A Graciously Graceful State of Grace

  I had the wonderful opportunity to dance with two incredible women last night and I’d like to try and relate what makes them so pleasing.

     First and foremost is the amount of time and effort a woman puts into acquiring the skills necessary to dance tango. This involves not only taking lessons, attending workshops and practicing on their own, it also involves a great deal of time dancing with a wide variety of tangueros.

     This applies equally to tangueros who want to be pleasing to the followers. I know a guy who is an avid milonguero but he only dances with girls he is attracted to. I have known him several years. He is a nice enough person but his limited selection of partners doesn’t allow him to grow as a dancer. The girls I know who dance with him like his interest at first but always end up discarding him because he rushes and forces them into movements they’d rather not do.

      This brings me to my second point: grace. I don’t just mean being polite, I mean grace in all its forms: graceful, gracious, a state of grace. It takes a gracious person to dance with people of all different skill levels which in turns brings a person to a state of grace and enables them to dance gracefully:-)

     Grace comes not only from a dancer’s efforts to be a better dancer but also from the life a person leads. People who are kind are much more pleasing to dance with than people who are mean.

     Finally, there is the connection and this is different for each tanguera.

     One woman I danced with yesterday connected with me on an emotional level, tapping into my anxiety as a leader trying to hear the music and choreograph movements that we both will find pleasing. She is a song of nature, not a melody of instruments and man-made rhythms. She whispers a tune that is like a gentle, warm breeze saying, “everything is going to be alright.” Because of her efforts I feel confident in my lead and strive for perfection.

     She is beautiful in an earthy way, dressed simply. She smells fresh like a waterfall. She is tapped into my thoughts and knows what I am thinking but does not move until I reveal my intentions physically. Somehow she is inside of me and feels what I feel. I feel good so she feels good and that makes both of us happy. We are in harmony.

     Dancing with this woman gave me a warm and wonderful feeling that stayed with me all the way home and is with me still. Euphoria, I believe it is called. Sometimes it can be described as infatuation and others call it that ‘tango high’. Whatever it is, I like it and thought I should tell the world about it.

     I’d have to describe the other woman’s connection as more cerebral to the point of a sensory overload leaving me incapable of speech as I stood there flailing my hands at the end of our second tanda. Our dance was like a mathematical problem with an improbable, yet rewarding, answer: 1 + 1 = ? I would ask the question over and over and she would reply with a long sweeping lapiz, passada and the most deliciously deep gancho a man can hope to receive.

     Was it three songs already? My head is spinning, my tongue is tied, my vision is filled with flashes of jewelry, beautiful curly brown hair, a black skirt swishing enticingly as I lead ochos, perfect smiles, passionate glances, an inquisitive look: what is 1 + 1? I know the answer but there is so much beauty carving perfectly formed circles in patterns on the dance floor that I cannot speak.

     I lead another passada not knowing what to expect but anticipating with extreme delight. I know that whatever it is, it will be good….and it is: a ricochet gancho! OMG!!!! 

     Now I can solve the problem: 1 + 1 = heaven:-)

     It was an eighty-three mile ride home but the time just flew by. I can’t remember listening to the radio.  I was lost in the song of the wind and in the mystery that is a woman. Just another night of tango…I don’t think so. Last night was extraordinary!