearly daily annoys me with WORDS without MEANING.  “This tango waltz stuff,” I tell myself...  “Cálmate Marcos, los tangueros son amigos. Remember all the friends you love in this wonderful community of people who hug.  Mellow out, hombre.”

So let me suggest something of a solution.  English is actually good at certain things and bad at others.  "Tango Waltz" is a delightfully better term even on the streets of Madrid.  Vals cruzado or "criollo" will even in Barcelona or Cali or Lima or Guadalajara have no or little meaning compared to "vals de tango."   In English we have the term "jazz waltz."  Isn't that a great term -- jazz with the feel of a waltz? 

We also have the wonderful term in English:  "Tango waltz" -- tango with the feel of a waltz.  Too bad Spanish doesn't have such a great term for what tangueros do at their dance parties (milongas).  “Vals cruzado” sounds like what a dancing priest might do as he waltzes away from the alter while crossing himself.  And “vals criollo”?  Sounds like something I could order on a Cajun menu.

"Tango Waltz" conveys meaning even to people who know very little about what happens at a tango dance party.

Are there any Spanish words that are clearly better than English?  Sure.  I like "cabeceo,” from the word “cabeza,” meaning “head.”  English needs twelve words:  “A nod that one shows someone with whom you wish to dance.”  I vote for Spanish on that one.  What about “milonga.”  Now that is a problem.  It is a dance and it is a party and in certain parts of Mexico a “milonga” is a mixed drink. So the question remains:  When does the original name obscure meaning in a new culture or even a culture outside the boarders of Argentina? 

  

So you may never understand the depths the intricacies of the proper Spanish terms of tango.  But if you dance with all your heart and soul, then you have arrived at the archetypal tango party.  There you will find people who think it is natural to hug each other and walk around to tango music while hugging.

Marvelous Moments

I cannot tell you how I knew that something marvelous was going to happen at the milonga, but I did.  I told a friend about this too.  I will share those wonderful moments, but the larger blessing for me was to be reminded of how important it is to cherish the magical moments in our lives as they are happening.


How many wonderful moments go by in our lives, and at the time we don't even recognize how magical they really are?  Sure, at the moment we are having fun and we know that, but it is often too easy to not even take the time to count this as a blessing -- an entry in the book of euphoric moments in our lives.


If tango were a machine it would be best described as a euphoric moment machine.  I was reminded of what tango does best last night.


I danced with a long-term dancer but she was a beginner-to-tango.  I will call her Vanessa.  In her first faltering steps with me, she apologized and said she was going to make many mistakes because she was new.  I told her she wouldn't make any because "we were just dancing and there are no mistakes at a milonga, only two people holding each other and moving to music."   I assured her that at prácticas and classes there are mistakes, but at a milonga there are none.  Although I try to say nothing at a milonga, at one point on our second tanda I told her to listen to the music because the music and not the man leads.  (I could tell that she was waiting for me to interpret the music, not listening to the music.)  She made yet another huge leap in her dancing. 


It was amazing to she her progress at light speed.  But what dumbfounded me was that she mentioned that it was one of the most marvelous moments in her life.  That is the power of tango.  We tangueros/tangueras keep piling up these magical moments.  We shouldn't ever just take them for granted.  


Because of my experience with the "beginner," I was really focusing on dancing the woman's feet during my next tanda with a familiar partner.  I was in a trance, but dancing differently because of what I had just experienced with Vanessa, and the sharing we had of a fully acknowledged euphoric moment.  So more than usual, I was dancing my new partner's feet and not just mine.  The song came to an end, and I was surprised where we were in the room.  Also, I had no idea if it were the first or forth song of the tanda.   I had lost orientation to time and space (however, I did know my name still!).  The dance itself was very good, but it wasn't the dance so much as the ZONE I had never really experienced.  I was in her body, taking her steps.  Another euphoric moment to add to the list.


