Why do I want to get better in tango?
I am an overachiever. Some times that stood in my way - like when I insisted on staying in one of the best German universities and getting my finance diploma there, even when I knew that I don't even like finance anymore; and other times it has been to my advantage - for example when studying languages or in tango. I was 21, when for the first time in my life I quit doing something, just because I didn't see why continue. Never before had it even entered my mind that I could quit what I've started. Stupid, right?
So, part of why I have been working on my tango for so many years and why I keep working on it, is because I'm obsessive and an overachiever. I start doing something and I want to do it to the best of my abilities, because I believe that things are worth doing only if I do them as good as I can. If I intend to halfass them, I am better off not doing them at all. But this is just one part of my motivation.
Another part came in the form of two encounters. The first was 14 years ago. Due to a bad first teacher I though that tango was boring and wanted to quit, when I saw my first master - Constantin Rueger -, dancing at a milonga. He was young and handsome, she was young and gorgeous, they were dancing close embrace, which I had never seen before, both had their eyes closed, or so it seemed, and they looked so blissful, so happy, so into each other and the moment, that I could not take my eyes off of them. That's when I got a glimpse of what tango can be like and decided that one day I want to dance with this guy and make him feel the way this woman does right now. He he, I am not at all competitive or obsessive, right? ;) It took me 12 years to get there, but I managed! :) My second encounter was almost on my 13th year anniversary in tango. I danced socially with my second master - Horacio Godoy -, and I felt as if he opened a window behind him and allowed me to look though it, and see the stars of a different universe - a universe made of music and motion, and tantalizing stillness. I didn't know what he did or how he did it, but I knew I wanted to learn from him, I wanted to see through that window again, I wanted one day to walk among the stars of that universe, and then to be able to open such windows for others.
To me tango is a process of self-exploration and I can make progress only if I turn my attention inwards - to my body and my emotions. Getting better in tango means getting technically better and healthier, because it's my body which creates the physical expression of my emotions, and it, just like any other instrument, needs to be fine-tuned. Getting better means becoming more understanding, more sensitive, more appreciating, more accepting, more connected, more self-reflected, more generous, more enlightened, more, more, more… Getting better means getting moved by the tango music, inspired by it to the point of wanting to express it, to honor it, to sing it, to share it, to dissolve in it. Getting better is when you realize that you will dance to the same songs not hundreds but may be thousands of times, and start choosing different parts of the music to accentuate or to skip. To me expressing the music is like making a salad from 10 ingredients. If you always put all 10 of them, you will always eat basically the same salad. (Oh my beloved German language, which distinguishes between "der gleiche" and "der selbe Salat"!) But if you decide to use only some of the ingredients at any given time and combine them differently… oh, the variety of salads that you will have!
So, why do I want to get better at tango? Beside the obvious, that as I teacher I feel I have the responsibility to be as good of a dancer and teacher, and as knowledgable as I can be, I want to get better because I've felt an universe that I can't see with my eyes, because I feel beautiful when dancing, because I get to connect with people on a level beyond words, because I get to learn about myself and because the tango music inspires me and keeps revealing nuances, which I hadn't discovered before. May be one day I'll know it all, or may be tango music is "the living word" of that tango gods? ;)
Monday, December 15, 2014
Sunday, December 15, 2013
The dying swan
A while ago I met this wonderful dancer, who gave me the honor of wanting to study with me.
Few days after a private, we were dancing at the milonga. Great fun, as always, - melting into each other's arms, who more who less ;) , while being playful and ripping the music apart. :)
Third song of the tanda, the music is getting more and more intense with the progression of the "variation", and so is our dancing. More instruments come in, the music gets faster, our feet are twirling on the floor, the embrace is getting tighter, and the breathing rapid. He freezes slightly during the final crescendo and throws himself over me on the last "pam pam", burying his head into my shoulder! For a second I just stood there in a shock, then slowly lifted up my right hand and covered his head, while awaiting to feel the inevitable trembling of his body followed by the warmth of tears. What provoked this reaction? What did the music or our dance trigger in him? Will he really cry on my shoulder in the middle of the milonga? Many times have men cried, hiding their heads in my shoulder, but non of them in a milonga!!!
After what seemed a whole, long while, he let go of me and beamed at me in a bright smile - his eyes completely dry! "What did just happen?!?", came right out of me. "I added feeling to the dance! :) YOU taught me I should do that! :) :)" Huuuuhhh?!?!?… And also, "Eeeehhhh?!?!?"… I do have pretty good recollection of what I taught him, and the "dying swan" technique was definitely not part of it!… But hey, in the end, who am I to tell him what is, or what is not a valid tango move!?… The rest of the tanda was much calmer (I wonder why… ;) ) and I have to admit I am quite happy he never repeated the lunge again. At least not yet.
