Category: Social Dynamics

It is often said that tango is particularly tough on women. When I say “women”, I mean female dancers who prefer the follower’s role. This article is for them and about them – us, me being one of them. This does not mean that tango is not tough on women who prefer the leader’s role or that tango is not tough on men, but these are topics for a different article. Saying that tango is tough on somebody is, of course, nonsense. Tango is no such thing, tango does not exist: it is merely a name we give to an activity shared by a great variety of people who love to dance to a particular music. But because in most tango communities women currently outnumber men, we speak of gender imbalance and this does bring with it a whole array of problems.

Women, students and friends, frequently ask me: “How  can I get more dances? How to get the dancers who ignore me? How not to spend so much time sitting and waiting?” Some say: “I can practice my technique all I want, in the end they will still choose a younger or a more attractive woman.” Followers often feel angry about the general rule of having to wait for the leader’s desire to invite them, they feel pushed back into a passive, victimizing position. Some of them, dissatisfied with it, start actively inviting leaders themselves. Sometimes this strategy works, sometimes it fails. Some women enter a tenacious downward spiral of bitterness in which each new experience seems to confirm the rule of “I am never good enough for this”.

Gender imbalance leads to a tough competition to get the available leaders and especially the better dancing ones. Here, too, exists a spiral, an upward one, one without end: the spiral of trying to be better and better at everything at once, competing with other women on all the levels, the skills, the age, the looks, the sociability, the popularity. Within an enclosed group such as a milonga, this pressure can become unbearable. Especially if you are not very self-confident, dress or look differently from everyone else, consider yourself unattractive, have an introverted temperament and so forth.

This competition among female followers is intensified by a particular phenomenon in our culture and the way our society functions in respect to female gender: women are judged by more and tougher criteria before they are considered any good. In tango this can be clearly seen in how we define who is a “good dancer”. A man will be considered a good dancer – even an excellent one – if he leads well, embraces well, knows interesting moves, interprets the music well, in short, if he is a good LEADER. We care about what a male leader DOES and much less about how he or his dance LOOKS. He may have a clumsy embrace, stooped posture, unathletic body, put his feet down carelessly, yet still be a “good dancer” in everyone’s eyes. However, we will never call a woman a “good dancer” if her posture is bad, her embrace clumsy, her feet inarticulate, her legs incapable of making beautiful lines. Where in male leaders we appreciate the leading skill, from women we demand both good following and aesthetically beautiful dancing. A woman has to DO well and LOOK well at the same time, always. This is why we have many more followers technique classes than leaders technique classes. The advantage is that we push women to become better dancers in the true sense of the word. The disadvantage is that followers need to work much harder to “get there”.

Asking how to get enough dances in a gender-imbalanced situation is, in a way, like asking “Where I live, there is not enough food. How can I still eat enough?” In this perspective we have to accept that gender imbalance can only be solved by gender balance. In many tango events the organisers impose gender balance using a strict registration policy. This helps to create optimal conditions during the event, but makes it automatically harder for unpartnered followers to get a registration for such an event. If you find yourself in a place where gender imbalance is critical, know that there are places and events where this is not the case. Ask around, find these communities, visit events that are more balanced, make friends with leaders you meet. Create yourself a group of leaders you appreciate and who appreciate you and try to meet regularly at some event where you can dance all your heart desires. What you need is simply a certain REGULARITY of good experiences. A trip somewhere once in every three months, or, if you are into tango intensely, once a month.

If you ask me “How to be well in times of shortage?”, then this question offers a different perspective. This is about not letting your psychological well-being depend on the number of leaders you dance with. This is a tough challenge in itself, but a lesson we often have to learn in life: how to make our sense of well-being independent of the things happening or not happening to us.

My advice would be to keep improving your dance skills. In the light of the above this might sound as “too bad, you are born a woman, just work harder”. Yet, to me, thinking that you can be popular and fulfilled in tango without learning the dance skill is like imagining you can be a chef just because you like to eat. Of all the advice I can give, this one is the most pertinent, the most long-term, the most effective. Tango is a dance above all else. What ultimately counts is how you dance. I am not only talking about the tango experience you can offer the other person, I am talking in the first place about what kind of tango experience you can offer YOURSELF. A blissful dance, with a deep human connection and a good dancing skill, makes all other considerations secondary. This is a very simple and profound truth. In tango the most intense happiness is that of a good dance.