When I danced the last dance with a regular partner, I had been transformed by these experiences.  Had I experienced "the kingdom of heaven within you" or "enlightenment" or "Nirvana"?


Yes, all three.  I realize how precious life is, and how easy it is to list our hurts, disappointments, traumas.  But can we, do we count our blessings, our moments of heaven-on-earth, moments of enlightenment or Nirvana?


When I danced the last song, the Cumparsita, I was dancing at a different plane, and connecting with my partner in a way that was almost frightening because I wasn't prepared for these emotions, nor even now I do not know how to describe them -- except .... that I was and still am counting my blessings.

An Open Letter to a Tango Teacher

This "open letter" happens to be just to me--my future self--in case I get the probably ill-informed idea that I should teach tango:

Dear Future Self:

Please remember these seven things, if you think you are now ready to teach, especially #7 --

1. Diversity is Good: Respect the spectrum of tango (milonguero, salón, nuevo). You don't have to do what theologians have done and start wars and kill each over our differences.

2. Help the Gene pool: Have your students go to different milongas from different teachers.

3. Take care of your own soul: Dance 100% with the person you are dancing outside of a lesson. You have danced with teachers who examined you but were not truly present -- like someone listening to a Bach Cantata at a concert next to you, but not there with you. Hold that woman. Make her feel as if she is the only woman in the world.

4. Practice the Art of Dancing for Yourself: Dance with people outside your "stable." It is amazing how limited teachers become and are unable to read anything they do not intellectually/experientially know. You can dance all night with all levels of dancers, and then a teacher cannot follow the same thing you have done with everyone else -- a true sign that they have been dancing within in their own studio or the same partner too much.

5. Teach No-Blame Tango: Talented teachers help dancers from seeking blame when things go wrong. Don't be like some teachers who blame the leader, then come demonstrate to show how it is done, and then they cannot lead the move either. (Never an apology to blamed leader follows.) Teach no-blame tango.

6. Teach the "ST" Synonyms: Social Tango & Safe Tango: Floorcraft is the science of many couples dancing together. Social dancing is impossible with a high risk for injury. Learning to have fun in a small space is a good marketing tool, but the social aspect of safety needs not be hidden. Floorcraft is the one of main subjects in every class on social tango, right?

7. The Real Subject is NOT Tango: This could have been #1, but I saved it for last as it is the most important. The real subject is not tango. What you are teaching mostly is how a person can enjoy themselves, love themselves, reach out to others and feel the tender touch of another person. An ocho cortado is only a way to get to this real goal. The greatest teachers in history have inspired the student to thirst knowledge not to HAVE knowledge. If your students feel depressed and you make them feel as if they know so little after your class, please consider just going back to dancing and not teaching. Two towns that I know of that have an inordinate amount of judgmental tangueras, and in both cases this phenomenon is the teacher's misunderstanding of the Real Subject.

In a few words: Teaching is a calling. So, Future Self, tango communities need teachers who are advocates for the love of primarily dancing--not watching tango.  Social dancing includes the succor of a vibrant, local tango community. Be a good teacher with the goal of making great tangueros/tangueras. When in doubt . . . just dance.

Comment or "like" Tango Therapist's Facebook page at this link or

Comment at Google+ Link to posts

Tango Teachers-Only Forum Part 2 : Why I am not a Teacher

Last night, an out-of-town tanguera asked me if I were a teacher.

As usual, I said, "No, I am a dancer."

I am NOT a teacher.  I am only 4 years old as a tanguero, and I have too much to learn.  If I found myself in a small town, I would teach and be a DJ, but for now I have NO desire to teach with so many qualified (and unqualified) teachers around!   Only from such a tango-deprived circumstance (living where there was no tango) could I become a member of the AUTTA (Association of Unqualified Tango Teachers of America). 

