The Good:

I had a lesson with Javier Rodriguez and Andrea Misse. They are darling people and Javier is hilarious! I’m glad I didn’t need Andrea to translate, this way I was able to catch his jokes, etc… I’m also glad I got to embrace him for an hour.

Javier wants me to…

…channel my inner Sophia Loren.

The Bad:

It’s raining! Still! But at least it’s not cold. And it’s not grey either.

The Ugly:

Tango Pilgrim over at his new blog posted an link to someone else’s article that I’ve seen before and always wanted to comment on. You can find that by clicking here. I love what Javier Rodrguez says about ingredients for your personal perfect martini. It fits with me tremendously.

People ask me, “So are you going to take XYZ’s workshop? What about ABC? And LMNOP is coming to town, aren’t you taking all of them?”, and I also get, “Hey, let’s go take (insert local teacher)’s class, they have interesting technique for followers!”

Basta! No…I am not going to take all of those classes. I like XYZ and won’t miss it, but the others I do not want to attend. And while Seattle has some fantastic teachers, I don’t want to study with them, partially because after Eva and Patricio…well, I think I got spoiled.
Anyway, I get funny looks, I get “Well you should always take classes and improve your technique!”

Ay yi yi. Okay, look. YES it is good to take lessons, seek to be your best, etc.

But… these people obviously don’t have an idea of how long I’ve been at this and how happy I am right now…

Why am I not obsessed with taking every damn class under the sun with as many teachers as I can find and “improving” my “follower’s technique”? The answer is simple.

I have found myself in Tango. I have finally found who I am, where I am, what I want to be. I have found the perfect way to stir the ingredients of my own personal martini. I love the way I dance, because it feels like me. I’m myself in the dance. I’m myself.

Why would I want to try learn another woman’s style when after (almost) five years, I have found MY own personal style?

I do like to take lessons and I know my weak points and with the right guidance I try to work on them, but the thought of taking lessons from various people whose dancing doesn’t do anything for me, whose philosophies don’t coincide with mine, just for the sake of taking more lessons from more people, makes me cringe at the money I would spend on something that is useless for me. It would be like putting tabasco sauce in my martini. Ew. Sure there is always something to be learned from just about everyone, but why the hell should I have to? I don’t want ketchup or tabasco sauce in my martini!

I AM HAPPY with where I am in Tango. I am at the point where I feel JOY when I dance! I go to milongas and connect with very nice leaders and I come away with a smile on my face, feeling content because I got to be myself and he got to be himself and somehow we met in the middle and made something really nice.

I never, ever walk away from a milonga thinking “Hey that was a great volcada, maybe I should work on it in a lesson”…No no no! Instead I leave the milonga thinking, “I had such a wonderful time and these people are a joy to dance with.” Steps? pffffft! I’m a sucker for fabulous footwork, but still - give me a good chesty embrace and I’m happy.

Get it? I have found my happy place, I have found my martini, and I want to sip it and savor it right now. Some day I might decide that I don’t like a particular ingredient, and I may decide to try something new just to see how it is. That can be a joyful experience too. But for now, I dance TINA’s Tango and nobody else’s. I appreciate all that I have learned at this point.

I’m grateful that it’s taken me almost 5 years to get to where I am. I am grateful that I didn’t rush my learning process. I am grateful that I made mistakes along the way and savored them. I am grateful that I still have stuff to work on and plenty of time in which to do it. I am grateful that I was patient (well, as patient as I could be - I can certainly recall some frustrating lessons), and took my time - knowing very well in my heart that Tango found me for a reason and that I would “get it” when I was meant to - after all, if it’s meant to be, why rush?

When I cook, I maintain that the less ingredients there are to complicate things, the better. The longer it takes me to make it (read “slow food”), the better. The more time I take to eat it, slowly savoring each taste, one bite at a time, putting my fork down as I chew, focusing on the different layers of flavor in the food, the better.

The same applies to Tango. I don’t want to add any ingredients that I feel are unnecessary (though I do at least sample in case of a pleasant surprise), and I don’t feel the need to take shortcuts.

Just a personal preference.

