Warning: Tango can become a passion!

Tags

Argentine Tango, Tango, tango junkie, tango passion, Vancouver Island Tango

I am inspired by a recent blog post about how Tango is not an addiction.  I agree!  The word Addiction has such negative connotations.  Can you imagine what a tango treatment centre would look like?  I will never be cured!  I am not going to tango rehab.

I am laughing as I write this because we don’t really know what we are getting into when we start tango.  We may think we know or have some idea of what tango is, but generally we don’t.

I have  joked with my  students that I should have them sign a waiver stating: I am not responsible for where tango may take you!  But for the most part I let the new dancers find out for themselves how passionate you become when tango finds you.

I have seen many things happen because of this passion.  Because tango has taken them to a place of self fulfillment, expanded their horizons, given them a community within which to grow and thrive, and given them permission to have such a passion.

So my question is this:  Do we warn the beginners?  Or do we smile, nod, keep playing the music and then watch as they quit boring jobs, rip up all the carpet in their house and put in a dance floor,  travel far and wide to dance , leave stagnant relationships, start a shoe collection, buy clothing that sparkles, walk with a different step, and become night owls….?!

I warned them and thank goodness they didn’t listen to me! 😉

Tango: A feeling that you dance?

Tags

Argentine Tango, Comox Valley, Energy, Focus, Intention, Tango, Vancouver Island Tango

Tango:  A feeling that you dance.

That saying is all well and good but how on earth do you teach and learn ‘feeling’?

For me it comes down to being present in the moment, the millisecond, the breath.  Working with what you know, sticking to the fundamentals.  Focusing on your steps, your embrace, your inner thoughts, your energy until you feel a connection with your partner and/or the music.

What is your intention?  Let’s connect in the embrace, with our first step, and have intention with every step after, every pause, all the time.  Let’s have tone in our embrace, our baby toes, our ankles.  Wake up forgotten knees, hips, hands, shoulders, necks and be aware throughout the entire dance.

Great professional athletes, dancers, actors, musicians all have incredible focus.  They train for it. And because of this intense training they are able to perform to their utmost ability.  We as tango dancers need to harness a fraction of that focus to be present with our dancing, to experience connection.

It is a heck of a lot easier to teach fancy figure after fancy figure, step after step.  That would be fine if we were doing choreography for a show, but we aren’t.  We are trying to form and become great tango dancers within our tango community.  And in order to do that we need to somehow teach and learn how to dance with feeling.

How do you turn off your inner to-do list, find the moment, feel connected?  How is your teacher helping you get to that place in your tango journey?  Or how are you as a teacher teaching this to your students?