[Tango-L] Getting to Expert - or, Do you Work on your Dance??

[astrid]

Lucia wrote:
   Tango-L threads are male dominated, hence the technical analyses of this
art form, the Tango.

    I hope that the correspondents obsessed with the technical minutiae be
cursed to only think about these while dancing...

  But, I wonder how many of you do practice-work  with a steady  partner, a
real woman, instead of developing constructs of the mind,  which I suspect
is the case?


While I do not doubt that at least some of the people here practise, another
thing hit me recently:
as a real woman, being called "a follow" is even worse than being called a
"follower". Recently Andrew Ryzer wrote:"No Latin woman would ever think of
herself as a mere follower". While I will not join the argument on whether
the Argentines are any less misogynistic than the Puritan Anglosaxons (and
recently I have read interesting statements like- what would have happened
if the Libertines had emigrated to America, instead of the Puritans... Or..
what would have happened if the Americans had followed what Henry Miller
said ?), this is just too much !
Quote, oh horrors:
"If I were teaching ochos in an open embrace, I might say
to the lead: "You must keep the follow exactly on her balance the entire
time you are pivoting her, else you will pull her off her axis of rotation
and she will stumble, and perhaps glare at you." Or I might say to the
follow: "During the time you are pivoting, you must keep a consistent
posture and muscle tone, else you will not have a well-defined axis of
rotation to pivot about, and you will feel all wobbly." ("Wobbly" being the
precise scientific term.)"

I will glare at you alright, Evan, but for entirely different reasons !

I am starting to get the feel(ing) that for some of you, using the word
"man" and "woman" instead of "lead" (ugh!) and "follow" (ughhh!) would be
like calling a spade a spade, which may be therefore...almost... unspeakable
!
Come on, give the other sex a break ! After all, we are trying to dance
together !"

"I-am-not-a-mere-function"- Astrid

P.S.
In case you wonder what it is I am having-
it is Absinthe today