During my first 2 or 3 years of tango I felt I was improving about as fast as anybody could. I am still taking classes and occasional workshops, and, slowly, new figures are added to my repertoire, although I worry most about musicality, connection and style. However, somehow I am feeling "boxed in".
I feel lucky that there are quite a few good dancers who always seem very happy to dance with me, but there are still some who don't and they trigger in me the simple question "what is it about my dancing that makes them avoid me"? I know that I shouldn't be asking that. They may simply be looking for specific people they want to dance with, or I have developed a style they simply don't like. I feel I can accept anything, but I would love to know what it is.
Ney Melo once said in a post that he was "grateful" for all the followers who turned him down while he was growing as a dancer, because that kept him wanting to improve. I have tried to adopt the same attitude, but I find it frustrating not to know in which direction to go. By "boxed in" I mean that I feel I have been put in a box by some dancers. This is the box defined by what, in their eyes, is my level of dancing, and a box I am not allowed to escape. Luciana Valle, another teacher from Argentina who periodically shows up in SF to teach very popular workshops, once spoke about the followers' dreaded "plateau", where they have reached a good level, but they feel stuck and seemingly unable to progress. My feeling is somewhat similar, except that I do feel I am still improving, but with no discernible effect on my "official status" as dancer.
Luckily I can experience escaping from the box every time I travel to some other city. There I enter milongas as a complete unknown and I seem to quickly be accepted by the best dancers. Maybe it's the "San Francisco aura" but I am finding the dichotomy confusing. It's also frustrating for me to realize that I had the same basic questions a couple of years ago, when I first started feeling pretty good about my dancing. So, I am finding, even years of dancing don't seem to make much difference after the initial progress. Maybe the analogy is like heading out into the ocean on a boat. When you leave the shore, you see yourself quickly getting far from the beach, but after a while the shore is far away and you feel stuck in the middle of the ocean with no visible progress towards your destination. You need to have faith in the fact that you are still moving.
Maybe the box I am stuck in is moving, just like the boat, but I am not noticing it. Will I ever see the other shore? What will it look like when I see it?
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7 years ago
10 comments:
If you really want to know, why don't you ask these followers personally? A class or a practica (not a milonga!) they attend might be a good time and place for that.
Some reasons I "keep" some people "in a box":
-I look at his dancing, time after time, and do not like what I see.
-He predominantly dances with ladies who are not picky about their partners, or/and not good dancers in my opinion(I lead too).
-I never see him taking a class from teachers I respect, which makes me doubt he is working on his improvement.
Hope it helps.
I would like to ask you: Why on Earth do you want to dance with every follower? Will it make you feel better, if you can put a tick on the list of all local followers?
Looked at from another angle: I often visit Berlin for tango (I am from Poland, and Berlin is 2 hours drive from my home town). I consider myself quite an experienced follower, but sit out at milongas a lot. In fact, I sit out more and more as my tango is improving. I recently discovered (after a conversation with a local male tanguero) that some men no longer ask me to dance when they find out that I am married and not interested in a potential relationship. Maybe there are reasons some followers turn you down totally unconnected to your tango skills?
@ Frances: good points, thanks. I will address some in future posts.
@ Miercoles: my "obsession" is not in dancing with "every follower", it's in understanding what some "see" or don't, because "acceptance" is the ultimate test. Unfortunately it is also a very unreliable test, because, as you point out, there can also be factors completely unrelated to dancing.
Silvano, the ultimate test of WHAT? You have admitted that it is not a fully reliable test of tango skills, so what is it that you want to test?
Miercoles: I am talking "obsession" here, which is part of the Tango experience for most of us. The WHAT is of course still tango skills. Yes, the test is unreliable, but so are all other tests. For instance, I have been invited to help out for free in some advanced classes that needed leaders. This is a good sign... but the teacher may have just been "desperate". I have been asked to perform with my partner at small "cafe' milonga". We did a tango and a milonga, and the public gave us an enthusiastic ovation, but maybe they were just being "nice" or didn't know any better. I asked (via email) a teacher I take regular classes with to give me some feedback. She hasn't in some weeks. Bad sign, but she may simply be very busy and has forgotten.
