[TANGO-L] Community Growth: Harmful unsolicited "teaching" & sexual advances

[Eero Olli <eero.olli @ISP.UIB.NO>]

This is a tricky thing.  I'll try to give an answer in two parts.

First part is for all those people with normal or good social antennas, who
understand what is going on between people.
In our club this is part of a beginners class - the social skills section,
where among other things following topics are mentioned:
* Never give unsolicited 'help' at milongas. Training and commentary should
happen at practicas, which we have plenty off.
* We teach women and men, how to gracefully end a dance, if that would be
necessary. = the exit option is allways there.
* We teach how to gracefully decline from an invitation, or even avoid
getting the invitation for a dance. = if you are a pain in a butt, people
will not dance with you.
* We teach how the women can keep the size of frame she wants, even if the
man would want to make it smaller/tighter. i.e. women now how to keep the
distance they want, and even beginner men recognize will recognize this.

Because everybody gets this from the very beginning, there is a peer
pressure to upkeep these 'rules'. Nevertheless, sometimes a beginner would
get extensive help from a experienced danser at a milonga, but this would
happend off the main dansefloor. This something that we think is fine
because it helps to bring the newbies into the community, and it makes them
feel we care of them.

Sexual advances seem not to be part of the everyday life of our club, but
somehow people end up marrying each other and having children, so they must
do something when I am not watching. :-)


The second part of my answer regards those people with poor social
antennas, who have no clue of what other people feel and think. These are
the real problem, arent' they.
I believe that our beginnersclasses should help them develope their social
skills enough to recognize when they are rejected.  You have to be pretty
thick in your head, if you do not recognize a rejection, after it has been
thought in a class.
An other helpfull thing is to let the word spread. If somebody behaves
improperly, people should know about it, so that this person can be
'avoided' or talked to by some of the more experienced ones.  I think it is
perfectly fine to let someone know what kind of behavior is not tolerated
in our club. If they want to stay, they better behave themselves.  It must
be more difficult in big cities where it is difficult to create one
community as you just cant know eveyrbody.

Sincerely,
eero

eero @bergentango.no

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