But is it really such a bad thing that I am worried for Tango, and that I’m upset by people misrepresenting it (in my opinion)? I know that I’ll be a lot more at peace if I just let it go and spend my energy promoting the people for whom I have tremendous respect, but I’m still going to be worried in the back of my head.
One way to handle this is that I have recently decided to stop frequenting the places where I don’t feel comfortable. Maybe by attending only the events that make me happy, where the energy is good and the music is beautiful, I will be able to keep moving forward along my own path - because I’ll be relaxed and blissful whenever I’m there. Plus then I’m always guaranteed dances with my favorite leaders. 
I’m at a time in my life where I think I can be more selective anyway, of the places I go. I want to spend my time in atmospheres that enrich me, that make me feel whole. I don’t feel so desperate for Tango that I simply *must* attend every single milonga and practica there is. (I also need to sleep a full night at least a couple times a week, which is a very good excuse to be selective.) I now have realized that there are certain places that don’t make me feel comfortable and where I rarely have good dances…while there are other places where I feel very relaxed and at ease, where I always get to dance with great guys who have it in their hearts.
I think the first paragraph revealed what I should do: I can put my energy towards encouraging fabulousness in fabulous people - Tango DJs (new and old) who have deep love for the music and just get better and better; dancers who have been at it since the 1950’s in Buenos Aires; dancers in the U.S. and elsewhere who have a deep understanding of things due to time and experience; newer dancers who devote themselves to “chasing the Ghost” that is Tango; nice people in general; romantic, well-written blog entries like this one at TangoSpeak, which I love to read again and again.
(To the person who provoked me to think today - I believe you know who you are. Thank you!)
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I think trying to build up the things we love is almost always a better way to spend our energy than ripping down the things we don’t like (well, at least when we’re talking about things that aren’t life-and-death, obviously fighting poverty and disease and stuff is important)
I think it is perfectly natural to worry about things we care about. The more we care, the more we worry. And nobody likes change.
Each of us enters Tango at a specific point in its evolution, and for us, THAT is Tango. And anything that comes after is a corruption of it.
Tango has been evolving, transforming, and changing since it was born. And the worries we now blog about today are echoes of the worries of many generations before us.
I have been dancing Tango close to 11 years now. Some things are very different. Some things never change. Nothing is forever, but the whisper of two hearts in an embrace comes close.
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