Few days after a private, we were dancing at the milonga. Great fun, as always, - melting into each other's arms, who more who less ;) , while being playful and ripping the music apart. :)
Third song of the tanda, the music is getting more and more intense with the progression of the "variation", and so is our dancing. More instruments come in, the music gets faster, our feet are twirling on the floor, the embrace is getting tighter, and the breathing rapid. He freezes slightly during the final crescendo and throws himself over me on the last "pam pam", burying his head into my shoulder! For a second I just stood there in a shock, then slowly lifted up my right hand and covered his head, while awaiting to feel the inevitable trembling of his body followed by the warmth of tears. What provoked this reaction? What did the music or our dance trigger in him? Will he really cry on my shoulder in the middle of the milonga? Many times have men cried, hiding their heads in my shoulder, but non of them in a milonga!!!
After what seemed a whole, long while, he let go of me and beamed at me in a bright smile - his eyes completely dry! "What did just happen?!?", came right out of me. "I added feeling to the dance! :) YOU taught me I should do that! :) :)" Huuuuhhh?!?!?… And also, "Eeeehhhh?!?!?"… I do have pretty good recollection of what I taught him, and the "dying swan" technique was definitely not part of it!… But hey, in the end, who am I to tell him what is, or what is not a valid tango move!?… The rest of the tanda was much calmer (I wonder why… ;) ) and I have to admit I am quite happy he never repeated the lunge again. At least not yet.
Wednesday, December 11, 2013
I am still hungry after last night's dinner.
Friends worked very hard to get us a reservation at this "extremely exclusive" sushi place in Manhattan - on 73rd Ave and York St. As they put it "only due to the bad weather there was a miraculous cancellation" and that's why we managed to get in. I am always suspicious of "exclusive" places, but I have to admit that I was also curious.
You can't just walk in there, for they have seatings. Ours is the last - at 9pm -, and we are required to be there on time or a little early. I like that. I am a punctual person, so no problem. We get there at 8:55pm and the place is still full - all seats occupied AND people already waiting inside. We stand outside the door, patiently waiting. The waiter sees us, and after some indecisive movements comes out and leads us into the next door Japanese place, where they welcome us to sit down and wait.
At 9:25pm (forget punctuality!) they came to get us. The "shush restaurant" is a hole in the wall - no tables, just a bar with 12 chairs. The waiter tries calling out names to seat us, but the process is far from smooth, since "Andrew" is getting transformed into "Aan-lu", and nobody recognizes himself as that person. It's a BYOB place, and we all take advantage of it right away, once everybody has a chair. The bar, behind which stand the sushi chefs, has two levels and on the higher one, in front of everybody, there is a small wooden tray with some pickled ginger on top of it and one empty glass for the alc. But no menu. For that there are two rows of paper sheets on the wall - one row called "appetizer" and the other "shushi", and on each sheet there is a name - like "Crab brain". Nothing more, nothing less.
The waiter comes and asks if "we don't eat something", and we explain that one of us does not like sea urchin. Then he asks if we want "???" We look at each other, shrug our shoulders and ask if we want "what"? He repeats the question using the same, unknown word. We ask what that is, but with this question we hit on the limit of his English vocabulary, and get no answer. He gets angry and repeats the same uninformative question again. We decide that we should probably want the "???", as later do all the others in the room.
That mystical order turns out to be sushi pieces that the chef prepares - only one piece per person -, puts on the small, wooden tray for you, and announces what it is. (You'd better not move the wooden tray, like I did, because it makes the chef unhappy, and he doesn't' give you food.) The sushi is made with everything they think you might need, and so they don't give you even soy sauce. Both, the waiter and the chef got quite offended when I asked for some. You should have seen the nervous jumps the waiter was doing on my side every time I dipped my sushi in the tiny puddle of soy sauce he brought me. At some point he came to me and reached as if to extract the small, problems causing bowl, but then thought better of it, and let me continue with my desecrating practice, while satisfying himself with disapprovingly shaking his head. Enjoy your dinner!
Aside from the fact that in my honest opinion the sushi did need soy sauce to give it more taste, most of it was quite good actually. Bland but good. And little. In the course of 1.5h, after getting 2 appetizers to share, each one of us was given about 10-12 single pieces of sushi, and a lot of water refills. I am really not a big eater, and yet even I didn't feel I got enough food. (Thank the gods for calories in alcohol!)
Around 10:30pm they announced that that was it, and that if we want more, we can order "a la card", which some of us did - a total of 6 pieces, and then the bill came… $115 per person!!! And bear in mind that there is no alcohol included in this price… $115 per person!?!?! Wait for 30 min to be seated, have a waiter, who doesn't speak the language, endure his grunting about the soy sauce, watch the chef throw your sushi in front of you, and that only if you place the tray where he wants you to, stay hungry because face it - not even a girl can get full with 15 bites of food, and pay $115 for it!?! I, the Eastern European, call this jumping through hoops and being treated like crap. My American friends called it "small business trying to stay local, and keep the neighborhood to the locals". I will let you be the judge.
Friends worked very hard to get us a reservation at this "extremely exclusive" sushi place in Manhattan - on 73rd Ave and York St. As they put it "only due to the bad weather there was a miraculous cancellation" and that's why we managed to get in. I am always suspicious of "exclusive" places, but I have to admit that I was also curious.
