Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Touch Me!


               ‘Touch Me...I need to feel the warmth of your hand on my skin’. This is the epiphany I experienced as a result of my adventures in tango and dancing in general. Not only was this what I discovered about myself, that I needed to be touched by another person so badly that it was seriously affecting my physical health, but I also found that many others suffered from the same affliction.
               I grew up in a large family: five sisters, two brothers. When we traveled we always crammed ourselves into a station wagon, often times with a few cousins or my ailing grandmother...and a dog! After high school graduation I relished my freedom, especially inside my personal zone, the area within a six inch bubble all around me. I was a very uptight individual and didn't like anybody touching me.

               As a young boy growing up in Pennsylvania’s coal region, in a population densely packed with alcoholics, child molesters and citizens of that ilk, I believe my insularity was a self-defense mechanism and I do not apologize. In hindsight, I now see that not all people who tried to touch me were interested in selling me something, or trying to molest me, or who-knows-what; many of them were well-intentioned friends who loved me and generally needed to make contact in order to adequately express to me just exactly how they felt.
               It took at least three years of dance lessons and attending dances before my apprehension at physical contact, especially with other men, began to subside. As my social anxiety lessened, I began to notice an improvement in my overall health. I no longer found many of the events in my life the stress-factories they once were. I was once again able to field the three a.m. call calmly instead of with severe irritation. Parenting, while never easy, was not the ulcer inducing era I had expected when my children turned into teenagers and began driving.
               I enrolled at a dance studio and studied ballroom dancing intensely for two years. Soon I outgrew my partners, many of whom were married women in their 30s, 40s and 50s. Engaging them on the dance floor required me to exude three emotions: serenity, confidence and pleasure. A woman needed to feel that I was calm in order for her to be relaxed in my grip; she needed to know I was confident that I would not steer her into a wall or another couple; and finally, she needed to know that I truly enjoyed being with her and maybe, also, that I found her attractive. 
               I didn’t know it at the time but this was the beginning of my understanding of what it takes to make the tango connection.
               Slowly I became aware that something powerful was happening to many of the married ladies I danced with. When I placed my hand on their backs and began to lead a movement, a very warm feeling emanated from them, into my hand, up my arm and into my heart. The warmth was ephemeral as well as physical. Often times I found it erotic but somehow I managed to maintain ‘control’ and always treated my partners with the utmost respect towards the institution of marriage.
               Sometimes I think I stopped my  ballroom education because the frequency of this event was occurring far too often.
               A friend, who taught ballroom dancing for many years, was familiar with the phenomenon. He said these women, even though they were married hadn’t been touched in this fashion for many years, sometimes decades. With the demeanor of a clinical psychologist he mused that these women were experiencing an intense rush of emotions equal to the bursting of a dam. He advised me not to comment on it to the women, or take it as an invitation to some extracurricular bedroom activity, for it had nothing to do with me: I was merely the vehicle that precipitated the release, it could be anybody.
               A year and a half later I was no longer interested in ballroom dancing and was completely addicted to dancing tango…but I still had a lot of my homophobic anxieties when I came in contact with other men. This happens from time to time in the course of practice. I had, and have, no interest in dancing with other men; not even with my friends pictured below: Graham and Willy….well, maybe Willy but that’s understandable because he is French:-D


               Tango is a much more complete embrace than the ballroom hold. If I had to compare the two, tango would be copulation and ballroom would be holding hands. Don’t get me wrong, tango is not sex but the comparison can be made quite easily whereas ballroom dancing is more like a three-legged foot race at picnic.
               After six years of tango I believe I am very nearly cured. I look forward to holding the warm body of a strange woman in my arms. I fear not the proximity of other men and exude no animosity that may add to the general anxiety of our society as a whole. In a crowd of milongueros, tango dancers, I am at peace, medication for some and medicated by others.



