[TANGO-L] Fwd: seeking connection

[Razor Girl <dilettante666 @YAHOO.COM>]

Please see below for the beautiful message I received
from Carole McCurdy <carolemccurdy  @sbcglobal.net>:


> Hi Rose,
>
> I'm ususally a "lurker" on Tango-L, so I don't even
> know how to post this to the list. Can I ask you to
> do so for me? Sorry for the inconvenience.
>
> You opened a really fruitful discussion on the topic
> of seeking connection, confidence, and expression
> for
> both partners. One night at a milonga last year I
> had
> an experience that felt like a valuable exploration
> of
> these things. I try to remember it as often as I
> can.
>
> It was a small milonga and as soon as I walked in I
> said to myself, "Oh, well, too bad there aren't any
> good dancers here tonight." (In other words, my
> snotty
> ego was already setting me up to have a
> disappointing
> evening.) Fortunately, I spotted Mr. P on the floor
> and decided I wanted to dance with him. I hadn't
> thought too highly of him as a dancer ("Such an
> awkward, unsteady embrace he has"), but a few weeks
> earlier I had seen him perform as a musician and
> been
> dazzled by his talent and passion. This was
> something
> I wanted to connect with.
>
> I began dancing with Mr. P and, rather than trying
> to
> connect with him merely through the physical
> mechanics
> of  the embrace, I somehow made the lucky decision
> to
> connect with him by trying to mirror (or imitate)
> the
> qualities of his own stance and movement, the
> intense
> hunch of his upper body, the slight wobble that came
> after each step.I tried my best to "become" Mr. P,
> to
> reflect him back to himself. It felt overly
> theatrical
> for the first few seconds, but, oh, how electrifying
> the connection between us became. I had the (if only
> physical) sensation of what it might be like to *be*
> Mr. P. And he blossomed in my arms, sensing the
> recognition and respect I was sending his way,
> sensing
> that I was trying to maximize my enjoyment of him.
> His
> dancing became much more confident, and (without
> losing his own essential qualities) he started to
> control his movements more and to really play with
> me
> in the dance. Suddenly the hunched stance felt like
> a
> strong expression of gravity, and the wobble felt
> like
> the tender lingering aftereffect of each pulse of
> music. What a revelation: Mr. P was beautiful
> dancer,
> and I had been a prig not to see it!
>
> After that tanda, I found that every man I danced
> with
> that evening had something beautiful to offer, no
> matter their postural eccentricites or limitations
> of
> technique. In fact, their eccentricities and
> limitations were something to be respected and
> accorded a value, something that added rich flavor
> to
> the dance. If my partner is stiff as a board, well,
> it
> means that we begin the tanda by doing the "stiff as
> a
> board" tango, which can offer some very creative
> moments of shared comedy, playing close to the edge
> of
> being off-balance. Whee-ha-ha. Maybe by the end of
> the
> tanda our dance will have expanded into something
> more
> soft and flexible and grounded, maybe not. The
> cortina
> has its own great value, after all.
>
> I left the milonga that night feeling thrilled and
> humbled. How sorely I had underestimated these "bad
> dancers," how foolishly I had cheated myself out of
> the deeper pleasures of connecting in the dance. It
> wan't somebody else's fat ego getting in the way of
> dancing, it was my own.
>
> That night helped me appreciate the talented leaders
> who use this type of "body empathy" when they dance
> with me, recognizing and valuing all my own
> eccentricities, discovering how to enjoy them. And I
> now understand why I see so many talented leaders
> sitting out tandas--it takes time to recover from
> the
> intensity of *truly shared* dancing, to clear one's
> "psychomotor palate," so to speak.
>
> Thanks for raising this important discussion, Rose.
> And thanks for that tango lesson, Mr. P!
>
> --Carole
>