You can't just walk in there, for they have seatings. Ours is the last - at 9pm -, and we are required to be there on time or a little early. I like that. I am a punctual person, so no problem. We get there at 8:55pm and the place is still full - all seats occupied AND people already waiting inside. We stand outside the door, patiently waiting. The waiter sees us, and after some indecisive movements comes out and leads us into the next door Japanese place, where they welcome us to sit down and wait.
At 9:25pm (forget punctuality!) they came to get us. The "shush restaurant" is a hole in the wall - no tables, just a bar with 12 chairs. The waiter tries calling out names to seat us, but the process is far from smooth, since "Andrew" is getting transformed into "Aan-lu", and nobody recognizes himself as that person. It's a BYOB place, and we all take advantage of it right away, once everybody has a chair. The bar, behind which stand the sushi chefs, has two levels and on the higher one, in front of everybody, there is a small wooden tray with some pickled ginger on top of it and one empty glass for the alc. But no menu. For that there are two rows of paper sheets on the wall - one row called "appetizer" and the other "shushi", and on each sheet there is a name - like "Crab brain". Nothing more, nothing less.
The waiter comes and asks if "we don't eat something", and we explain that one of us does not like sea urchin. Then he asks if we want "???" We look at each other, shrug our shoulders and ask if we want "what"? He repeats the question using the same, unknown word. We ask what that is, but with this question we hit on the limit of his English vocabulary, and get no answer. He gets angry and repeats the same uninformative question again. We decide that we should probably want the "???", as later do all the others in the room.
That mystical order turns out to be sushi pieces that the chef prepares - only one piece per person -, puts on the small, wooden tray for you, and announces what it is. (You'd better not move the wooden tray, like I did, because it makes the chef unhappy, and he doesn't' give you food.) The sushi is made with everything they think you might need, and so they don't give you even soy sauce. Both, the waiter and the chef got quite offended when I asked for some. You should have seen the nervous jumps the waiter was doing on my side every time I dipped my sushi in the tiny puddle of soy sauce he brought me. At some point he came to me and reached as if to extract the small, problems causing bowl, but then thought better of it, and let me continue with my desecrating practice, while satisfying himself with disapprovingly shaking his head. Enjoy your dinner!
Aside from the fact that in my honest opinion the sushi did need soy sauce to give it more taste, most of it was quite good actually. Bland but good. And little. In the course of 1.5h, after getting 2 appetizers to share, each one of us was given about 10-12 single pieces of sushi, and a lot of water refills. I am really not a big eater, and yet even I didn't feel I got enough food. (Thank the gods for calories in alcohol!)
Around 10:30pm they announced that that was it, and that if we want more, we can order "a la card", which some of us did - a total of 6 pieces, and then the bill came… $115 per person!!! And bear in mind that there is no alcohol included in this price… $115 per person!?!?! Wait for 30 min to be seated, have a waiter, who doesn't speak the language, endure his grunting about the soy sauce, watch the chef throw your sushi in front of you, and that only if you place the tray where he wants you to, stay hungry because face it - not even a girl can get full with 15 bites of food, and pay $115 for it!?! I, the Eastern European, call this jumping through hoops and being treated like crap. My American friends called it "small business trying to stay local, and keep the neighborhood to the locals". I will let you be the judge.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Cinderella's search
When I was in Buenos Aires in March 2013 I went shoe shopping. And I hate shopping. Period. Yet I had to comb the city, since I was looking to try out new brands of shoes, in the hope to find something stylish, comfortable and well padded.
I already knew that I can't wear Comme il Faut, because I have wide feet and high arches, and the Comme il Fauts feel as if half of my arch is hanging outside of the sole. So I didn't even bother.
I used to wear Neo Tango (Sarmiento 1938), which are wide enough for me, but in recent years their quality has gone down so much that I don't want to buy them anymore. I had to hammer flat the insole of the last pair I bought from them, because after a few months, it crunched up to build a little ball, that was hurting the bottom of my foot. I still went to the store and I tried on a few pairs, but didn't find them comfortable or padded enough.
From there to Raquel (Bolivar 554). I had seen the shoes during the "Ladies Festival" and spoken to what seemed to be the owner of the store - she kept saying that 'she' can make this or that change for me. The story was somewhat different when I went to the store, where I encountered only a slightly overworked saleswoman, who didn't even mention that any changes can be made at all. With some decisions I need help and if the salesperson had offered it, I would have probably bought shoes, since I liked how padded but flexible they were. I walked out empty-handed but I will go back next time.