Note: For an in-depth look into the mind of the Kayak Hombre, read his book, available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/River-Tango-perri-iezzoni/dp/1453865527/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369366756&sr=1-1&keywords=River+tango



Friday, September 21, 2012

Women Are Emotion Addicts


               A man’s emotions are like crack cocaine to a woman. I come to this conclusion after six years of education in the dance of tango and a recent conversation I had with a lady friend of mine. We had a discussion the other day and I wrote her a letter trying to clarify the various topics we discussed. At one point I had become angry but then quickly switched gears to work on a resolution to a problem we both encountered. Her response was very scholarly until the last paragraph where she says, “you were quite pissed about how strongly I voiced my opinion…” It was at this point that I was reminded once again of the difference between boys and girls.
               Thinking back on all my past relationships with the opposite sex I do seem to notice that anger management was always an issue. In fact, anger management is a frequent topic when I talk to my male friends who are open enough to discuss marital problems. This leads me to believe that anger is not the problem, it is what fascinates women.
               As I apply this to tango, I realize now what women find so addicting about this dance. Let me see if I can clearly relate to you what it is that I have discovered.
               Women are always talking to each other about their feelings. After a lifetime of this, they no longer find their own feelings so intriguing so they get their rocks off by eliciting emotions from the men in their lives.
               Men grow up learning that emotional displays will provoke unwanted attention from their male peers. By the time we are adults we have learned how to be stones. Much to our consternation, the female gender seems to be a constant source of provocation which we are compelled to respond to with emotional outbursts. Foolishly, we ascribe these provocations to the intellectual inferiority of the opposite sex and never really understand the true cause.
               Here is the crux of my thesis: women feed on men’s emotional displays like a crack addict sucking on the end of a hot pipe: it is killing him yet he still holds the flame to the bowl and his mouth to the pipe until his death.
               For a man to function in society, he must learn to control his anger and his lust and any other emotions he finds rising to the surface. If he doesn’t, he will be thrown in jail. For a woman to function in society she must learn to restrain herself when toying with the emotion faculties of the men that cross her path. Unfortunately, there is no penalty for her if she is incapable of control: wars are started, planes crash, people get hurt, etc; I’m certain even the weather is affected by their fiddling.
               And now you should be able to see why women find tango so addicting. A man who can lead this dance is proficient at establishing a connection to her: that is the loaded crackpipe. Tango music is the lighter that provides the flame. Now all she has to do is inhale.

 Note: For an in-depth look into the mind of the Kayak Hombre, read his book, available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/River-Tango-perri-iezzoni/dp/1453865527/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369366756&sr=1-1&keywords=River+tango



Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Women Want To Be Led


               Not all women, silly, just some of them.
               Whilst sitting at my table at the Wild Horse Saloon on a Saturday night, waiting to dance some tango to country music with my favorite tanguera, a young man whisked past my table, hastily towing a young lady by the hand and her extended arm. As the pair wove a path through the crowded saloon, I had a chance to observe her expression which denoted neither joy nor pain, her eyes scanning ahead for a clue as to where they might be headed.
               I chanced to observe another young lady drag a young, unwilling partner onto the floor with her. I watched in amusement what seemed to me to be a person dancing with a mannequin, a person who was obviously perplexed at her inability to derive any satisfaction from such a fine form on which to hang some clothes.
               Later in the night I spied the same young lady being swung around the dance floor with an older gentleman who liked to dance his women ‘zydeco’ style, with her crotch coming to rest frequently on his thigh. I’m not sure that moniker is correct but that is the best way for me to explain what was happening. She would leap off his thigh with a look of exasperation and the energy of a squirrel trying to get to a bird-feeder. He would then spin her around, a big smile on his face. And while she had her back to him, I frequently noticed that she smiled too.
               In this day and age of psychological explanations for everything we do, I think it is time we put down the textbooks and start looking at what really works. I think we need to see for ourselves what is going on in the world and begin to make our own decisions about how a man and a woman should engage in the dance of life.


Note: For an in-depth look into the mind of the Kayak Hombre, read his book, available on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/River-Tango-perri-iezzoni/dp/1453865527/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1369366756&sr=1-1&keywords=River+tango