“Good dance” remains, of course, a subjective and variable thing. If you manage to see growth as a way to a deeper, stronger enjoyment of the dance, you will progress steadily, your idea of “good dance” will keep changing. No matter your current skill, you can always get better, a tiny bit every time. Skill improvement is not about tedious work to get the desired dancers, it is about giving a present to yourself: the opportunity to become a better dancer for the sake of becoming a better dancer. When you are concerned with the quality, you become less anxious about the quantity.

A combination of these things (improving your skills + regularly taking yourself to a place where you get “enough” dances) – should make your tango life already quite fulfilling. But there is another level on which things can function well if you are persistent. Make sure that in everything concerning tango you navigate towards things that make you most joyful. It is important to put yourself in a good mood before you enter a milonga, for example: ready for delightful surprises, but not taking it too seriously when things do not go well. For this you need to actively look for things that bring you in this mood. Try to follow your joy in every choice, which places you go to, how you prefer to look and dress, how you wish to dance, when you would like to rest, where you like to sit and so on. When I say “joy” I do not mean pleasure, although pleasure is often part of the experience. What gives you joy is very much defined by your temperament. When people see me sitting by myself at a distance just watching the dance floor for an hour they often think I am cold, unapproachable and lonely. Yet to me these are joyful, happy, peaceful moments, because I am introverted. You might be at your most joyful surrounded by people talking and shouting and drinking. You have to know what is you and what is not you. If you keep weaving your tango experience from joyful micro-moments, you will be a happier person and a more desirable partner. It will protect you from sliding down the spiral of dissatisfaction.

In the eyes of many women tango, being a reflection of our culture, seems to favour “the young and the beautiful”. This is true for men who love dancing with beautiful young women, but this is just as true for women: we, too, love to be in the arms of young and handsome. It is important to realise, however, that in most tango communities the average age is rather high.The young crowd is often a minority. Thinking that tango is only for the young would be denying this reality. The young ones are often more passionate about becoming better dancers, but tango remains one of the very few dances in our Western culture where professionals of seventy-something still get to perform and teach at international festivals, receiving standing ovations. If you are at any age past forty and only now decided to learn tango, remember that there are many, many people out there who are exactly like you. What you need is to connect to them.

As for beauty, tango is actually a surprisingly democratic dance. This comes, again, from the simple truth that ultimately what counts is the DANCE. Beauty standards change, like fashion. When I started tango sixteen years ago my pants were long and wide and my hair short; nowadays my hair is long and my skirts are short and tight. During the “nuevo” years in Europe a lithe, flat-chested, androgynous type of female dancer was popular, nowadays it is the sexy, curvy, thin-waisted feminine type. Also, because the average age in tango is high, our subcultural beauty standards favour the adult, fully developed woman rather than a girl. No matter how you look or dress, if your priority is to love this dance, then you will always have that as your most valuable asset. Fashion, beauty images, tango itself may change, but love for the dance will not. Love and joy are always there, at the core of things, every time.

RUSSIAN, CHINESE

August 10, 2015

Tango is a social dance and as such has these two components: “social” and “dance”. We all have a more or less clear idea of the “dance” component and how to get it. We all know what a skillful dancer looks like, Youtube is full of them and in a milonga we always immediately identify the “good” ones. We love watching them and want to be like them, for mastery of dance is a thing of great beauty.

But what about the “social” component? What kind of a skill is that? What does it mean to be social in tango?

On the first and most basic level, being social means respecting the common rules and practices of a particular tango context. They are sometimes very democratic and sometimes very strict, from the gender-dividing sitting arrangements in the traditional milongas of Buenos Aires to the completely free social interactions of a tango marathon. If you come to a place in which everyone respects a certain dress code (say, a Grand Saturday Ball of a big festival) and you are dressed like you just walked your dog, the message you are sending is “Carry on, I am not part of this party”. You will be probably left sitting, ignored by most people, not because they are evil, but because for them at this moment you are NOT IN THE GAME. If you do not respect the good practices of a place, you cannot complain that people do not accept you “as you are”. It does not work in tango, just as it does not work anywhere else.