After that I went to the Greta Flora's store in Palermo (Francisco Acuña de Figueroa 1612). There are two Greta Floras in town, but only the one in Palermo has tango shoes. I tried on quite some shoes that looked almost the same, but feel quite different due to the various types of leather, of which they are made. I managed to pick a pair of super low heels - my guess is that they are 5cm. I had never worn such a low heel, but the shoes turned out to be extremely comfortable. This was in March. Now, in November, I went and bought a different style of Greta Floras, also with a low heel. I found them super pretty, even though they were more closed on the front, than I usually wear, and with a closed back. So I wore them at the milonga the same night… Well, turns out that they are made for narrower feet, and since I had to get a bigger size than I usually wear, in order to fit in them comfortably, once I started dancing my feet started moving a little within the shoes, and getting scraped. By the end of the night I had blood in one shoe. With the expectation of mighty resistance, the next day I went to return the shoes. You should have seen my jaw dropping, when the sales associate didn't fight me, brought the shoes to her boss in the back room, and turned back a minute later saying that I can either pick another pair of shoes, or they can try to pad these for me, so that they don't scrape. They didn't have the type of low heel shoes that I wanted, so I ended up picking a pair, like the one I got in March, but with a 7cm heel. Still super comfortable.
Next on the list was Soy Porteña (Juan Domingo Perón 1610, Apt 5B). I have 2 pairs of their shoes - identical style and color but different hight heels - 9cm and 10cm. I really like the fit, since they are clearly made for wide feet, like mine. What I don't like is that a) they got beaten up very quickly - the silver got rubbed off within few months and now they look rather brownish -, and b) that they have no padding whatsoever. And I mean NON! After a week of dancing in them I put in one silicon insole, few months later I had to add a second one in an attempt to survive in them for 3-4 hours. Sadly, adding a second insole didn't work out, because I loose any grounding perched on top of 2 layers of insoles. I might bring them back here next time, and check if I can get a good insole built in. If not, I'll throw them away.
After Soy Porteña I went to Souple (Paraná 348, 2nd floor). They had styles that I liked and the shoes are very well padded. The saleswoman was not too happy that I wanted to try different styles in different sizes, and kept pushing me to buy shoes one size too small for me, with the explanation that I should try harder to push my foot into a shoe, in which there was not enough space for even 4 of my toes… So much about Cinderella, or at least her sister… After I got annoyed and said: "No! I am not doing this! I've been buying tango shoes for 13 years and know what fits me well!", she asked me if I were Russian, and even though I said "No" she became friendlier and more accommodating. Go figure! I was trying to decide between two gorgeous pairs - one tan colored and one orange. She pointed out that the tan colored ones get dirty really easily, so I picked the orange ones, and I've been in love with them for the last few months.
Next stop - Flabella (Suipacha 263). Here I had the same experience like last time - many salespeople, few clients and yet a very, very, very long waiting time. You can see the shoes only in the window display, which means that you have to go out with the sales person and point to the many pairs, and hope that she understands what you want. After spending over an hour there, torturing and getting tortured by the sales woman, she gave up and brought me all the shoes she had in my size. What can I say? Shoes only borderline stylish, and a saleswomen who keeps repeating how good they look on your feet - even the ugliest ones. My first two pairs of shoes from 13 years ago were Flabellas and I remember them being very comfortable. I wish shopping in this store was easier, and may be I would have given them another chance.
A year and a half ago I bought three pairs of Alanis shoes. They used to have a store in Palermo, which it is closed now. If they are still in business, they should be in the central store (Diagonal Norte 936), which was quite busy and the sales person stressed out. I don't like most of their styles, since they are angular on the front, and even though I managed to find shoes that I like, I now regret having bought them. Even the leather strap that holds my heel in place stretched on one pair, and now I can't wear them because the shoes hang loose off my foot. The other huts the nail bed of my big toe. In order to wear them I would need to have the placing of all straps, that cover the toes, changed… I got a lot of use only of the one pair that was custom made for me. I wouldn't buy them again, but I did get to wear them for a while. One of the heels did break off after I moon-walked in them, but I guess that's OK. :)
As I mentioned earlier, one particularity about my feet is that I have a very high arch, and that's why need insoles in most shoes. I have one pair of Artisenal shoes, which I never wear, because even with an insole, my arch doesn't manage to touch the bottom of the shoe… So far the only shoes that I have, that don't require insoles AND are still comfortable, are the Souple and the Greta Flora.
I also have one pair of DNI shoes (Bulnes 1011). Because of the placement of the straps, I had to buy a whole size bigger pair and then bring them to a shoe maker to cut the front. After that I had the soles changed, since it was rubber!!! I wouldn't buy them again, first because I had to spend too much money of fixing them to my foot, and second because now, with the chrome leather sole, they are even less flexible and I fee as if I am dancing inside the shoes, instead of with the shoes.
When I was in Buenos Aires in March 2013 I went shoe shopping. And I hate shopping. Period. Yet I had to comb the city, since I was looking to try out new brands of shoes, in the hope to find something stylish, comfortable and well padded.
I already knew that I can't wear Comme il Faut, because I have wide feet and high arches, and the Comme il Fauts feel as if half of my arch is hanging outside of the sole. So I didn't even bother.
I used to wear Neo Tango (Sarmiento 1938), which are wide enough for me, but in recent years their quality has gone down so much that I don't want to buy them anymore. I had to hammer flat the insole of the last pair I bought from them, because after a few months, it crunched up to build a little ball, that was hurting the bottom of my foot. I still went to the store and I tried on a few pairs, but didn't find them comfortable or padded enough.
