If you’re in Seattle this weekend, you’ll have a chance to learn from one of the most graceful milongueras I’ve ever seen, Alicia Pons.

Click here for information.

Also, tomorrow night, one of my favorite dancers/DJs, Mourad, is hosting his new monthly milonga, “Despues“.

I’m looking forward to supporting him!  I hope we see Alicia there, and also at the Sunday milonga, La Garua.  If you can’t wait until then to dance, there’s also a milonga tonight at the Century Ballroom.

Goodness me, Seattle is certainly active this weekend! You can find all of this and more at allseattletango.com.

I landed in Seattle a week ago today and hit the ground running.

I’ve most enjoyed the mix of flavors as I eat my way around the city.  Spicy Thai food, extra virgin olive oil from Italy with that peppery spice that hits the back of your throat at the last moment, awesome French food, wine from Washington, California, Italy, France… the variety of cheeses.  Real mozzarella di bufala.  I feel like I’d forgotten what food tasted like!  Well, that’s not totally true.  In Buenos Aires I got creative, and spending so much time with Joli (very good cook) was definitely inspiring.  It’s just that there were some key things I’d forgotten all about!  Tomorrow night I will eat sushi and am looking forward to it.

I was really unsure about coming up here, but I find that I’m really glad I came.  I can’t really explain to people here the things I’ve seen my past year or so in BA.  But I’m glad to be up in the northwest for a while, with clean air, lots of greenery, and amazing salmon.  I really appreciate where I’m from.

I miss Buenos Aires a little bit each day, and find that I can’t watch any youtube videos of tango performances by people I know that take place in salons I know in Buenos Aires or I cry my eyes out.  But I’m happy the rest of the time.

I’ve danced tango a few times here and quite enjoyed it.  It’s nice to embrace old friends.

I taught my first Seattle group tango class yesterday, sort of a workshop.  It went well!  It’s hard to pin the milonguero style down into a workshop and I was nervous, but I had a good time and met some very nice, enthusiastic people.

Next week I’ll be in San Francisco so I can get my Italian passport.  Definitely looking forward to that moment.

I feel relaxed and more happy.  I think things are looking up.

I think it’s time to reveal my first “project” in Seattle.

After all this time working very closely with Pedro Sanchez, who has been bringing out the teacher in me, I find myself in a place where I can stand on my own and articulate my theories on tango.  He has been great, and looking back on the time I’ve spent “apprenticing” him, I can see that I’ve grown a lot and I am inspired.

Apart from occasional stints here and there, I’ve been hesitant to permanently break into the teaching side of things in the past because I was still trying to find my place in the dance (which I have found), but the encouragement I continue to receive down here in Buenos Aires from various people (locals) has relaxed me a bit.

I hope Seattle will receive me, even with the raw, intimate style I’ve taken on down here in Buenos Aires.  I’m not looking to be regarded as this amazing dancer/teacher and I don’t have an ego to transmit.  I just want to share what I’ve soaked up during my time here because I love it and I love my people in Seattle.  And I need the money.

I’m excited to have something positive to focus on for my short time up there and I hope this can connect me with some interesting Seattle folks who I wouldn’t have otherwise known.  I also hope I’ll be inspired to write a little more about tango on this blog.

I’m still trying to find space and am still ironing out some details, but for the time being I have an instructor page on allseattletango.com!  Thanks John Lee.

Click here to see my instructor page.

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:

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…