I can’t sleep through the night anymore. No, I’m not going to milongas; I’m learning how to lead tango. Now that I have some control over the dance I am being controlled by the music; I’m obsessed with what I can do to express it. The tango music in my head on endless loop wakes me up in the middle of the night. I wait for a cortina but none comes. If dawn has peeked into my bedroom I’m doomed to toss and turn while repeating a variety of sequences in time to the music. It’s tango torture.
Women learn to lead for two main reasons: they want to teach and/or they’re bored. So many times I hear a piece of music (usually milonga or nuevo) that I particularly like and want to express it wholeheartedly with my body. Often the man I’m dancing with is incapable (technically or creatively) in expressing the dance to my satisfaction. I have to remember to surrender to him and not to the music and my own desires. I’m often like a dog, sniffing a banquet and pulling at the leash. I think about how I would dance it if I had any control of my own. I’m determined NOT to be held back in my dancing. So, I’m learning to lead.
I always had a cognitive appreciation for how difficult it is for a man, with all he has to do, to become a good dancer. Now my appreciation is experiential. I get it. But, what I don’t understand is why I’m able to learn both the lead and follow simultaneously and some men in the same class have difficulty learning only their part. Do men and women learn differently? It’s not like I’m a genius or anything (just ask my computer tech) but maybe I have some kind of aptitude for this. Maybe after so many years of following I have some kind of inherent understanding of how to make the woman move the way I want her to. The most difficult thing is to execute the many aspects and maintain them simultaneously throughout the dance – navigating through traffic on the dance floor, oh ya – my posture, chest out, shoulders down, hips back, turn the lady . . . ooops – forgot about my own feet . . . it’s so much to think about, then forget about and just feel your way. My brain hurts, my feet hurt and I can’t sleep at night – but I’m having so much fun!
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ABOUT
Here lie the musings of a premenopausal traveler and tanguera over a period of time spent in Buenos Aires in February 2006, then from March 2008 until March 2010. Currently I am in Calgary, CANADA, still musing over the many rich experiences I had and designing an even richer future – teaching and promoting tango at home.
Why you are able to learn the lead and follow is quite simple, in days gone by men never learnt to lead until they could follow. For years I never got it either until one innovative teacher had us follow first, only then did I realise that the woman needed time for certain moves and space fro others.
A man simply cannot be expected to lead properly without knowing where his woman is, it is fundamental, but also the greater part of the followers job is to let her leader know where she is.
You mentioned moving to the music, this also is a fundamental part of tango, one so often missed by teachers.
To know the music well is key and one of the reasons I am so anti the DJs who think they are clever picking non tango tunes. As you have said it is hard enough for us men without coping with music we do not know. So we struggle with the floor, the moves,and sometimes the women, how on earth can we then move to music we do not know, follows no pattern and is often not even the right beat.
Sorry I have rambled on somewhat as you will no doubt find the tango world is full of we tango bores.
Bob