tango chose me

I continue to experience how fragile it is to dance Tango, particularly at this early stage of my tango journey (i.e. years 1-5).  For the last number of months, I feel like I’m cycling on and off with my dance or perhaps I should say forwards and backwards. When I have my ‘A’ game, every tanda with each ‘follow’ is wonderful – no matter how good the music actually is or how experienced my partner. I may be ‘on’ for as little as one tanda, one night, or if I’m lucky, for a week or two.

Then suddenly, it’s as if it’s over and the clock is rolled back to a time weeks, or even months earlier and lasts perhaps another a week or ten days. Some partners I recently had fabulous dances with as little as a few days earlier, may suddenly seem to me to be out of my league and I may not have the necessary confidence to even ask them to dance, yet alone re-create that oh so wonderful experience. And even with those I do dance with, the dance may seem to be mechanical or in our heads and we don’t come close to creating the magic we felt so recently.

And as I continue to work hard to improve my dance and continue to go through these cycles, I’ve concluded that growth and development of my dance requires humility and vulnerability. When you feel good about how well you’re dancing and think you know everything, you loose it all. Yet, when you may feel a bit uncomfortable with your dance, less confident and perhaps a bit fragile AND you approach each milonga and each partner with a good dose of humility and that humility carries you along and can result in perhaps a very good dance.  It provides an avenue for growth and may give you and your partner your best dance of the week.