On the second level, being social means respecting other dancers, both on the dancefloor and around it. A large part of it is floorcraft, the other part is the dynamic of inviting, being invited and general social interactions. Annoying, intrusive or aggressive invitations, barging in on an intimate conversation, stalking, acting insulted when rejected, forcing yourself onto a person instead of using delicate methods of approach: all of these are examples of a not very social behaviour. Respecting also means helping to keep up a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. Sour faces, loud criticism, noisy distractions, being drunk, quarrelling with your friends or loved ones in public, jealous outbursts, annoying other people with your remarks, bothering the DJ with your musical requests, complaining to the organisers while they are working: all this is a disruptive behaviour that negatively affects the atmosphere. Coming to an event in a bad mood and expecting other people to make your day is also an example of asocial behaviour, albeit a more subtle one.

The third level is of being social is respecting your dance partners, people with whom you interact the closest, or the “human factor” in the dance. It includes everything from smelling nice and being polite between the dances to creating an authentic human connection in the dance itself. It is about being responsive, sensitive to the partner’s intentions, flexible, not manipulative or otherwise physically disturbing. To me, being social in tango means these three things: respecting the context, respecting other dancers and respecting your dance partners. What you do with your time within those parameters is entirely your business, just as it is entirely your business with whom you to choose to do it.

There exists, however, a different idea of what it means to be social in tango. According to that idea the more people you dance with, the more social you are. And you are considered even more social if you dance with a lot of people you actually don’t want to dance with, but who want to dance with you or simply want to dance. The core of this idea is the belief that being social (or altruistic) is about forsaking your desires and answering to the desires of others. By this definition, a dancer who only wants a certain quality of dance experience in terms of mastery and skill, can never be truly social and is therefore an arrogant snob. In this paradigm beginners are the most social dancers of all and professionals are total assholes, unless they make a deliberate effort to dance with people they’d rather not dance with. In this case they are considered social and humble DESPITE being an amazing dancer. Being accomplished becomes the opposite of being nice. How often have you heard the remark “S/he is a great dancer, yet still such a nice and humble person”?

Where does this idea of sociability as a service come from? From the importance we attach to generosity as a social value. It comes from an often repeated statement that when you were a beginner, more advanced dancers danced with you to make you feel welcome, so, when you advance, you should do the same service to others. The common belief is that, when you become a better dancer, you have something to give to others, an important asset which is your capability to create a fulfilling dance experience, so you should generously bestow it on those who haven’t got it yet. It is true that in many cases beginners rely on the “kindness of strangers” when they come to tango, but they also dance with other beginners, as well as with people who specifically love to dance with beginners (leaders with beginner followers, mostly). Being too generous has a downside. It is often this “being just out of reach” of a certain desirable dancer that pushes us to grow.

There are situations in which you would probably be thankful to another dancer for being generous and dancing with you: when you are new to a place, when you are a total beginner, when you have been feeling alone and abandoned. If a dancer shows you this kind of generosity in a genuine way you should appreciate it, but remember that it is a choice, not an obligation. Tango is not a community service, it is a passion. People come to dance first of all to enjoy themselves, not to see whether they could be of help. Each time you find yourself resenting other dancers for not being generous enough towards you, I suggest you ask yourself a question: to whom have I been generous myself today? If you want generosity, first go and give it. The simplest way is to find a dancer you would normally reject and dance with him or her WITH A GENUINE DESIRE to be generous. Only when you regularly do something yourself can you expect the same thing from others. Expect, but not demand.

There exists a belief that this attitude of “sociability as a service to others” helps to forge stronger communities when dancers mix with each other rather than create “niches” based on affinity. There is a lot of truth to it, especially for small local scenes with little external influence that want to keep their integrity and an atmosphere free of mutual resentment. However, if a community wants to cultivate a higher level of dancing, advanced dancers should be free to dance with whomever they want to without being judged or otherwise pressured, so that they can inspire others to progress.

