walk this way

Posts Tagged ‘tango’

[note: I am not the sole of all wisdom here, this is just my observation of the available data. I am by the very facts, coming late to the conversation, and in point of fact just a very very advanced beginner. I just happen to be a lot more advanced than the people I am teaching. In another 40 years, assuming I live that long, I may actually have a clue as to how to walk...maybe. Having said that, my viewpoint on tangobliss maybe complete rubbish. Its just my viewpoint. And it may or may not be valid, but I do know this, that this one experience can literally change your whole perspective! And once it starts to happen on a regular basis....god help you.]

The Reason To Stay.

My last post was on 25 Reasons to Quit Tango.

This is on the singular reason to stay. And what is that reason ? Its tangobliss.

Tangobliss is that ethereal state of being fully aware of one’s own body, one’s own movement, and being in relationship to another human being, in time to tango music that can create an ‘other worldly’ state of existence that is at once transcendent and again rather grounding.

That is one explanation, and which doesn’t even begin to cover it.

For the practical folks reading this, tangobliss consists of several parts of the ethereal, several parts of the physical, several parts proficiency, and 2 parts musical. When you put them all together, those elements can create near perfect conditions for TangoBliss to occur. Read that last line again, there’s a lot of uncertainty in there. Then again, read the first part of that sentence again. There’s even more there. TangoBliss can not be manufactured, it can not be created, but it can be generated by presence of other parts being present. If you will pardon the gardening reference, the proper fertile and well fertilized ground must be present.

Five Elements.

Here are 5 elements that I have witnessed, and been party to that can contribute to the existence of tangobliss.

1.) Proficiency of Skill. The truth is that you need to be at the top of your game. Which means, a light, soft, clear, and consistent embrace that does not pull, push, poke, prod, or intrude in any way, shape, or form. Your walk must be clean…precise, sharp. Your bodily presence must be FULL and fully committed. You must have a clean, and clear foundation, and a command of your basics. Period.

2.) Know The Music. Hearing a song a few times just doesn’t cut it. You must know every single orchestral arrangement, almost to the point of which piece is playing which part, and then some. Know it cold. Know it in your sleep, know it like you wrote the damned thing. That, my friends, is KNOWING THE MUSIC. Anything less than that is a waste of your time. Know it cold. Here’s a ‘for instance’: When I say to you, “D’Arienzo”. You should know where he was born, what his influences were, where he started, what changed the course of his life, who the major players of his orchestra were…and so on. That, my friends, is knowing the music cold. Know who played what is a huge piece of knowing your music. Its not just knowing the notes and where they fall. Because the truth is that the music that was written on the page, was done so in a lot of cases AFTER the fact of the recordings, and in a lot of cases is an approximation of the music that was actually played.

3.) Command of Vocabulary. I can’t stress this enough. Gancho, Gancho, Gancho is NOT the way to creating tango bliss. Its vocabulary. Its also SPICE, not the dance itself. One’s dance should likely consist of the following: Walk, Walk, Walk. Ocho, Ocho, Ocho. Molinete. Cross! That’s it, that’s all! Anything more than that should be SPICE to the meal of WALKING! So if you’re going to perform that fancy cool move you saw X, Y, or Z perform, you should practice that thing until you are blue in the face, and then practice it some more, and when you’re done with that…PRACTICE IT SOME MORE. Then about 6 months from now, late at night, near the end of the milonga, with a partner that you’ve danced with before, then pull out the flashy move ONCE…and then let it go.

Having a tool does not necessitate its use.

Having a command of your available vocabulary means being able to deploy vocabulary without pulling, hanging, pushing on anyone at all, in any way, shape, or form, with suitable ease and sufficient simplicity with clear, and precise form and shape, that you should be able to replicate it with any partner of any skill level, at any time, anywhere, to nearly any piece of music, to make it musical, fun, bright and clear. Period. That is a command of your vocabulary.

4.) The Ethereal. This one is hard to quantify. However, it starts with a clean spirit and constitution. An open mind, an open heart, and an open space in your life. That does not mean that you’re trying to fill a hole, but rather the opposite. You have a small amount of personal holes, and there is a clean headspace that you can enter and stay in wihtout effort of a pain or a specter of a personal gaff that’s is in your head space. Heavy hearts, too much interpersonal work…not gonna fly here. But rather the polar opposite. I believe that for the Ethereal to occur you must in fact be clean of spirit.