From there to Raquel (Bolivar 554). I had seen the shoes during the "Ladies Festival" and spoken to what seemed to be the owner of the store - she kept saying that 'she' can make this or that change for me. The story was somewhat different when I went to the store, where I encountered only a slightly overworked saleswoman, who didn't even mention that any changes can be made at all. With some decisions I need help and if the salesperson had offered it, I would have probably bought shoes, since I liked how padded but flexible they were. I walked out empty-handed but I will go back next time.
After that I went to the Greta Flora's store in Palermo (Francisco Acuña de Figueroa 1612). There are two Greta Floras in town, but only the one in Palermo has tango shoes. I tried on quite some shoes that looked almost the same, but feel quite different due to the various types of leather, of which they are made. I managed to pick a pair of super low heels - my guess is that they are 5cm. I had never worn such a low heel, but the shoes turned out to be extremely comfortable. This was in March. Now, in November, I went and bought a different style of Greta Floras, also with a low heel. I found them super pretty, even though they were more closed on the front, than I usually wear, and with a closed back. So I wore them at the milonga the same night… Well, turns out that they are made for narrower feet, and since I had to get a bigger size than I usually wear, in order to fit in them comfortably, once I started dancing my feet started moving a little within the shoes, and getting scraped. By the end of the night I had blood in one shoe. With the expectation of mighty resistance, the next day I went to return the shoes. You should have seen my jaw dropping, when the sales associate didn't fight me, brought the shoes to her boss in the back room, and turned back a minute later saying that I can either pick another pair of shoes, or they can try to pad these for me, so that they don't scrape. They didn't have the type of low heel shoes that I wanted, so I ended up picking a pair, like the one I got in March, but with a 7cm heel. Still super comfortable.
Next on the list was Soy Porteña (Juan Domingo Perón 1610, Apt 5B). I have 2 pairs of their shoes - identical style and color but different hight heels - 9cm and 10cm. I really like the fit, since they are clearly made for wide feet, like mine. What I don't like is that a) they got beaten up very quickly - the silver got rubbed off within few months and now they look rather brownish -, and b) that they have no padding whatsoever. And I mean NON! After a week of dancing in them I put in one silicon insole, few months later I had to add a second one in an attempt to survive in them for 3-4 hours. Sadly, adding a second insole didn't work out, because I loose any grounding perched on top of 2 layers of insoles. I might bring them back here next time, and check if I can get a good insole built in. If not, I'll throw them away.
After Soy Porteña I went to Souple (Paraná 348, 2nd floor). They had styles that I liked and the shoes are very well padded. The saleswoman was not too happy that I wanted to try different styles in different sizes, and kept pushing me to buy shoes one size too small for me, with the explanation that I should try harder to push my foot into a shoe, in which there was not enough space for even 4 of my toes… So much about Cinderella, or at least her sister… After I got annoyed and said: "No! I am not doing this! I've been buying tango shoes for 13 years and know what fits me well!", she asked me if I were Russian, and even though I said "No" she became friendlier and more accommodating. Go figure! I was trying to decide between two gorgeous pairs - one tan colored and one orange. She pointed out that the tan colored ones get dirty really easily, so I picked the orange ones, and I've been in love with them for the last few months.
Next stop - Flabella (Suipacha 263). Here I had the same experience like last time - many salespeople, few clients and yet a very, very, very long waiting time. You can see the shoes only in the window display, which means that you have to go out with the sales person and point to the many pairs, and hope that she understands what you want. After spending over an hour there, torturing and getting tortured by the sales woman, she gave up and brought me all the shoes she had in my size. What can I say? Shoes only borderline stylish, and a saleswomen who keeps repeating how good they look on your feet - even the ugliest ones. My first two pairs of shoes from 13 years ago were Flabellas and I remember them being very comfortable. I wish shopping in this store was easier, and may be I would have given them another chance.
A year and a half ago I bought three pairs of Alanis shoes. They used to have a store in Palermo, which it is closed now. If they are still in business, they should be in the central store (Diagonal Norte 936), which was quite busy and the sales person stressed out. I don't like most of their styles, since they are angular on the front, and even though I managed to find shoes that I like, I now regret having bought them. Even the leather strap that holds my heel in place stretched on one pair, and now I can't wear them because the shoes hang loose off my foot. The other huts the nail bed of my big toe. In order to wear them I would need to have the placing of all straps, that cover the toes, changed… I got a lot of use only of the one pair that was custom made for me. I wouldn't buy them again, but I did get to wear them for a while. One of the heels did break off after I moon-walked in them, but I guess that's OK. :)
As I mentioned earlier, one particularity about my feet is that I have a very high arch, and that's why need insoles in most shoes. I have one pair of Artisenal shoes, which I never wear, because even with an insole, my arch doesn't manage to touch the bottom of the shoe… So far the only shoes that I have, that don't require insoles AND are still comfortable, are the Souple and the Greta Flora.