There is also another important component to this idea of sociability, namely the pressure to dance “with as many people as you can”. Tango, being an introverted dance, attracts many introverts into its midst. “Dancing with as many people as you can” is not a very introvert way of socializing, though. It is the extravert way of being social (leaving the skill factor aside for a moment). A typical introvert would dance two-three intense tandas with a person s/he has been hoping to dance with the whole evening and then go sit quietly in a corner, waiting for the emotions to calm. An extravert, meanwhile, might go from partner to partner with hardly a cortina in between. An introvert would have one long personal conversation with a friend, while an extrovert would collect the latest gossip, greet every person in the room, chat with several old friends and have a drink with a few new ones. We as a society have a very extraverted idea of what “social” means, for the simple reason that extraverts are a majority and real party animals. If we keep this extraverted criteria of sociability we are basically saying that introverts can never be social, but that’s absurd.

Because of this widespread idea of what it means to be social in tango we have an ongoing conflict of interests. On one hand, tango dancers are stimulated to learn and develop their dance, not only because their teachers would like that very much, but because developing your skill brings intensely pleasurable dance experience and because we want to be like the dancers we admire. On the other hand, this notion of losing one’s social credits weighs heavily on everyone wishing to become a better dancer and to connect to better partners. Dancers are made to feel guilty for not dancing with as many people as possible, for not being generous to others and sharing their “assets”. This pressure is driven by the idea that quantity matters. Instead, quantity is irrelevant altogether. What counts is the QUALITY of what you do, the kind of energy you put into it. 

Once we accept that being social means showing respect on three levels (context, dancers around you and your dance partners) and we relinquish the idea of sociability being the number of dances or the willingness to service others, but instead the QUALITY we put in all our interactions, then I believe we will have our social values in the right place. Furthermore, you can only be truly social when you are in touch with your authentic self. Because, you see, tango is both “social” and “dance”, but neither of them is tango’s real purpose. The real purpose of tango is JOY and we all have our own idea of what gives us the most profound joy. To some it means dancing a lot, to others it means dancing well with that special person. To some it means socializing with friends, to others being generous to people in need. So let’s be social, let’s be dancers, let’s all be different, but most of all let’s be joyful.

RUSSIAN, CHINESE, GERMAN, POLISH

December 20, 2014

We call tango a social dance, yet people often complain that tango is in fact not very social. It is sometimes compared to other couple dances, salsa or swing, with the conclusion that the grass is greener on the other side. Tango becomes labelled as a dance that stimulates snobbism and elitism, instead of being a welcoming environment for dancers of all kinds, ages and levels of skill. Of course, it is not all that black-and-white, or tango would not be growing as rapidly and we would not be as joyously obsessed with it. Still, there is some truth in it. So, why is tango not as social as other social dances?

Tango is there for you to have a good time. Like all things in life, it also gives you an opportunity to grow as a human being, but whether you take this opportunity or not is up to you. You can also just have a good time. What does it mean to have a good time in tango? It means to connect with people you like. All the other things, from learning the technique to buying the right shoes, are merely attributes serving the main goal: to have a fulfilling experience. What exactly is a fulfilling experience varies from person to person.

This is true for any social activity. Yet, there is one distinct difference between tango and the rest. This difference is best explained by the words “close embrace”. You see, close embrace is a tricky matter. The kind of connection we create in tango embrace is physically intimate, personal, inwardly oriented and totally encompassing. It takes time and a lot of practice to learn how to improvise together in close embrace. It is not something you just get up and do.

Tango is the most introverted of all dances, for the better the connection in the couple, the less the outer impression matters. This is also, I believe, the reason why everywhere such nice people end up creating such horrible dancefloor traffic: connecting to our partner takes up practically all of our attention. Learning to be aware of other couples is a skill that takes practice, just like ochos, but unfortunately we do not invest an equal effort in it. Tango is also a dance of profound and often serious emotion. Look at photos from any tango event and on people’s faces you will see deep inward concentration as well as a kind of inner glow. Tango connection makes us vulnerable, opens us like a book, invites us to go inside ourselves and share what we find there with another person. All of this quite discreetly. Even the erotic connection in tango, when it happens, is discreet.