5.) The Physical. You must be in good physical condition. Can you walk a mile and not breathe hard ? Then you’re in good condition. Can you run a mile and not kill yourself ? You’re in better physical condition. Can you go up and down a flight of stairs with ease ? Good. Now can you go up and down the same flight several times without breathing hard ? Even better. Do you smoke ? Do you drink ? Do you smoke and drink ? I’m not talking about the occasional glass of wine. But I am talking about the constant need for a cigarette. Now to the other part of the Physical. You must be comfortable with your body, and you must be comfortable with being touched and touching that isn’t creepy, sexual, or that doesn’t raise the hackles on the backs of people’s necks! You must be very comfortable being body on body, and have it all be about the dance, and nothing else.

Two More

Those 5 elements are the elements that can contribute to a tangobliss experience. However, it is NOT tangobliss. Its not. They are contributing factors so that the experience has good soil to take root in. There are 2 other elements that must be present for the experience to occur, and these are seemingly difficult to attain in any sufficient quantities, so much so that you may very well find yourself wondering what in the hell you’re waiting around for…this is where boredom usually sets in, and you feel a little like Godot. The two other things that must be present are:

a.) A Partner of Sufficient Skill to dance with.

b.) Being in the right place, at the right, time with the right partner of sufficient skill.

And again, even those may not be enough.

The first of these two are elusive enough as it is. Looking out on a room full of dancers, you see varying levels of skill, and the more proficient dancers tend to keep to themselves, depending on what communities that you’re dancing in (for a variety of reasons), and its those very dancers that you need to improve your skill, just a few tandas with the more proficient dancers on a regular basis could in fact change your whole reality. However that is, unfortunately, not the case. Sadly. So its easy to see that getting “THAT” dance is elusive. And when someone new comes into the equation, its understandable that you’d want to try them out to see if they possess what it is that you have been waiting for.

And now to the latter of these two…The Right Time. Oy. Need I say more ?

A Singularity

Ok, now that we’ve described the shape of TangoBliss, now we get to the heart of the matter, the sole reason to stay with the dance.

Just 2 seconds of TangoBliss, and you really don’t need much else. There is no drug, no addiction, no want, need or desire that can be more powerful than TangoBliss. For 10 seconds of TangoBliss you will literally sell your soul, but what happens in those 10 seconds can seemingly drag on for an eternity. A very very looooong eternity, that seemingly never stops, has no vista edge that is discernible, or can create such a shift at the base of being a human being. Now think about this – think about those couples that you see dancing for several tandas that seem to take up the entire night. They enjoy dancing with each other more than anything else, they may or may not be romantically involved, but that doesn’t enter into it. If a tanda is 3 songs by the same artist/orchestra, and each song is about 3 minutes long, then a tanda is 9 minutes. A couple of tandas would be about 4 tandas or 27 minutes, which if we round it up…a half hour. Several Tandas….you can easily see how this is going to stretch…right ?

Now imagine this: An entire Hour of TangoBliss. Now try two. Three. Four. By the time you’re done, the night has gone by….and an eternity has opened up to you.

Tangobliss: Once you have a small taste of, you will move mountains to have another taste. It is an ailment for which there is no cure, except MORE of the ailment! And what a lovely ailment and a predicament to find yourself in.

Be appreciative that you have the facility to hear tangobliss when it calls your name, be rapturous when tangobliss walks in your door, be ecstatic when tangobliss takes you into its embrace, be thankful after tangobliss has left. But while you’re in it…stay as long as you can. For it will not come your way again…..until the next tanda!

What follows is very a strong opinion. It is just one opinion. If you take offense to my opinion, my sincere apologies, really! I speak with a strong voice for one so young in the tango world, that can easily be mistaken for arrogance. I am very adamant about my view point for a variety of reasons. In my mind I see that tango is a dance between strong equals, both parties showing up. Meaning that in order for the dance to function on any level that’s actually enjoyable, both parties have to be emotionally, physically, intellectually, spiritually, universally present and intentionally listening to each other. Failure to do that, and someone is being pushed around by a brute, or is dragging around cement! (see ? strong opinion, proceed at your own risk)

The Default Vocabulary.

A Follower has 7 basic moves. Note I said ‘moves’, and not ‘steps’. Let’s review just what those ‘moves’ are so that we can have a vocabulary of understanding each other a little bit.