I also have one pair of DNI shoes (Bulnes 1011). Because of the placement of the straps, I had to buy a whole size bigger pair and then bring them to a shoe maker to cut the front. After that I had the soles changed, since it was rubber!!! I wouldn't buy them again, first because I had to spend too much money of fixing them to my foot, and second because now, with the chrome leather sole, they are even less flexible and I fee as if I am dancing inside the shoes, instead of with the shoes.
Tuesday, November 12, 2013
The tango skill building
To me assessing the skill level of better tango dancers feels like looking up a building. May be you can see the difference in the make of the details a few floors above you, but you certainly can't see them 10 or 20 stories higher. On the other hand, you can clearly recognize every floor below you, since you've been there, you've walked it, and you've inspected it for a while. I have examined many floors in the 13.5 years of dancing tango only. I've tried out many things that didn't work out. I've taken classes with many teachers or refused to take classes, out of stupidity, ego, or because I knew better. I've bumped into many teachers who had a whole lot to give me, but either weren't saying the words that I was ready to hear at that moment, or were thinking about the dance in a too different way, or I couldn't connect what they were saying to what I was doing, and so I ended up not learning much from them. Nevertheless, I kept little boxes of knowledge from most of them, even though for many years those boxed were completely useless to me. But as I keep changing my dancing and discovering more things, I am finding myself understanding the knowledge from some of those boxes. I consider myself an autodidact for the most part, since for the above mentioned reasons I keep reinventing the wheel. I recognize only two of the many people with whom I studied as my mentors: Constanin Rueger - my first teacher, from whom I learned most of what I knew about tango for the first few years, and from whom I learned how to teach; and since last year - Horacio Godoy. May be, if in the interim I had found a teacher to suit my needs, I would have gotten all the information I need from her, and would have progressed much faster…, but even so, I am happy things worked out the way they did, because, since I am a teacher, I had to think about every single aspect of what I do and examine every single floor of that building with a magnifying class, and that sometimes even more than once.
In this blog I want to talk about followers, even though the same applies for leads, but it will be a mess to switch back and forth talking about the two.
Back to our building. For a while, when one sees better dancers one immediately recognizes the external differences - she does more steps than me, her boleos are higher, she embellishes better. (After a 1.5 years of dancing I couldn't for the life of me see any further differences between myself and the best dancer in Berlin, who had been dancing for 11 years at that time.) Later, as one keeps moving up the building, one starts paying attention to the ease with which those elements get executed, how stable and smooth the movements are, and how everything seems to end just where it needs to be - precision. Much, much, much later, I started being able to see how a great follower would express the music with her body. How the way she steps or embellishes reflects what she hears in the music. Sometimes, seldom, I can even see the tension and relaxation in her body. If I pay a lot of attention I can see the subtleness or her movements: how small of a signal with provoke a reaction; how perfectly she would absorb the energy to express a soft note; how the duration of her boleo will be perfectly timed to hit a certain something in the music; and how her leg will hover in the air, if the music "holds its breath"...
And then there is the whole universe of subtlety that we don't see. Has it happen to you to watch a couple dance, and she's obviously a good dancer, but you don't see anything so special about the ways she moves, that might explain why the guy dances the 10th tandas with her, or why he seems mesmerized? May be it was due to my limited talent or lessons, that it took 13 years and Horacio Godoy for me to be able to understand… But what I learned from him was that I shouldn't be able to see what enchants the lead?!?! If it's visible, it's too much. What it is, is a subtlety in the way one uses their body and hears the music - the way one breathes…, the way one can isolate and engage different muscles…, the way one can pick a note or two to skip or throw into the dance…, the way one is responsible for their own movement and can make suggestions, while melting into the music and the partner… Now I know that the only way to know this subtlety is to experience it. And experience it, when one is ready for it. After 13 years of dancing tango, Horacio told me in a private: "You should know you are good, since I am not working on walking with you." Really??? That's how "good" I am?!? And yet, he was right. If he had had to work with me on the mechanics of walking, instead of the expression of walking, I would have never been able to tap into that pool of subtlety, because I wouldn't have been ready. If he hadn't felt that I have explored all the floors I talked about, he would have known that I can't relax and submerge myself into the world of subtlety… But now I'm here - eyes wide open for the invisible, I am ready to explore the next floor! And I'm so excited about the marvels that the higher floors, which I can't even see yet, will bring.
To me assessing the skill level of better tango dancers feels like looking up a building. May be you can see the difference in the make of the details a few floors above you, but you certainly can't see them 10 or 20 stories higher. On the other hand, you can clearly recognize every floor below you, since you've been there, you've walked it, and you've inspected it for a while. I have examined many floors in the 13.5 years of dancing tango only. I've tried out many things that didn't work out. I've taken classes with many teachers or refused to take classes, out of stupidity, ego, or because I knew better. I've bumped into many teachers who had a whole lot to give me, but either weren't saying the words that I was ready to hear at that moment, or were thinking about the dance in a too different way, or I couldn't connect what they were saying to what I was doing, and so I ended up not learning much from them. Nevertheless, I kept little boxes of knowledge from most of them, even though for many years those boxed were completely useless to me. But as I keep changing my dancing and discovering more things, I am finding myself understanding the knowledge from some of those boxes. I consider myself an autodidact for the most part, since for the above mentioned reasons I keep reinventing the wheel. I recognize only two of the many people with whom I studied as my mentors: Constanin Rueger - my first teacher, from whom I learned most of what I knew about tango for the first few years, and from whom I learned how to teach; and since last year - Horacio Godoy. May be, if in the interim I had found a teacher to suit my needs, I would have gotten all the information I need from her, and would have progressed much faster…, but even so, I am happy things worked out the way they did, because, since I am a teacher, I had to think about every single aspect of what I do and examine every single floor of that building with a magnifying class, and that sometimes even more than once.