The point of my blog is to express my feelings throughout my tango journey. It amazes me that after more than 4 years of dancing almost every night, plus continuing classes and workshops, I would still feel "in a box". When I will look back with a few more years in my legs, maybe I will understand whether it was more about the dance, the community, of just me.
Silvano, I think I get your point now. And I agree with Frances that you will simply have to ask those followers who refuse to dance with you, otherwise you will just torment yourself.
To those girls who are passionate about dancing, the men who are continously working on their technique and ways of making the dance a bit more varied and surprising are always precious parntners, so I can't imagine there are reasons they turn you down that would be connected with your dancing. They may not like your looks, your embrace, your smell, your height, whatever - but will they tell you that...?
I generally agree with what Wednesday said in her December 26 post.
There are many, many reasons why certain followers might not dance with you:
perceived skill level
smell
height
embrace
style (close embrace versus nuevo/alt)
To this I respectfully add (and not specific to you, but generally speaking...):
posture
general other aesthetics like wardrobe or hairiness/baldness
and the other partners you usually dance with.
Though certainly NOT the case with you, if it is perceived that you enjoy dancing with partners such as those followers who are significantly below your skill level (and who generally end up making you look bad as a leader) or who are "easy" or "desperate", it is generally frowned upon by those "good" dancers who have put in their chops and spent YEARS trying to perfect their dance technique and milonga success WITHOUT using such cheap, easy tricks like wearing suggestive and revealing clothing, doing "accidental" rubs with or of certain body parts, and dancing (or doing other things) with their legs wide open. If you dance with too many of those folks, too many tandas in a row...it could be perceived that you are not serious about your dance, and that you are just looking for an easy bed partner for the night. And well, no one of quality will really be all that enthusiastic to dance with you if you establish that reputation. THANKFULLY THOUGH, you are CERTAINLY NOT one of those. BUT THERE ARE certainly people in the tango community who have been labeled as such, and there they remain in their little STD prone boxes.
I had some more thoughts...
Bottom line is:
Keep dancing with quality, and the quality dancers will eventually notice.
Dance with trash, and pretty much only the trashy dancers will dance with you.
But it's better to just count your blessings, and not what you lack (which is always a receipe for frustration).
@Ana ... It's a very good thing we are friends and have been dancing together for a long time, or I might have wondered about the "do not apply to you" comments... WOW! "STD prone boxes"... "Trashy dancers"... You don't mince words! But you are presenting a facet of the community that I have been basically paying no attention to. Maybe it's very "male" not to even be aware of much of what is really going on, or it's just me. It would be an interesting exercise for you to write done a list of "trashy dancers"... and for me or some other guy to do the same, and compare notes. I cannot claim to have never danced with someone out of "non-dance" cues, but if the dance isn't there, or a genuine interest in it, I will not ask again. That being said, I am sure that, sadly, our lists would likely be very different. That's life, and in life very few things are so "black and white". I do know of one guy in particular who has been given a very reveling nick-name of "perv..", and I know of others... even teachers, with a less than stellar reputation. I have sometimes wondered if somebody out there has a nick-name for me. Fortunately I couldn't care less. I just want to dance, with quality and with human decency...
BTW, as I was telling you a couple of nights ago, I regret giving the impression that I am somehow "asking for advice" in my blogs. I simply enjoy putting my feeling out there for introspection and future reference. In that context I also welcome any new thoughtful perspectives (as you all here have done... thanks!).
Gosh, I haven't been dancing in San Francisco for long but I don't remember seeing any "trashy dancers" or "cheap tricks" (wearing suggestive clothing to get dances). I wouldn't know if they are STD prone. I see a lot of people with passion for the dance and varying abilities. . . Silvano, really enjoying your thoughtful blog! I'll read more and then comment appropriately. Also enjoyed the Facebook comments below your friend's photo about her new relationship. I would be interested in some kind of one-time discussion group about how people manage to allow space for the passions of tango and a romantic relationship. I'm new to tango and curious about how people do it.
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