Women and the Tango Question

               

               Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the question in tango. Once again, I remember Mariela Franganillo’s short lecture/lesson on that subject one Saturday afternoon at Dance Manhattan in New York City.

               “Do you hear the question?” she asked as she demonstrated a seemingly simple pivot which I found impossible to replicate with my partner.

               I kept waiting for her to say something about the answer but she never did. I found that frustrating and that is probably why it is still on my mind three years later, here in Wisconsin, where Winter refuses to yield to Spring.

               Men and women are different, especially where questions are concerned.

               Men rarely inquire, we simply do. This is not always a good thing.  

               Women are always asking questions, “Do you think I’m pretty? Where are we going? Do you love me?”

               When a man asks a woman a question, her response is not always an answer. If he doesn’t pose it properly, she may not do anything. How he asks is everything.

               I think this is why Mariela did not talk about the answer, because there doesn’t have to be one, there only needs to be a response and the response can be anything, even silence.

               This is a woman’s prerogative. This is yet another reason that some find tango so addicting. It is a dance where a woman can be a woman and react to what she hears instead of what her partner thinks he is saying.

               I can see that this would be heady stuff for a lady of the 21^st Century. It must feel very liberating, especially after a hard week of work.

               Over the course of seven years, I’ve seen many women give tango a whirl. For most it is a flirtation but there are those few who fall into it as if gravity had pulled them into its orbit.

               A woman’s first real tango dance is her best for a long while. I can imagine her profound confusion and absolute delight when she asks, “What do you mean, ‘I can never make a mistake’?”

               Once she begins her education, it is a downhill slide for a very long time. At first, she finds her fear of falling overwhelming as she careens downward. Instinctively, she carves a turn on the floor to slow her momentum and maintain her own balance. She suddenly realizes that this is exactly what she was supposed to do!

               Just as gravity is a force of nature, so too is her movement as a woman. In tango, she is a skier on the unpredictable slope of a man’s intentions, responding to his musical inquiries in a spontaneous and instinctive manner.

               I wonder how it feels for her to be with a man who is finally asking questions. He is not just asking a question, he is asking all sorts of questions: silly, serious and serendipitous, to the rhythm and to the melody.

               It is my guess that tango is a woman's insight into a part of men that is purposefully hidden from her. Here, she can see all the possible other halves of herself that could be.

               As her tango education progresses, she nears the bottom of the hill and hits the gas to carry her up and over the next incline. She delights in the freedom it gives her to connect with her true nature, to hear the question as it really is and to respond to it in whatever manner she feels is best.


For more of the Kayak Hombre, read my book Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure or River Tango. Available on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.

Tango Workshop Orgasms

               It happened again….so good, so long, so nice, it lasted all the way home to Wisconsin and beyond. It was a journey just getting there but it was worth it.  

               When we are totally exhausted, that is when we are most open to new frontiers: physical, emotional, spiritual and more.

               The object of torture is to wear down the victim to the point where he will believe anything. It is an Oriental art that the Argentines have perfected.

               Tango workshops often border on that fine line between art and torture.

               When a tango instructor takes us on a painstaking analysis of a maddeningly simple and fundamental concept, it is a struggle to keep up. If we do, we are usually rewarded with an unexpected pleasure that I am calling the Tango Workshop Orgasm.

               It occurs halfway through the first class of the second day of the seminar. We are given one further piece of the puzzle and, instead of the same two songs that have been playing over and over, we are exposed to a new one, an unfamiliar piece of music that the instructor, our interrogator, finds personally appealing.

               That’s when it happens.

               The music resonates with a chord being struck somewhere deep inside us, in our subconscious, or on a cosmic level or who knows where, but it is profound and moving. Fatigue leaves us and we submit to the arcane-ness of the lesson, that we will be exploring this simple movement forever.

               The Tango Workshop Orgasm is not a few moments of spasm followed by a messy release of body fluids. It is a soul-searing, slow-motion explosion that lasts for several days, past the point where you leave the classroom and begin, once again, to interact with ordinary humans.

Note: Check out my new book on Amazon: Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure.

Tango is Food for the Soul

               

               When we think of nutrition, we narrowly assume that all the nourishment we need comes from food.  Beyond fruits and vegetables, carbs and proteins, vitamins and omega 3 fatty acids, proper maintenance of our corporeal shell must also address emotional and spiritual sustenance.

               We place too much importance on finding the right combination of groceries and not enough on the other factors affecting our health. Our body has all the elements necessary to heal itself, no matter what we eat. How else could the placebo effect be a reality?

               I’ve heard of people who live to a ripe old age on the most bizarre diets; Sarah Knauss lived to 119 years on a diet of chocolate, cashews and potato chips. Her daughter, who lived to 101, said her mother never let anything upset her and that was her key to longevity.

                Plants are dependent not just upon the most obviously tangible elements, water and dirt, but also upon something that is not so easily measured: sunshine. In fact, the rays of the sun are of utmost important. Variations in daylight are signals to begin growing, to flower and to wither.

               People are like plants. We need food and water…and love. Love is sunshine for humans and it comes in many forms, just like the plethora of food sources from which we have to choose. Love is an emotional and spiritual nutrient.

               Dancing tango is like going to a high-end grocery store that sells love in all its many forms: organic and pesticide-free. At the milonga, the place where tango is danced, we find music to feed our brains and much 'fresh produce' to sample. Here we can connect with another soul and move as one to the music.

               In the course of one night, we can sprout, flower and wither in imitation of the natural circle of life. We part unwillingly with a shopping cart brimming with warm emotions and a heart full of love. 

             
For more of the Kayak Hombre, read my book Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure or River Tango. Available on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.