[Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again

[Zoltan Hidvegi]

About the apparent "suffering" of the leaders: certainly the leader's
role can be stressful at times, but I can assure you, dancing tango as
a leader is often very pleasurable.  Part of this comes from enjoying
the pleasure of your partner, but that's not all of it.  Leaders can
achieve a state of relaxed pleasure somewhat similar to a follower's
bliss.  It may only happen with certain partners and certain music.
When it happens, it is almost an out of body experience, it feels that
everything just works, you feel that your partner is reading your
mind, and you are free to move to the music, and you may find yourself
doing steps that you did not even know existed.  But I agree that it
takes longer for beginning leaders to get to the level to experience
this state than for followers.  But I am also convinced that this is
not just about experience, and it does not require extensive step
vocabulary.

Dancing tango is really just like a love relationship: when you first
meet, you may be attracted to each other, but you do not know your
partner yet, you have to seduce her, you have to impress her, you have
to prove yourself to her, and also you have to get to know her.  So at
first you control yourself, you are careful about what you do and what
you say, so the first dances may feel awkward.  But you start to know
each other, you develop trust, you relax, you let go your inhibitions,
and you can really be yourself without worrying about rejection.  And
that's when you really start to dance, feeling your partner and the
music.  You can start dancing like nobody is watching.  Sometimes love
can happen at the first sight, when you have the perfect dance the
first time with someone you've never danced before.  And there are
different types of equally rewarding dance connections.  It can be a
relaxed trusting I'm at home type connection or it can be a playful
teasing type of connection.  Of course the man still has to lead and
navigate, but that's not that bad.  Many people enjoy driving a car,
even on busy roads, navigation in dancing is a little bit like that.
You can encounter obstacles or unexpected situations which may require
quick changes of direction or tempo, but often you can do that without
breaking the connection to the music and your partner.  And a last
minute 180 degree turn to avoid a collision executed in the music
without your partner noticing it can feel very good.  It can give you
a rush, and it may even inspire you to invent new moves.

I guess the experience I describe above is what someone would call
"tango moment".  But it's elusive.  The more you want to achieve it,
the less likely you'll get there.  And sometimes you may have to live
without such moments for weeks or months, yet you will keep coming
back, because you can never know when you will find it again.

-Zoltan