Observations on Dancing with Successful Women

               As a tango dancer in America, I have had the opportunity to lead many women in the dance who are very successful in their field of professional endeavor. How do I know? They tell me. I know this sounds vain on their part but I think it is a therapeutic statement they must make before they can free themselves to our connection; tango is all about connection.

               Of these women there are two types: those who’ve earned their position through hard work and those who haven’t. Tango is a very difficult grace to acquire and if you haven’t learned how to toil efficiently then you aren’t going to be very good at it. As you may guess, I find my dances with the women who’ve earned their accolades through dedication and persistence, the most rewarding.

               The most vivid one I can recollect is a woman I’ll call Baba Ganoush. From what I can tell she leads a department for a large medical facility. It took her weeks to give up trying to get me to comprehend how rare it was for her to have to take ‘orders’ from a man.

               “I’m not issuing commands,” I would say, “I’m leading. This is not work.”

               I could tell she was very frustrated at my lack of comprehension of her professional clout but she was also delighted that from me she would receive no flowery flirtatious compliments unless she did well and that she would receive them in the form of my approval which would be discerned through body language and maybe a little smile…or a big smile and an exclamation if she was an extremely good girl! LOL!

               Never is there any sexual energy in these unions. Always there is a thirst for true sensuality. She needs to know that I feel the music and that I appreciate her skills. She is very aware of her boundaries and she wants me to take her there and past them just a little ways.

               It is there, outside the place with which she is familiar, that I perceive a sense of relief just before she pulls down the blinds on the window I have opened into her soul. In writing this I think I know now what it is that she doesn’t want me to see: her vulnerability.

               The successful woman who has arrived at her position through ‘other’ means, means that I’ll not ponder but I am sure you will, this woman is rarely a delight to encounter. Frequently, out of pity, I’ll risk a second attempt at a tanda and sometimes I am rewarded with the feeling that we could dance well together if we worked hard at it. She makes me aware of ‘how lucky’ I am usually in the first few moments of our embrace and then it’s an eternity to the cortina; an eternity filled with headlocks and frequent gasps for air and struggles for balance.

               I find tango very therapeutic. I am sure the aforementioned ladies are seeking the same therapy and it makes me wonder if they’re not just as wounded as I am.  As I think about this situation it gives me a sense of self-worth, that what these women need in life is me. My lack of education and my pretension to attempt to lead such a complex dance gives me all the tools I need to break through to them and in return, also satisfy something within myself. Just exactly what it is within me that they satisfy is a thought for another day.