The birthday dance

For about a year and a half I have been seeing "birthday dances" where leaders or followers, as the case may be, take turns dancing with the the birthday person.
Am I ready to take to the floor? Step up to the lead for the birthday girl? Be observed (judged?) by EVERYONE in the hall, as if in a performance?

So this time the birtday girl is a friend who "used" to dance with me, but for a while now has been dancing only with the "best" leaders (see my previous blog on "the vanishing intermediate dancer"). I stopped asking her a while back after sensing some reluctance. So now is my chance to show her how much I have improved! I take a deep breath and I step to the middle of the floor, asserting my right to the "30 seconds of fame". She smiles and seems surprised but accepting. We start to dance and I realize that I can't focus. I feel the eyes of everyone on me. We move and then I hear the dreaded word.. "oops"! I suddenly realize I am not sure where her weight is... Did everyone see the misstep? The next leader appears behind her. I gladly swivel my friend toward him and quickly walk back into the crowd of onlookers... looking for a deep hole to crawl into. They are still looking at the dancers. I feel no accusatory eyes pointed at me. Maybe nobody noticed. Later I think of apologizing to her... but I don't. I also realize that I will not ask her to dance again for a least a few more months.

As I am leaving for the evening a male friend tells me that he has seen a big imnprovement in my dance. This surprises me so much that I don't probe further (was he referring to my birthday dance?) ... so I just smile, thank him, and hope again that nobody noticed the misstep...

My first private lesson

I finally decided to start taking some private lessons. I feel that I have enough "steps" down to make my dance reasonably interesting, and I generally get good feedback about my musicality, but I know that my "style", posture and technique are lacking.

I approached my first private with a great deal of apprehension. I generally absolutely hate dancing with "the teacher". This is because I feel I cannot simply be myself while I know that my dance is being dissected. So, I tried very hard to put the teacher "thing" out of my mind and told myself that I would simply dance as if I had just invited this unknown woman... Fortunately this is exactly what she asked me to do right off the bat, and it worked! It was not my best dance, but it was close enough, I felt, to what I normally do.

So I waited anxiously for "the verdict". Good news and bad news. The good news is that the "simple" stuff I do, including my subtle movements guided by the music, felt very good to her (pfew!!..), so that's something I could keep doing and "make even very advanced dancers happy". On the other hand, when I ventured into more elaborate movements some things didn't work quite right for her. She felt a lack of ease and smoothness. Basically she felt she had to interrupt the "pleasure" of the dance and, at least temporarily, shift her attention to reading what I was trying to do. It would be great if these kinds of transitions didn't have to happen...

The prescription? We would "start over" from the basic stuff I do well and slowly add complexity while making sure that the transitions are smooth and my technique is correct. It was excruciating to dance while consciously eliminating most of the stuff that I have come to consider the bread and butter of my dance... but it has been an interesting and certainly useful exercise. We'll see where this takes me. BTW, I think the teacher was absolutely wonderful.

Dancing "cheek to cheek"

(Excerpt of an email sent to a tanguera who mentioned in a class that dancing "cheek to cheek" hurts her neck)

The cheek "problem" must have really been on your mind, and I hope it wasn't only me... I do find that most women settle in quite comfortably in some form a head contact, and I haven't been conscious of initiating it... until recently, when you made me more aware of the possibility that it might not be welcome. I did have one "complaint" once from a follower who was much shorter and felt that my head was weighing on top of hers, and I have been very careful with her since then. I will be equally careful with you whenever we happen to dance together again.

Overall I have been feeling pretty good about my dancing, and close embrace has become easy and comfortable, with my steps "tighter" and more secure. I have been getting good feedback from women I hadn't danced with for a while. But then again, there is always that "mystery" connection that may or may not happen, regardless of whether one happens to like the partner or not. There are a couple of followers I've stopped asking to dance simply because it never seemed "easy", but I find it very hard to give up on people I really like... Hope springs eternal that some day it will "click".

A tighter dance

My steps are getting "tighter" and more confident. I can handle a crowded floor with many quick turns in both directions and quick steps in and out of the cross system. Sometimes I follow some advanced leaders in the line of dance and I find that I can reproduce their steps exactly. I do that that for brief periods, just to check myself, Then of course I go back to trying to interpret the music as I hear it. A friend I had not danced with for a while commented on my improvement, and it felt good.

When the line is crossed

I was dancing in a very comfortable close embrace. The music ended. The embrace didn't. This was a surprise and a realization that the "connection" had now reached beyond the dance. Had tango been responsible or had it just been the medium? How often does this happen?

The vanishing intermediate dancers

I have encountered another peculiar phenomenon: the vanishing intermediate dancer. First of all I continue to have great fun dancing with many intermediate and advanced dancers, so I am not reporting this a form of gripe, but simply as an observation (OK I am griping a bit...). There are some intermediate dancers who have figured out that advanced leaders and teachers will ask them to dance... and surely that must feel good. So they have decided that only advanced leaders are worth dancing with, and worth waiting for.

The upshot is that some followers I have taken classes with and who had been perfectly happy to dance with me then, and at milongas (OK, maybe they weren't "perfectly happy"...) now will turn me down, as I haven't quite made the grade to the status they now aspire to. Fortunately it's only few who have this attitude. The problem for intermediate leaders is that they are often reluctant to ask advanced followers... and if the intermediate followers turn them down as well, they only have beginners to dance with... which doesn't help the learning process.