I was added to the Tango Teachers-Only Forum on Facebook by mistake.  Or perhaps it is the mutation of the same "evil little voice" that I hear at nearly every milonga I go to and dance with a stranger:  "Are you a teacher?"  Luckily from my training in psychology, I know the two types of auditory psychoses:  Non-command and command.  "Go and kill someone" is a command hallucination.  "Are you a teacher?" is not a command.  I don't HAVE TO become a teacher, you see?  

Going by the long list of members of AUTTA, this harmless non-command "little evil voice" can convert into a dangerous psychotic event only when the person sees it as a command to become a teacher.  The answer at a milonga should be: "No, I am a dancer and I am only dancing with you at this moment!"  IF I WERE a teacher, after the tanda, I might add:  "And here is my card. NOW I am a teacher."  I want to never stop being a dancer just because I might be teaching some day.  I don't want to judge and analyse my partner or cause them performance anxiety.  I want my partner to melt in my embrace and feel the power of this remarkable walking embrace.

I am learning from teachers about the problems of teaching.  Why did they start?  Do they really still love to dance or has it become merely a business?  I am certain that nearly all teachers started teaching because people asked, "Are you a teacher?"  This is like people who do not know much, cheer leading me into being something they do not understand.  Imagine being inspired to become a mathematician by people who cannot add well.   So for now, I just want to dance, and I don't listen to those little voices:  "Become a teacher."  I am waiting for the divine call -- la Vocación de Diós.  

By the way, here is my card:

Mark Word

Tanguero

Dancing with one Soul at a Time

Tango-Beat.blogspot.com

Housecalls for emergency cases only!

Tango Teachers-Only Forum?

The question on a for-tango-teachers-only Facebook page was:  "How do you teach a beginner to walk?  What is the first thing that you start with?"  This is an advanced question.  The starting off question for a teachers-only Facebook page might better be:  "What makes a teacher a great teacher?"  Or, "should I really even be a teacher?"

But being a good student, I will try to answer the question about walking, and how to teach it -- but I say this as only as a customer (I am not a teacher):

I practice walking still more than any other thing.  So, I would recommend teaching students  to walk by themselves for a long time and practice it outdoors as often as possible. We give lip service to how walking is taught for years before anything else in Buenos Aires, but then we start with a figure, calling it the "basic step."  Walking is the basic step.

Secondly, I would suggest teaching them to walk in close embrace as much as possible.  Always teaching in open embrace with a partner will inculcate that open is the natural embrace and easier when in fact showing intention is more difficult at the more advanced levels when there is less connection.  

Tip: You can even start with a pillow between body-phobic students (Americans), but teach connectedness!  If they don't want to embrace a stranger, suggest therapy before taking up this wonderful dance.  In therapy they can work out their body issues and perhaps unresolved traumas.  Maybe explain to your students that open embrace is for people who wish to do advanced moves and to dance for others (our best marketing for bringing people to tango).  Closed embrace is to dance for one person -- your partner (a great way for people to STAY with tango).

I will address the more basic question "why I am not a teacher" (some ideas for unqualified teachers) and "what makes a teacher great" (a great business plan for good teachers) in my next posts.  ¿Nos vemos?  ¡Hasta entonces!

Halloween 2010: Witchcraft vs Floorcraft

Halloween WARNING: This post includes some pretty scary things:  The dangers of witchcraft, references to nightmare-inducing mythical creatures, and images of US Marines in a combat zone.

Mythical Creature:
Every village has a its own mythical creature.  Every milonga has someone who stands out in a crowd in the wrong way.  Dressing up cannot hide this creature.  You can identify their distinctive sound:  A bump in the night.  Sometime these creatures are chameleon like.  Sometimes they appear like innocent beginners, but more often they hide in the disguise of "one of the best dancers in the community" costume.  Bump in the nigh reveals who they really are.  (Elvis sang about them: "Whole lota bumping going on.")  The Burro-Mariposa is not like the tooth fairy, this creature really does exist.  The so-called mythical being, the Burro-Mariposa (a donkey-butterfly), has been spotted at many milongas flitting about the dance floor like a butterfly but with a certain amount of weight uncharacteristic to butterflies.  The horror is too much for me to detail further.