Well this sure woke me up.  A friend posted it on his myspace profile and I had to “steal” it for this blog.  This couple is Luna and Oliver.  I took a workshop with them a few years ago which I really liked - they didn’t teach “figures”, they took more of an approach of “less is more” and “quality in small things”. 

The focus of the class was elegance - they had us just walking and going into the cross - while focusing on elegance - on making just those two things as musical and heartfelt and lovely as possible.  Someone said “this is boring.”  To which Luna said (not word for word, sorry), “You wanna know what I think is boring?  I think it’s boring when the man doesn’t connect with me, and focuses on leading as much figures as possible in just one song.  When he dances only for himself.  To me that is boring.”  Then Oliver said something about how once the man embraces the woman and she connects with him, he hears the music for the first time.  Or something like that. 

They were fun and funny, and very nice and charming people.  I enjoyed them.  I like seeing them having fun in this video.

So what do you guys think of his shoes?

[youtube=[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vl0VsCKszo4]

I was asked if I’d give a detailed report of the workshops and private lesson I had with Ney and Jennifer. I thought about it, but the thing is, it’s just not quite “me” to write from that perspective. If you read this blog enough, you know that I don’t get technical and describe classes or dances literally, step by step, word for word. I tend to take a more emotional approach. (And quite frankly, I don’t really want to broadcast to the world which habits I’m trying to adjust in my dancing. That’s completely personal.) I’m sure there is a blog somewhere out there that will satisfy your curiosity. But better than reading about what they do in their classes, why not find out when they’ll be in your area and take a lesson with them to see for yourself? It’s worth it.

What I will say is that they are a truly beautiful, shining pair of dancers who love what they do, and share what they know with such joy. They go out of their way to make things make sense, and they are very patient. In my private lesson, they took all kinds of different approaches until we could figure out what it was I needed to do for a certain step. They are good teachers because they really, truly want their students to understand and grow. I haven’t met dancers this special in a long time.

I highly recommend that you take a look at their schedule and try to see them if you can. They are kind people and their spirit is infectious. I feel very lucky.

Hooray, tomorrow I have my lesson with Ney & Jennifer. Woo woo!

What do I hope to learn? I dunno… I’ll take some of their elegance though. I admire their connection, I admire Ney’s movements and the way he seems to communicate to Jennifer, and I admire Jennifer’s graceful foot placement. And her shoes. Girl’s got some nice shoes.

I was going to confess that I went to a blog that bothers me as of late, and commented… (but at least I was sort of nice?)… but instead I will not talk about that.

I will do as I said before, and direct my energy towards fabulousness.

I will focus on something that makes me smile: the fact that I have mere days before some very nice people arrive in Seattle.

[youtube=[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=FOYJVyAlkJY]

The post a few days ago about Premature Teaching caught quite a bit of attention, and I received a thoughtful e-mail from someone I love to dance with, wondering if it was about a specific school known for training beginner teachers.

Well, not quite. While I disagree with that school’s policy of training beginners to teach, and while I don’t feel that this particular school gives enough credit to the Argentine beginnings of Tango, the post was not quite for them - they don’t bother me as much as some would like to think. It’s easy to see that they are enjoying what they do, they have good intentions, and most of all they are not arrogant about. That means something to me. Makes it a little easier for me to “live and let live”.

The post was mostly directed at some individuals in particular who I feel are coming from a place of cocky arrogance, rather than love and humility.

I’ve been thinking today that there will always be people who do stupid things in this world. The best thing I can possible do for myself is to relax, enjoy my life, and continue to revel in the romance of Tango. If I focus too much on things that bother me, I run the risk of hindering my own growth as a tanguera.

That doesn’t mean you won’t be hearing more strong opinions from me - I never like to leave things unsaid. Strong opinions are part of who I am and therefore part of this blog.

I want to make sure I continue to focus on the things that thrill me to the core about Tango. Things that make me feel light and free when I think or talk about them, like dancing “the Ghost”, or trying to sing along to Yuyo Verde…

“Yo no teacher. Yo dancing!”

- exact words of an old milonguero friend of ours in Buenos Aires, when asked if he was also a teacher.