Fortunately, as I was saying, most intermediate dancers will gladly dance with me, in fact some have asked me to partner and practice with them, which I view as a major turning point for my dancing. I keep thinking that "some day" I will be considered "advanced" and I will remember who helped get there...

Class with Claudio Asprea

The class was on turns and different timings. I was surprised to find that most or all in the class would be considered to be some of the best dancers in the Bay Area, including some who would normally not dance with me. I found it intimidating, and wondered whether I shouldn't have been there, but I stuck with it and I think I did OK.

I was told about the class by a dancer who asked me to partner with her at an upcoming workshop. She's the second one in a few weeks who has asked me to partner, so I feel like I must have reached a new reasonable level.

Advanced followers?

There is a category of advanced follower that I have problems with. The movement leads that are being read quite well by all intermediate ++ dancers, suddenly seem to go nowhere. She will stop in the middle of a movement that normally proceeds with no problem, and I get this "I don't know what I want me to do" attitude. Now, I realize that it is much better to stop and wait for a clear lead than trying to "guess" what the leader wants. I am the first one to explain that to beginners, but I *know* that in this case my leads pose no problem for just about every follower I dance with. I don't consider myself "advanced" but I have been dancing in classes and milongas for a full year almost every night of the week, so I have had enough experience and positive feedback to know that I have the basics down.

So, what is this about? The result for me is that I feel thrown back to complete beginner mode, and my dancing is just about paralized. Forget "musicality" and all the good stuff. As I try to puzzle out why I am suddenly speaking a "foreign language" , neither one of us has any fun at all, and of course I quickly get the killer "thank you".

The "stopping thing" is perfectly appropriate. especially in a class context, but even in a milonga if the lead is truly unclear, but here is my puzzlement. Let me explain it again with a cute story. I am Italian and I tried to speak exclusively Italian with my son from the time he was born (in this country). Of course he was also learning English from his mom and everyone else. One way I kept him on track was to act like I did not understand him when he spoke English with me. Well, by the time he was three he picked up on tha fact that I seemed to understand English perfectly well when his mom and everyone else spoke it... so he called my bluff.... and he was only three. From that point on, unfortunately, he refused to speak Italian.

Now I find myself in a similar situation as my son. I dance almost every night of the week and I can count at least 60 followers I dance with regularly, all of whom seem perfectly happy with my lead, or, at least, seem to read my intention with no problem. Then I ask one new person, and all of a sudden my lead is "unreadable". As my son noticed at three years of age ... there is something peculiar going on here.

It is possible that some followers have such a repertoir of moves that any lack of "precision" on my part will cause confusion. But here is what I think is really happening. I am not the "teacher level" caliber she was hoping or expecting and she lets me know it ... by making me feel like I don't know what I am doing... thus making sure I will not ask her again to dance. Unfortunately the strategy works very well, because I will certainly stay clear of her after that experience, but I also don't ask other dancers after I realize that I am not at their level, unless they really make eye contact with me and seem happy to be asked to dance.

What I am really getting at here is that it's OK to say no, and to choose to dance at whatever level you feel entitled to, but it's not OK to make someone feel like a complete fool so he won't ask you again. Fortunately I have only experienced this two or three times out of a full year of happy dancing, so I shouldn't complain, but I guess it has bothered me a lot.

A Tango High

I had never seen her before, but she smiled at me from a distance. After a moment of hesitation I interpreted her smile as a "cabaseo" and I invited her to dance. Without hesitation she gave herself to the close embrace and to the dance with an abandon I had never quite experienced before. Our dance was not always smooth but it was both soft and energetic, always centered around a committed close embrace, and accepting of small slip-ups. She was always smiling and seemingly determined to make the best possible dance happen between us. I found myself becoming aroused and trying to dance in ways that would help me hide it. I'm not sure I succeeded, but she continued to seem comfortable. I thanked her at the cortina, then I danced with her once more at the final tenda. The experience was equally great.

Unfortunately she was from out of town, so I may never see her again, but I gave her my card in case she comes around again...

A tough teacher

I really like her, but man do I hate her! She will pick apart my slightest weight shift and make me feel like I just started dancing tango yesterday. After her class I feel like quitting altogether... But she's the only one who has been on my case about my "butt sticking out"... and I love her for that. Maybe some day I won't be struck by terror whenever she approaches me. I wonder what it would be like to date her!

Union square

This is the second outdoor event I have been to. The previous couple of weeks I went to the sunday afternoon milonga at Golden Gate park. Typically there is a crowd of onlookers seated in front, so one feels "on stage" in a kind of performance. I confess that I like that.

Asked Newyear to dance but she turned me down. She is an advanced dancer nad has accepted dancing with me a couple of times in the past, but not for a while. I feel I have been pegged in the beginner category and now I don't have a chance to show how much I have improved. I'll talk more about these feelings later.

Turning the corner on milonga

Tonight was very good at the Belmont milonga. It wasn't very crowded so there was plenty of room to move around. I was able to launch into a milonga and add some "transpie" steps that I made up. Photogal was surprised and very complimentary. I may have turned a corner on the milonga... She kept asking where I had taken milonga classes but, oddly, except for a couple of classes, milonga has been "coming" to me very naturally. I wish I could say the same for regular tango.

Speaking of Milonga... here is a great performance (I have a long way to go!)



Dancing with Misterycat was sweet as usual. She has a low energy, almost "depressed" but sweet quality and smile that intreague me, but I am worried that she may be dealing with real problems. Unfortunately she has been very reserved about her life, so I am just happpy to dance with her whenever I see her at the Belmont milonga.