To me, it comes as no surprise that we cannot (and do not want to) connect in that way with just anybody. To create this kind of connection there has to be some compatibility between people and a DESIRE on both sides. It is more surprising to me that we actually do end up connecting deeply to so many partners. To some we prefer not to, and this often causes suffering and becomes a highly debated issue. In tango rejection and avoidance seem to directly impact our intrinsic value as a human being, rejection hurts, a little or a lot, depending on how much importance we attach to it. Knowing how rejection affects ourselves, we also find it tricky to reject others. We are empathic beings, despite the cruelties we are capable of. We normally prefer not to cause other people harm we ourselves would rather avoid.

Tango is a quickly growing subculture, but it consists mainly of small local scenes. The smaller the community, the stronger the social ties and therefore the more profound the consequences of a rejection. In bigger cities the communities tend to form subgroups, because as humans we are only capable of comfortably socializing with a limited number of people. The moment we find ourselves in too large a crowd, it is similar to finding ourselves in a desert: we cannot connect to all those people around us meaningfully and therefore only care about those inside our circle of friends. This explains why in a small scene a stranger feels welcome, but in a big city the same person feels lost and ignored. This does not mean people in small scenes are warm-hearted and those in big cities are arrogant assholes. This view is a bit too simplistic.

To deal with the not-so-social side of tango you can start by accepting your basic right to a preference. Our life is also a “social dance” and in life we say “yes” to some experiences and “no” to others all the time. It does not matter what your reason is for wanting to dance with a particular person, but if you feel a DESIRE then your reason is valid. It may be considered wrong by others, it may even be considered wrong by yourself. It does not matter. What matters is the desire. The same is true for NOT wanting to dance with someone: the reason “why” does not matter. Often we cannot even explain why we want or don’t want a certain experience. Desire works in mysterious ways.

Next, accept that other people, too, have a right to a preference. Other people are just like you. They feel a desire or they don’t. All reasons to dance or not to dance with you are valid, even if you consider them wrong or hurtful. The desire can also come during the dance, like appetite. The desires might not match, but that is usually not a problem. Someone might want to dance with you because you are young and beautiful, whereas you want to dance with that person because s/he is an experienced dancer. As long as you are both desiring that dance, it works. The mutual desire gives a chance to forge that initial connection from which a fulfilling dance can be created. A chance, not a guarantee. What about “transactional” dances, the practice of taxi dancers? Believe or not, there is desire on both sides in that kind of tango, too: the desire to have a partner to dance with on one hand and the desire to make money on the other. You might think this kind of a desire is morally wrong, but it is simply different from yours.

We often think of desire as willingness to take, but when you invite somebody to dance or accept an invitation, you should also be willing to give. If you accept to dance without desire and then just wait for the tanda to end, you are not giving anything. Accepting to dance and merely showing how much you dislike it is disrespectful to your partner. If you are not willing to make the effort to enjoy the dance, to adapt to it in a positive way, learn to say “no”. If you are inviting, ask yourself: what do I want from this dancer and what am I able and willing to give in return? People always feel sharply when you only wish to take. They become much less willing to give it to you. I am not talking necessarily about the level of skill, it is not even necessarily about tangible things. If you have a giving attitude, your chances of success are simply much higher.

When inviting (as a man or a woman), do not put people in situations in which it becomes difficult for them to refuse your invitation. You will never get a fulfilling dance with someone who is not willing to connect, the experience will be mediocre at most. Remember, saying “no” is just as difficult as being rejected, you can’t help feeling bad afterwards. Use mirada and cabeceo to avoid the awkwardness of a verbal refusal and to give the other person a discreet way out. By accepting each person’s right to a desire, you can also accept the rejection without feeling that it has an impact on your value. The reason for not desiring to dance with you sometimes has nothing to do with you and sometimes it has everything to do with you. Accept that you will never know. Unless you ask that person “why”, all your thoughts and opinions are just that: your own thoughts and opinions. Accept the rejections gracefully. Relieve it of all importance and forget about it. Do not make that person into your personal enemy. Do not demand explanations, unless you choose the right moment and are prepared to hear the answer. Do not beg. Do not make the person feel more uncomfortable than s/he is already feeling. Do not act entitled or insulted. Do not post messages about why some people are wrong not to dance with you. Do not call people snobs. Do not discuss their outrageous reasons not to dance with you, you have probably invented those reasons yourself. All the above actions will only have one result: you will feel worse.