Those moves are: 1.) Forward. 2.) Side. 3.) Back. The next 2 moves, comprise the first 3, with one minor difference, the judicious application of the principle of disassociation: 4.) Forward Ochos. 5.) Back Ochos. And the 6th comprises the first 5 moves: 6.) A Giro, or Molinete, or ‘Grapevine Turn’ to the left or right. Ok, so what’s the 7th ? The 7th is the Argentine Cross, if you’re ‘classically’ trained then you’ll think of this as steps 3 through 5 of the linear ‘Argentine Basic’ (there is another version of the ‘basic’ that works in the line of dance and curves).

The Leading Fallacy.

The leading fallacy is that the leader is doing all the ‘hard’ work, or the heavy lifting. In my opinion he’s nothing more than wallpaper, very fancy and pretty wallpaper, but wallpaper none the less.

To validate my point, do the following with a partner the next time you are at a practica: As a couple I want you to perform the following vocabulary – Walk*, Walk, Walk, Ocho, Ocho, Ocho, Molinete, Walk, Walk, Walk. Now, I want you to walk both sides of the vocabulary without a partner, just as if you were doing with a partner. Assuming you’ve completed the task, ask this question: Who did all the physical work, leader or follower ? [note: * 'walk' is 2 steps forward, one step forward on the right and one step forward on the left. 'ocho' is a complete ocho to the left or right. 'molinete' is one complete turn of forward, side, back, side, forward.]

Let’s break this down a bit, note what I asked: “Who did all the PHYSICAL work ?”. You’ll hear leaders *AND* followers respond to that question with ,”He’s leading her, he’s choreographing, navigating, interpreting the music, and dancing all at the same time, that’s so hard!”. My response to that is as follows:

“So you’re telling me that the car, horse, buggy, golf cart, train you’re driving isn’t doing anything at all ? That without you, the magical leader, you’d never get anywhere ? Really ? Ok, next time your ___________ (fill in the blank) is taking a day off, just try getting anywhere without it! You my friend are going to do an awful lot of walking that day.”

At this point there’s a lot of eye blinking, looking at of watches, checking cellphones, and a general sound of cricket’s chirping if it’s the right time of year. For those that are paying attention, someone will submit, “What about Musicality?”. My reply is: Tango is a conversation, and what most leaders state as ‘musicality’, is nothing more than a monologue in script! There must be a dialogue, and the space for that dialogue to occur! Otherwise its just someone speaking AT you. To be fair there are some people that like being led around by their noses. Its much easier for them, they don’t have to think or to be an active participant…they just want to let someone else do the driving.

A leader’s job in my opinion is to show off the follower. Create opportunities for the follower to be presented in the best possible light at all times, especially on a social dance floor, and that means dropping the antics and vocabulary and presenting the follower’s best attributes…always!

And in case you haven’t done your homework, and are wondering what the answer is to my query above, who is doing all the physical work ? The answer is: The Follower! The follower is doing all the work. Not the leader. As you’ll discover when you do the exercise, you’ll see that he’s doing nothing more than walking forwards, to and fro, and turning in place. While the follower is walking backwards, in heels, disassociating clearly and cleanly, extending their legs back behind themselves, and oh yeah, then there’s that little detail of a molinete…oy! And the lead is doing what ? hmmmm…yeah, lots of work there.

Summing up the absurdity of leading: The better I get as a lead I realize the less that I actually have to do. Which in turn validates the old axiom that LESS is MORE!

Putting It All Together.

I am not minimizing the importance of a leader, the leader has a role, I am simply putting them in their place, this includes the author. The leader is a guide, a shepherd, and a gentleman in the best sense of the word. At the same time I’m not elevating the follower to take over the dance, I am, however, empowering the follower to take control of their side of the embrace, through their defaults! Expanding a bit, the follower’s role is to perform those defaults mentioned above with an ownership of those movements! Take responsibility for what you do.

Example: As a leader, I may *ASK* for a side step in time to the music, however, the follower takes that request, responds to it to the best of the follower’s ability WITH OWNERSHIP & CONTROL of the MOVEMENT! That means the follower is responsible for the execution, timing within the musical selection, application of technique, and possibly an adornment of options to add a finishing touch!

What ends up happening is a rather amazing dynamic of gender roles personified, and at the same time, literally elevating each other to a greater prominence together than by themselves, i.e.: The sum of the parts is greater than the parts by themselves! By doing nothing, a leader becomes prominent because the leader is allowing the follower to perform their defaults which in turn makes the leader look like they’re being amazing when in fact, it’s an illusion.