First you think “I’m going to the tango lesson” as if it is a one time event, where you learn how to flick your legs around and look fabulous.
The reality sets in and no matter how adept you are at everything else in your life, you feel like an absolute clod. What an ego buster!
All you want to do is wear those delightful flowy, drapey, flouncy fabrics and a pair of naughty high heel shoes as you are whisked around in the embrace of a lifetime…yeah, that comes later, much, much later.
Initially there is so much to learn, “collect your feet”, “keep your heels down”, “DON”T LOOK DOWN!”, anyone would feel like a total spaz going backward as a total stranger pushes you with his breast and breathes hot air down your neck and back.
“The Tango Lesson” we’ve all been through it and if smart we managed to ignore our Ego’s plead to go back to 60’s style hippie dancing and stuck it out for say, oh, I don’t know…maybe another 360 lessons.
But then one day it happens, you didn’t expect it, but there it is again, “I forgot to think about what was happening with my feet” and just for a moment, one effortless, delicious moment I was gliding in unison with my partner!
Ahhh! The tangasim! It’s what every dancer lives for and you will have one, I promise, but until you do, remember you are not alone! Read Grace’s description of her first tango lesson in Argentina below. You will feel a bit of a twinge then a lot of compassion as you recall your first steps.
We begin with “the basic step”, the one that carries two people round a dancefloor clockwise. Facing Carlos, my role goes: left foot forward, right sweeps to the side, two quick steps back, leaving left crossing right, right foot back, left sweeps across and both feet together. Repeat. It takes me two hours of stepping on Carlos’s shoes and being moaned at to master this. Two of the most excruciating hours of my life. I can do the feet. I can even do “ochos”, the twirly-feet steps that abbreviate the basic step. What I can’t do is let Carlos lead while I wrap around him, pulling a distant, yet vaguely lustful expression. He seems furious at even the slightest hint of authority in my body language. “Tranquilo,” he says, 275 times in the first lesson. I’m supposed to be looking into his eyes, or have my head tucked sensuously into his neck. To me, this feels wrong. In Britain, the only time someone touches you so tenderly, they’re either your official “other half”, someone you’re about to get off with, or you’re being sexually molested. So how come everyone else at tango school just gets on with it? I can’t unlearn decades of social conditioning overnight, but I had better bloody well try if I don’t want to be the pale English wallflower with the cat’s bum mouth for the next seven days.
Read the full article:
Grace Dent learns to tango in Argentina | Travel | The Guardian.
Don’t give up! Keep showing up at lessons, practicas, milongas and don’t worry if you aren’t asked to dance, watch, observe everything from footwork to posture to attitude and soon you will be dancing your way through the grocery store using the cart as your dance bar and practicing your voleao’s like a pro.
If you feel too shy then get some dvd’s watch, absorb the emotion, the movements, the nuances of the timing of the music. It all sinks in and eventually you will be the one everybody wants to dance with.