While I’m not an authority on Tango, I feel the need to write about something that I consider very important to address.

What’s bothering me right now is people who don’t want to take the full, long journey to discovering Tango. People who “proudly” claim that because they’ve been to X amount of festivals and taken X amount of hours of class and practice, that they can teach, and that they know Tango. It makes feel a little worried about what’s happening to Tango.

The thing I have heard a lot of from these people is that “time matters not”. And you all know how I feel about that. Yes, some people just “get” it after a short period of time, while others can dance for 10 years and still not have a clue. But this is no reason to start teaching too soon. When someone feels that they are ready to teach early in their Tango life, they might think they get it – but those who truly do “get” it, aren’t teaching as beginners – they’re too busy dancing.

I can be understanding on one level, because when you’ve only been dancing a year or so, you have absolutely no idea how much more you are about to discover in Tango. But for this precise reason I do not feel it is right to start teaching prematurely, and I do not feel it is right to state with arrogance that you know what you’re talking about, when really you’re still a baby by Argentine standards. It kind of reminds me of how when I was a teenager I thought I knew everything. Then I entered my 20’s and really thought I knew everything. Now that I’m 30, I see that I have a lot to learn and that I can just slow down and enjoy it.

Understanding Tango is so much more than how many hours you’ve been putting into your dance or how many festivals you’ve been to. Tango is a personal journey that takes a long time. It is so rewarding to be patient and allow it to happen on its own. Immediately assuming that since you once helped someone in practica or know how to explain an ocho means that you’re ready to teach, can be dangerous. It shows little respect for the true professionals out there who have earned their positions with a lot of effort and time. If you ask me, I’ll say that it’s not good Tango.

One reason I believe that Tango takes time, is that Tango is also about life experience. Tango is life experience. As I get a few months closer to my 5-year Tango anniversary, I reflect on all that I’ve been through in life during my Tango journey. As I matured, had my heart broken, lost my father, moved to a different country – all of these things went hand-in-hand with Tango. Experiencing these things while learning and dancing Tango at the same time, was instrumental in my development as a dancer. My previous life experiences were also instrumental, but allowing Tango to unfold in your life as you go through various milestones is priceless.

To teach prematurely, in my opinion, is to treat Tango like an empty dance. An empty, purely physical… thing, with no history or spirit. Anyone who reads this blog regularly has read this post about what I think Tango is. And I stand by it. Tango is a wonderful dance, it is a wonderful challenge for mind, body and soul. It’s great to do it well, it’s great to learn new steps, and it’s great to help others discover it. But it is not great to forget that Tango has roots. I feel it is arrogant to claim authority about something without respecting the core of it.

I was fortunate enough to study with a fabulous couple from Buenos Aires for the first four years of my Tango development. We became friends and they took me under their wing. They didn’t just teach me to dance – they taught me how to prepare a good mate, make empanadas (yummm), open my heart to love, speak a little bit of Spanish…they taught me their culture. Because of them, I got a geography lesson, a history lesson, a love lesson, and thanks to their inspiring me to explore Argentine culture more in depth, I can dance an okay chacarera. Not great, but not bad. Because my learning experience was so full and rich and intense, I just can’t imagine having actually been a teacher myself during all of that. I can’t imagine even wanting to teach when I was in the midst of absorbing so much myself.

As I’ve matured in Tango and in life, my feelings about Tango have evolved. What’s important to me has changed. I’ve finally discovered myself in the dance and I dance like me. I’ve developed incredibly strong bonds with people through Tango. But most importantly, I’ve realized why it is that I dance Tango. I’m no longer looking for interesting, tricky steps. I’m no longer worrying about looking the best when I dance. You know what I look for in Tango, and why I dance it? I look for my soul and yours. I dance because I want our souls to meet and have a conversation while our bodies move in time to the music.

And ever since my month in Buenos Aires, the #1 reason I dance Tango at all is because I feel like it is my one connection to my new favorite city. I feel like it’s my way of checking in with Buenos Aires and saying “hola – I still love you”.

Slow down, Tangueros. Slow down. Don’t disregard your learning process. And whatever you do - do it from your heart, do it out of love.