Now for the horror of the battlefield:
US Marines are a hard breed of men and women.  But friendly fire is sometimes the biggest danger in combat or the dance floor.  Please do not watch this before bed.



Video clip thanks to by Alex:  http://www.alextangofuego.blogspot.com/  Love it!

Send this video link to your own burro-butterfly, with the hope of bringing him or her into a more social way to dance.  One less jackass-butterfly on the dance floor will make the world a much better and safer place.

Happy Halloween, Tangueros / Tangueras!

Tango Vals: "Perfect Time"

First, please watch this video clip (below) of the great masters, Gavito and Durán.  This entry today is all about the rhythm of tango vals (waltz), which plays with the time like no other waltz.  That is, one can play with the rhythm, and I would argue make the dance truly what tango is at its best:  Improvisation in movement for two.  You will need to watch this video clip more than once, so just this first time, look for the normal down beat (ONE two three).

In music history, 3/4 (the waltz) was called "perfect time."  4/4 time was called, and still is called, "common time."  At the start of a piece a "C" is written for "common time," and is still often used to denote 4/4 time by today's composers.  The word "Common" is used in this sense as "less than perfect" or "vulgar" (in the Latin meaning of that word).  The theology of the Trinity and the huge influence of three on Christianity out of Stoicism influenced this idea of "perfect time."  Is it really "perfect"?  Absolutely!

So let's indulge in the myth of "perfect time."  Vals is the perfect time in which to dance.  Musically speaking we have some interesting things that can be done with the tango vals (waltz), and this video clip is a great example.

Gavito clearly thinks in larger phrases, the smallest of which is 12 beats long (4 measures of 3/4).  The common dancer dances on ONE(2,3), FOUR(5,6), SEVEN (8,9) TEN (11,12), which is the downbeat of each 3/4 phrase.  Since Gavito knows where these are, it does not confuse him to dance on every second beat of the 12-beat phrase (2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12), or the second beat of the normal downbeat (2, 5, 8, and 11), for example, which he does at the outset of the video clip.  His partner and any woman with a few tango courses could follow him on this because he is exactly on these beats and they make sense.  His steps on the first half of this clip are mostly on 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 of the 12-beat phrase.  Then he comes home to the power of the downbeat and resolves with intense pauses.

Gavito is by no means the only great dancer who uses 2, 4, 6, 8, 10 and 12 or 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11 in a vals.  When one is dancing on these beats, it is as if one is dancing a waltz within a waltz (instead of 1 against 3 -- the normal waltz -- one is dancing 3 steps (a waltz) per 6 beats.  Note:  You will need to clap out 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 (3 against 6 on the downbeat) or 2, 4, 6, 8 10, 12 (3 against 6 on the upbeat) while counting to 12 (over and over) to understand what he is doing.  Watch first, stop the clip, and work out the rhythm with hand clapping.  Then watch it again, and you will begin to understand his genius.  [If you are a musician, the feel is quarter note triplets here.]

Gavito may not have known what he was doing.  I discovered these things from feeling and then tried to figure out why they worked.

Have fun, and if you have questions leave a comment or email me at mark.word1@gmail.com.

Dancing at my own Funeral

Self-Reflection vs Self-Deflection:
Dancing at my own Funeral


First I must define some terms:
Did you ever hear of "Self-Deflection"?  We all know what "self-reflection" means: Thinking about ourselves all the while somewhat removed, trying to understand ourselves. But there is something that has happened a few times in my life for which self-reflection did not prepare me.  I have had to invent a word for this phenomenon:  "Self-deflection." 

Reflection returns our own image to us.  Deflection does not return to us, but our image is sent off in an unexpected direction.  A person who wishes to grow from this event, readjusts where they are standing until the deflection is once again a reflection.  The most powerful self-deflective moment in my life was when an unfaithful woman returned to me, and although I thought her return was my greatest wish the event "deflected" off my sense of the man I knew as me.  I did not rejoice.  I panicked!  "Now what will I do with her!" I asked myself.   I was like the puppy who caught up with the cat, but now was uncertain of what to do with this dangerous object of desire.  

