Where am I now? Physically-speaking, I dance mostly in Philadelphia/NYC/DC/Pittsburgh area. Location in tango is not necessarily an actual place but rather it can be a point on the path to learning. Since I came back from my tango travels across America, I’ve returned to find ganchos severely lacking. The question is not, “why aren’t my followers following my lead for ganchos?” It is, instead, “why do I keep leading ganchos when I know she doesn’t do them?” The answer is: it’s me….it’s always me.
And that’s where I am at these days. I can’t say exactly where it is that I am but, if I write about it maybe we will both find out my location. This is tango and understanding subtle nuance is the key to navigation.
I could easily say I am working on connection but that would be too simplistic. The quick assumption is that she is not responding to my body language or I am not communicating my intentions clearly. Those are mute points once I realize that we failed to execute the maneuver as I had hoped. Try it again? Not so soon, wait a minute….literally.
I somehow think that waiting just a minute is my problem: Sixty seconds later I try to lead the movement once more and find I have been discovered. She senses I am ‘man-splaining’ a maneuver to her and our connection begins to fall apart. The song ends and I recover with a kind compliment but I always suspect she found my performance lacking.
It took me ten years to get here and I realize with greater clarity that I am still a beginner. I somehow made it to adulthood lacking any knowledge of intergender etiquette. This is the part of the lesson that Argentine’s teach when they instruct Americans in the ways of tango that is not broken down into a set of exercises and drills. It is a lesson given by example, in the rapport between the leader and the follower, how he always apologizes for his mistakes/rudeness/absent-mindedness. The follower is never wrong.
It has been my experience that male Argentine instructors work tirelessly to maintain the integrity of a female instructor/student/passerby. This is an integral part of the dance: maintaining respect for the follower to the point where she feels she can take it for granted.
That is where I am at, the point on the path where I struggle to know the meaning of the word ‘respect’. It does not mean unending adulation. It is to be aware of a woman’s emotional ecology and to tend to it. It is not okay, I believe, to worship her and to avoid challenging her would be the greatest sin of the entire tanda.
Here, then, is my location, the last song of the tanda and I feel it is time. I avoided the maneuver until now. I take a deep breath and hope for the best. Can I have a gancho, please?
re-reading this, it is obvious from my last sentence of the post that I had learned nothing. A friend in Pittsburgh, Sarah, told me as we practiced that my lead was too subtle and she was right. I'd gotten lazy. Now, I focus on making sure my intent is perfectly clear. However, if you lead it twice without success, I now believe it is a sin to try a third time.
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