In this blog I want to talk about followers, even though the same applies for leads, but it will be a mess to switch back and forth talking about the two.
Back to our building. For a while, when one sees better dancers one immediately recognizes the external differences - she does more steps than me, her boleos are higher, she embellishes better. (After a 1.5 years of dancing I couldn't for the life of me see any further differences between myself and the best dancer in Berlin, who had been dancing for 11 years at that time.) Later, as one keeps moving up the building, one starts paying attention to the ease with which those elements get executed, how stable and smooth the movements are, and how everything seems to end just where it needs to be - precision. Much, much, much later, I started being able to see how a great follower would express the music with her body. How the way she steps or embellishes reflects what she hears in the music. Sometimes, seldom, I can even see the tension and relaxation in her body. If I pay a lot of attention I can see the subtleness or her movements: how small of a signal with provoke a reaction; how perfectly she would absorb the energy to express a soft note; how the duration of her boleo will be perfectly timed to hit a certain something in the music; and how her leg will hover in the air, if the music "holds its breath"...
And then there is the whole universe of subtlety that we don't see. Has it happen to you to watch a couple dance, and she's obviously a good dancer, but you don't see anything so special about the ways she moves, that might explain why the guy dances the 10th tandas with her, or why he seems mesmerized? May be it was due to my limited talent or lessons, that it took 13 years and Horacio Godoy for me to be able to understand… But what I learned from him was that I shouldn't be able to see what enchants the lead?!?! If it's visible, it's too much. What it is, is a subtlety in the way one uses their body and hears the music - the way one breathes…, the way one can isolate and engage different muscles…, the way one can pick a note or two to skip or throw into the dance…, the way one is responsible for their own movement and can make suggestions, while melting into the music and the partner… Now I know that the only way to know this subtlety is to experience it. And experience it, when one is ready for it. After 13 years of dancing tango, Horacio told me in a private: "You should know you are good, since I am not working on walking with you." Really??? That's how "good" I am?!? And yet, he was right. If he had had to work with me on the mechanics of walking, instead of the expression of walking, I would have never been able to tap into that pool of subtlety, because I wouldn't have been ready. If he hadn't felt that I have explored all the floors I talked about, he would have known that I can't relax and submerge myself into the world of subtlety… But now I'm here - eyes wide open for the invisible, I am ready to explore the next floor! And I'm so excited about the marvels that the higher floors, which I can't even see yet, will bring.
Sunday, June 23, 2013
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Saturday, June 15, 2013
"Mi Buenos Aires Querido"
In March of 2012 I went to BA for the first time. When I came back I was asked to write an article about it for a blog called "The delicate strength". I don't know if that blog is still around and how long it might exist, that's why I decided to publish the article on my blog too.
Buenos Aires Trip 2012, Part 5
Somebody had warned me that the cleaning lady in their apartment stole some valuables. For that reason I had tortured the landlord with questions about the trustworthiness of their cleaning lady. He assured me that I shouldn't worry about that at all, which turned out to be true. What I should have worried about was the quality of her work. The dirt redistribution on the apartment floor, the unchanged sliminess of the bathroom tiles and the unchallenged dirt on the counter tops made me think that she probably understood her job as the attempt to make things somewhat less dirty instead of really clean. Needless to say that I wasn't happy with her. And yet this wasn't even what really upset me about here presence in the apartment. My distress was caused much more by the fact that she let her 2-year-old son, with a lollipop in his hand, to roam our apartment and touch everything with his sticky hands. After they were gone I discovered that he had left me that same lollipop as a present in a pile of my pills, cellphone and foot products, after clearly playing with them first… Luckily for all participants the week after we had another cleaning lady, who did an excellent job.
You know how they say that trouble never comes alone? Well, on the same day when I discovered the previously mentioned Catch 22 situation with the phone card and found the present left for me by the son of the cleaning lady I had one more trouble, this time at the laundromat. Fairly close to where we lived there were many laundromats. At the one closest to our apartment the clients were not allowed to do their own laundry. For the price of 20 pesos (about $5) per bin of clothes the people at the laundromat wash, dry and fold your clothes for you, which is not bad. What was bad was that they shamelessly charged me 50 pesos at pick up although in a week my dancing partner and I had managed to fill up only 2 bins. Since this was the last straw after all the difficulties of the day I didn't feel like arguing about what's wrong with the math 20+20=50. The next day I returned to the laundromat in a search of a green, lace top, which I thought had gotten lost there and which I wanted to wear at the milonga. "No," said the woman, "we don't have your top… But we have a forgotten batman T-shit… Do you want it instead? :)" Oh Batman, Batman, how elegantly we would have looked at the milonga: me - in a skirt and high heels, you - plastered all over my oversized, dorky T-shirt…!