The Funeral
A recent self-deflection allowed me to -- as it were -- dance at my own funeral. This remarkable event was in Austin, Texas. Leaving Austin was a self-deflective moment, and I have been too overwhelmed to fully understand it.  I did not have the terms or the needed level of self-reflection to understand it.  But I did not want to delay writing about it out of gratitude for the love I felt upon leaving.   I have been speechless.


Self-Deflection
Upon getting the word that I had a new job in Washington D.C., I was caught off guard by how much I realized I loved the Austin Tango Community, and how much love they gave me back.  I realized I was a true polygamist and I loved their husbands too!  (Don't read too much into that one, okay?)  I loved so many tangueras.  I knew their stories and danced with them through celebrations and hurts.  And they spoke to me about my place in their lives through conversations and private emails after I started telling them that I would be leaving.  All of these relationship have been absolutely platonic.


Especially dancing at my last milongas (Uptown and Kay's home) was like dancing at my own funeral.  In some ways my own mirror of self-reflection was set slightly off, and the deflection allowed me to be almost an outsider to my own going away. I didn't know the man that so many were fond of and I did not fully realize how fond I was of them.

The other part to being my own funeral is that I had taken the time to say my goodbyes without the dying part!  So I got to hear some pretty powerful eulogies.  The saddest thing about any well-planned funeral is that things are said and eulogies are intoned that the dead one really would have liked to hear.  But at a funeral or wake it is too late!  I got to hear these "eulogies" by many in the community.  Breaking tradition of funerals, however, the dead guy got up and mingled among the crowd:  I thanked others for their eulogies and outpouring of love.


Some months ago, Margret died in the Austin Tango Community and we gathered in one of the most loving memorial services I had ever seen.  People surrounded her and Vance with love.  And this is perhaps how I got my basic theme of what I said at the last milonga -- that the community was more loving than any church I had ever experienced.  


At Kay's milonga for me, I didn't have my glasses on and (as usual), and I could not find them as the music stopped, and I saw Kay saying a few words and asking me to speak.  I wanted to look people in the eye and thank them, but it was just as well that I couldn't.  One person even hid her eyes and just listened for my voice, she told me later.  I might have realized my fear of sobbing had I seen the faces and eyes of so many friends, some of whom wept during our last dances and words together. 


"I try to explain to people who do not dance or understand what I find in tango," I told the group, "...that I have a true treasure through the Austin Tango Community.  I tell those who do not dance that it is like a church, only with less in-fighting and sexual drama happening behind the scenes."  Someone said, "Amen!"  "It is a loving group of people," I continued to say, "who are not afraid to embrace each other.  Some people we get to know very well.  They come from all walks of life. . . . I may be leaving, but I will always consider myself as a part of the Austin Church of Tango."  In the middle, I mentioned how the teachers had made this possible by working together, coming to each other's milongas and supporting each other.  Austin is Austin for the great people, but without the teachers supporting the larger sense of community, Austin would not be special -- as most visiting tangueros/tangueras sense when they come to visit.


So that night I danced as if it were my own funeral.  It was my own self-deflective moment.  I was totally caught off guard by how much I realized I loved so many people, some deeply -- so deeply that each time I talk about this experience I weep.  Each time I re-read and try edit this I weep (and I am getting tired of all the weeping -- so just accept all the typos and tangents, okay?) 


When Deflection turns to Reflection

The larger life lesson is that I hope that I communicate my love more regularly for people who mean so much to me, because at the real event, I may not have the time to say it to each person as I did in Austin.  I may not dance at my real funeral, but I hope that my friends do.


You are awesome Austin!  ¡Les amo mucho!