“This is all very nice”, you might say, “but I live in a community in which there is a very limited choice of partners. If I allow myself the luxury to only choose people I truly desire to dance with, I will probably not dance at all. Either because I desire people who ignore me or there are no people around I truly desire.” These situations are indeed not easy. Yet, you cannot simply discard or force the desire. Putting pressure on men to dance with more women because of a gender imbalance will not solve the gender imbalance, only getting more men into tango will solve it. Making people feel guilty and hoping they will want to dance with you will not be productive either, desire does not work this way. If you are short of dancers you like, look for them elsewhere, start to travel, there are plenty of partners out there. If you find yourself short of partners who like you, find ways of becoming a desirable dancer or look for those who might like you now. All solutions can pay off in delightful ways. Tango is there for you to have a good time, but if you use it to grow as a human being, your journey will be so much more surprising.

RUSSIAN, ITALIAN, CHINESE#1, CHINESE#2, ROMANIAN, POLISH

June 3, 2014

To improve in tango you need to practice, but practicing on your own will only improve your own movement, not your leading or following skills. To practice tango you need another person. Why do we practice? To feel better when we dance. What do we want out of practicing? Results. We want our practice to be efficient and effective. But you see, things and processes can be efficient and effective, but humans usually are not. Humans are human. They have feelings. And this is when the trouble starts.

Practicing is about development and work. Each of us has his or her own working style, influenced by what we are and what we do. We each have a particular emotional and mental state that we consider productive or creative. Some need a certain degree of frenzy to feel productive, others, on the contrary, want total calm and an undisturbed focus. Some are like fireworks, their productivity comes in bright explosions. Others are like gletchers, moving slowly but surely in a given direction. Our productive state depends not only on our temperament, activities and character, but also on what has brought us good results before. If your background is in competitive sports you will probably need some adrenaline and pressure, you will want to push yourself beyond your limits. If your background is in creative work, you will probably thrive when allowed to clear a calm space for yourself and let your mind wonder. A productive state is a state of NON-RESISTANCE. It is a state in which your “point of awareness” is allowed to flow freely, unrestricted by rigid expectations or opinions.

When two people work together in the same field, their productive states often resemble each other. In tango, scientists practice with designers, architects with doctors, public officers with beauticians, software engineers with ballerinas. In tango your productive states might not be compatible at all. Practicing together is about collaboration, and the bad news is that collaborating is a skill that does not come naturally. The good news is that this skill can be learned. Even if your working styles are different, you can still establish a process that brings satisfactory results, but it will require some work.

How can you know when you are in a productive state? It feels like things start to work out on their own, ideas come easily and have value and originality. You feel enthusiasm, excitement, challenge, joy. When you are nowhere near the productive state you feel tense, uneasy, unhappy, stressed, tired, frustrated. How to recognise if your partner is in a productive state? By looking for the indications of the same feelings. Often this is not easy. We are all different in how we express our inner life. Someone may look thoughtful and aloof, while feeling great excitement and inspiration inside. Another might be all over the place with excitement, but in reality only desperately trying to mask his or her feelings of inadequacy. You will have to know your partner a bit to know when s/he is in a productive state. And you will have to know yourself, too.

Why is practicing together in tango sometimes so difficult? First of all, working together very closely with just one person IS quite difficult. Whether it is a business you two are running together, a book you are co-writing or a house you are designing, a close collaboration always provides challenges. Tango adds an important difficulty on top of this. And no, it is not love. You can be in love, run a business together and tear each other to pieces at every business meeting, too. The additional difficulty of tango is that it is a dance. When you are writing a book or building a house you can still take a step back, look at the result and discuss its qualities independent of you as people. In dance the result is your movement and therefore your body. There is nothing more YOU in this life than your body, and so every appraisal or critique of your dance is automatically an appraisal or a critique of YOU.