After I managed to understand the description of services a laundromat offers, and quarrel with the phone company about band widths and refunds, I gotta tell you - understanding people tuned out to be no problem for me. I am pretty fluent in Spanish (but you know - what the porteños speak is not always Spanish) and even if I didn't understand or manage to say everything the way I intended, I found a way to work around it. The only thing that I still don't know is what were some of the veggies in the empanadas I was eating. Although, honestly, I didn't care too much. All I know is that they were good! :) Speaking of empanadas - if you don't like the ones at your closest bakery, try the ones at the next - all bakeries and all pizza places have empanadas and the quality varies a lot. Also, turns out that restaurants usually don't sell empanadas. Go figure. By the way, while I'm still more or less on the topic of languages - even if you don't speak Spanish you have little to worry about. In the milonga, since you will be cabeceo-ing people, you don't need to speak English. In the stores they sometimes speak English but even if they don't often common sense is enough when picking what to buy. In the classes the teachers explain sometimes only and sometimes mostly in Spanish. But even in the second case you won't get very detailed translation. You should keep your eyes open in order to catch what's going on from what the teacher is showing. In the end many of the young Argentines can say at least a couple of words in English and some speak actually quite well if not fluently.
In March of 2012 I went to BA for the first time. When I came back I was asked to write an article about it for a blog called "The delicate strength". I don't know if that blog is still around and how long it might exist, that's why I decided to publish the article on my blog too.
Buenos Aires Trip 2012, Part 5
Somebody had warned me that the cleaning lady in their apartment stole some valuables. For that reason I had tortured the landlord with questions about the trustworthiness of their cleaning lady. He assured me that I shouldn't worry about that at all, which turned out to be true. What I should have worried about was the quality of her work. The dirt redistribution on the apartment floor, the unchanged sliminess of the bathroom tiles and the unchallenged dirt on the counter tops made me think that she probably understood her job as the attempt to make things somewhat less dirty instead of really clean. Needless to say that I wasn't happy with her. And yet this wasn't even what really upset me about here presence in the apartment. My distress was caused much more by the fact that she let her 2-year-old son, with a lollipop in his hand, to roam our apartment and touch everything with his sticky hands. After they were gone I discovered that he had left me that same lollipop as a present in a pile of my pills, cellphone and foot products, after clearly playing with them first… Luckily for all participants the week after we had another cleaning lady, who did an excellent job.
You know how they say that trouble never comes alone? Well, on the same day when I discovered the previously mentioned Catch 22 situation with the phone card and found the present left for me by the son of the cleaning lady I had one more trouble, this time at the laundromat. Fairly close to where we lived there were many laundromats. At the one closest to our apartment the clients were not allowed to do their own laundry. For the price of 20 pesos (about $5) per bin of clothes the people at the laundromat wash, dry and fold your clothes for you, which is not bad. What was bad was that they shamelessly charged me 50 pesos at pick up although in a week my dancing partner and I had managed to fill up only 2 bins. Since this was the last straw after all the difficulties of the day I didn't feel like arguing about what's wrong with the math 20+20=50. The next day I returned to the laundromat in a search of a green, lace top, which I thought had gotten lost there and which I wanted to wear at the milonga. "No," said the woman, "we don't have your top… But we have a forgotten batman T-shit… Do you want it instead? :)" Oh Batman, Batman, how elegantly we would have looked at the milonga: me - in a skirt and high heels, you - plastered all over my oversized, dorky T-shirt…!
After I managed to understand the description of services a laundromat offers, and quarrel with the phone company about band widths and refunds, I gotta tell you - understanding people tuned out to be no problem for me. I am pretty fluent in Spanish (but you know - what the porteños speak is not always Spanish) and even if I didn't understand or manage to say everything the way I intended, I found a way to work around it. The only thing that I still don't know is what were some of the veggies in the empanadas I was eating. Although, honestly, I didn't care too much. All I know is that they were good! :) Speaking of empanadas - if you don't like the ones at your closest bakery, try the ones at the next - all bakeries and all pizza places have empanadas and the quality varies a lot. Also, turns out that restaurants usually don't sell empanadas. Go figure. By the way, while I'm still more or less on the topic of languages - even if you don't speak Spanish you have little to worry about. In the milonga, since you will be cabeceo-ing people, you don't need to speak English. In the stores they sometimes speak English but even if they don't often common sense is enough when picking what to buy. In the classes the teachers explain sometimes only and sometimes mostly in Spanish. But even in the second case you won't get very detailed translation. You should keep your eyes open in order to catch what's going on from what the teacher is showing. In the end many of the young Argentines can say at least a couple of words in English and some speak actually quite well if not fluently.
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