It takes more than two to Tango

It Takes more than two to Tango:
Lessons from a Cabeceo*- Challenged Tanguero

*Note: Cabeceo comes from the word "cabeza," (head) in Spanish, and means "a nod of  the head."  In the tango community the cabeceo is the way to ask for a dance without words.  The "codicos" or rules of etiquette of the community includes the cabeceo as a major tenant of gentlemanly/ladylike behavior.  Use of the cabeceo helps the lady from having to say "no," and helps the gentleman from confronting unnecessary rejection.  Many tangueros and tangueras have a visual acuity problem.  This post addresses the role of friendship in in the tango community to help tangueros/tangueras who are "cabeceo-challenged."   

Marcus is legally blind.  I did not know this fact when I first met him, but slowly figured it out.  He is pretty good at not revealing this because he probably has honed his social skills since being a kid with a very conscious effort of not sticking out too much.  But now these skills of stealth might be getting in the way of survival in a new social context -- the tango milonga.  However, unlike middle school girls,  tangueras do need to know at a milonga that Marcus is not a snob.  They must know that he just cannot see their gaze that says, "I really would like to dance."  I had a few ideas for Marcus to confront this obstacle:  He could wear a T-shirt with the words on his chest, "If you can read this & wear stilettos, consider this a cabeceo."  Marcus didn't like my idea.  "How about a card you could pass out at the start of a milonga with 'cabeceo' written on it?" I asked.  Also rejected. [Note:  Yes, I did get his reluctant permission to write this post using his name.]


So how does a person who sees only the fuzzy movements of dancers approach a woman and get a dance?  The cabeceo is the correct way in tango, but how does that work for a person who cannot use this method.


The answer might be obvious to many:  just break the rules and ask for dances.  Well, we only modified these rules of etiquette.  The plan was to go on a bit of risky adventure:  His first Tango Festival and in a great place -- Denver.  The risk was that I would be my normal hunter self, searching out unwitting and innocent tangueras at the watering hole (water table), hiding in the bushes of bouquets on ballroom tables, and infiltrating the huddling droves of dance-hungry females, who in their own coy way are hunting for a dance too.  Since I invited Marcus, I knew that I could not leave him alone and have him just sitting out.  Sure, I like Marcus, and I wouldn't want see him just sitting there, but the other thing, I am sure that he would purposely snore in our hotel room or maybe even strangle me in the night.  Now you know what I mean by a risky adventure.


Tango Festival and the Blind Cabeceo
Let's be honest about it.  Many people are legally blind when they don't have their glasses on.  So our discoveries on this adventure should be noted by those people who are already part-time blind (like me) or harbor the fear that old age will one day take away the ability to get a dance at an unknown milonga.  Tango is said to be a social dance between two people.  But to really dance tango well is to dance among everyone else on the floor.  It takes more than two to dance tango.  Tangueros and tangueras dance with everyone on the floor not just with a partner, and we take care of those who are not dancing too.  I learned more about this last part of the social dance at the Denver festival.