There is a second by-coming difficulty. The higher the follower’s skill, the greater the leader will feel in the dance. The higher the leader’s skill, the greater the follower will feel. The quality of the dance depends on you both equally, on your technique but also on your willingness to dance together, your improvisational skills, energy and dedication. Tango, being a dance of improvisation, is highly dependent on how both partners FEEL at that moment. You have probably noticed that your dance skill seems to improve when you feel great and it tends to (sometimes dramatically) decline if you feel like crap. Why you feel great or like crap, is a different story and can have many reasons. The fact remains that the way you feel IN THAT MOMENT will greatly influence your dance.

What happens in tango practicing, especially if two people are in love, is that the slightest critique is taken very personally and is therefore extremely hurtful. Unconsciously you always want to be the best for your partner in everything, including tango. Learning that your ochos are not very good is a hard truth when coming from a teacher, but it is even harder to cope with when coming from your partner. With a teacher we accept their authority over us, but with our partner we want to be equal (unless our partner is our teacher).

Critique, no matter how carefully stated, feels like aggression, even if the person is well-trained in receiving critique. This is an inbuilt mechanism that allows us to recognise potentially threatening situations and therefore trigger our “fight or flight” reflex. A partner criticising your ochos, in this sense, is no different from a tiger looming ahead of you. The perceived threat might not have the same intensity, but the reaction in your brain and body is similar. When you are tense, your movements are somewhat constricted and your balance more difficult to keep, but when you feel calm and positive your movements flow easier. There is one simple explanation for this. When the “fight or flight” reflex is triggered, your brain wants you to quickly focus on one of those two behaviors and forget all the rest – forget it LITERALLY. When there is a tiger, the last thing your brain wants you to do is beautiful ochos. This is why critique, felt as aggression, will lead to defensiveness or a counter-attack, and not immediately to improved results.  

Then how, you might ask, are we supposed to practice at all, if we cannot criticise what the other person is doing or, for that matter, what we ourselves are doing? How are we supposed to work on solutions if we are not allowed to mention the problem?

There is one simple method. It is not easy to implement, but this is the case with all really simple things in life. The way you can constructively discuss a problem and find satisfying solutions together is to make it not about you or your partner, but about THIS. This thing you are creating together. This dance. This connection. This move. This ocho. This step. This particular point of balance. You have to dis-identify who you are from what you are doing.

To achieve this, always define the problem in neutral yet very precise terms. Instead of saying “You always lose your balance, push the floor!” you should say “I think here I need you to be stronger on your standing leg so that I can finish this move in such and such way”. Make it about THIS and also, in solution terms, about US and our NEEDS. When your partner does not feel criticised or aggressed, s/he will be more than happy to oblige. People are usually quite willing to give something when you ask nicely. Often it is difficult to understand which one of you contributes more to the problem. In this case the best formula is “I don’t know if it’s me or you, but I feel that here we are losing balance. Let me try something. What do you feel now?” In any given area you will progress faster if you keep focusing on the solution instead of the problem. Ideas will come quicker and your body will find the right moves faster if you don’t identify with the problem. And you will have to be PATIENT, too. With yourself and your partner. Patient, forgiving and simply nice.

Most importantly, stop terrorizing yourself and stop terrorizing your partner. If you want results, your most important assets are a happy, collaborative self and a happy, collaborative partner. To have this, you will need to stop doing all the things that make yourself and your partner unhappy. It is that simple. Remember, the quality of your dance together depends on how you both feel. If you take the position “I need you to be perfect before I can fully express myself” then guess what: you can wait forever. Never skip an opportunity to improve yourself, even if your partner is far from being what you would like him or her to be. Praise your partner for everything you like about his or her dancing. Take the “like” button with you everywhere you go. Praise genuinely, with real feeling. The more you praise the good things, the happier your partner will be, the easier the results will come. Mutual admiration and mutual respect are keys to effective collaboration: once they are gone, it is very difficult to bring them back. This also applies to yourself. Praise yourself for everything you already like about your dance. It does not matter that your vision is still far from where you are. You are getting there, step by step. Acknowledge the steps.

Make sure every time you practice, you bring yourself in your productive state first. Do whatever it requires. Watch your favorite tango videos or your favorite cat videos, it really does not matter. Check if your partner is also in his or her productive state and then make your priority not the final result but the joy of getting there. Believe me, not only will you get there, but you will both be happier in the process.

RUSSIAN, HUNGARIAN, ROMANIAN

November 29, 2013