Manual for the Blind Cabeceo

• First and foremost be a friend.  I learned this from women, especially my fellow Austin tango community blog colleague, Mari Johnson.  Check out her great blog on this and the links she quotes from other tangueras: http://mytangodiaries.blogspot.com/2009/12/grrl-power-good-stuff.html.  Women take care of each other.  They see the pain of rejection, the muscles  tightening up from sitting, the desperation of just wanting to dance to that particular piece of music.  And they talk to tangueros about their friends, introduce them.  I would drive Marcus to a milonga, and I hated it when he was not dancing in Austin.  But I still talked him into going to Denver.  We'd have to work as friends or be forever enemies.
• Introductions are in order:  I introduced Marcus to anyone I knew.  Mostly he would tell them that he might not recognize their willingness to dance; so they might have to get closer or simply ask.
• Deputize dance partners.  I did not rely on just me introducing someone I met.  I asked them to introduce their friends.  Kari ended up getting Marcus a load of dancers, although I had never met her or any of her friends before. Of course, I also danced with Kari's friends.  Dancing with a partner's friends is good karma.  Women do this for men all the time.  An excellent, veteran dancer whom I had met in Santa Monica, introduced a friend to me too.  Ela and I bonded so well that no other woman danced with me so much as she did.  I think of her as the karma-gift of sharing friends.  I danced the Cumparsita with her at 6 am at the last milonga.  Yes, that good.  And as for Kari ... we danced a salsa that was just amazing after the Cumparsita.
• Hunting is what men do together.  "Okay, Marcus, let's go on a hunt," I would say on the rare time I would find him at our designated waiting area.  We would run into someone every time.  Never a strike out. 
• Blind Faith:  Don't try this without a licence.  "Marcus," I said one time, "do an exact 180 degree turn and give the woman in the peach dress a cabeceo, and I will make sure she gets it."  He reminds me that he doesn't see color.  I am soooo stupid.  He does the about face and like an actor on the stage who cannot see his audience acts as if he could.  There of course are several flaws in my idea.  The first flaw is that Marcus did not show the proper level of his usual caution in doing anything I suggest without considering some escape plan.  But against the odds of the improbable success of any of my shoot-from-the-hip ideas, it works!  Kind of.  She is coy and acts like, "Who me?"  His eye gaze was a few degrees off too, I think. Not seeing the exact interaction of the coy tanguera, he drops his eyes too soon.  This cabeceo stuff is very exacting -- more than one might realize.  Although somewhat unsure, she's now getting up, and I have cabeceo'd a woman four chairs down from her.  Now Marcus thinks this is his tanguera.  Without any real training in air traffic control, I point to the peach lady and nod my head with the universal sigh of "yes, him," while directing her with two four-pointed hands like I just had seen at the airport.   The other lady comes out just to meet the traffic control director (me) to see if he could also dance with my legs.  Oh, how I wish we could have had that on YouTube clip.  200,000 hits in three days.  Of course, publishing that clip would have been my death-in-the-night at the next festival.  Marcus does have his dark side.
• Independence:  It is no coincidence that a man who gets around remarkably well would also use his very gutsy skills to live in a big city to also navigate around and get dances at a festival.  He was good at this and deserves 90% of the credit for even showing up.
• It is a good thing to have cool friends.  From Marcus I learned some important things about tango that I did not expect.  The best example came from a comment of one of his tangueras.  I introduced him to Sara from Santa Barbara.  She has a great presence in her embrace, which we both like.  I take Sara on wild milonga rides, which I know she likes because she hunts me down for milongas in whatever city I am it seems.  However,  Marcus ended up being one of her favorite dancers.  From Sara, I heard that women get tired of men who are going through their entire "vocabulary list" of tango words and sentences they can babble back from expensive stage tango lessons.  Marcus is a "cause-no-harm" kind of dancer, very smooth, musical, tasty.  He later told me that he only used about 30% of his vocabulary.  This was true for me as well because of the tight quarters at first, but he kept this success formula throughout the festival.  Wise man.
• The wild card:  Another Sara -- this one from from the South West -- did not want me to introduce her to Marcus.  As a wise tanguera, she first scoped him out, evidently.  When she saw his level of dance, she found him three or four times during the festival for a dance.   She was the wild card tanguera, and really Marcus's biggest success story.  She was an advanced dancer and she kept coming back for more.  I am jealous!

My most satisfying festival ever
My time with Marcus taught me another level of tango as a social dance, and I came back from the festival more satisfied than ever before -- which says a lot!  I turned four year old as a tanguero at the Denver Festival this year.   In my short life as a tanguero, I have had wonderful experiences in Denver now twice, Albuquerque, Tuscon, Austin x 6, and Houston x 3.  This was by far the best because of the social aspect of how most tangueros in Denver led in a responsible way.  And this time around, I learned about sharing friends and making friends in this remarkable walking embrace, el tango para mas que dos personas.