[Tango-L] something magical, beautiful, sensual, and elegant came alive in front of my eyes

[Dwain Edwards]

Yes, like (perhaps) many of you, I'm getting tired of the worthless  
spam and the cemetery quietude of this list-serve. Tango-L was at one  
time a place where many thoughts and opinions (most of which I was in  
disagreement - but whatever) were fired back and forth daily. Now....?

Anyway...it started like this:

I live in a small town on the central coast of California. I was doing  
the on-line dating thing (I think Yahoo) and had a coffee shop first  
date with S., a woman I met on-line. It was a good first date. I  
enjoyed talking with her, and she mentioned that she liked dancing.  
(That screech and thud you heard was my small expectations coming to a  
halt and hitting the wall.) I didn't know how to dance, but did go to  
contemporary/modern dance recitals. The only dancing I did was  
partner(less) free-style, and usually, only if I had enough to drink.  
But, I did enjoy talking with S. and decided a second date was in  
order. (Move forward a week or so.) While perusing the local  
independent (meaning free) paper, the New Times, I chanced upon a  
small (two paragraphs) article on an upcoming weekend tango workshops,  
which would be preceded on the Friday evening by a Chamuyo and  
demonstrations by the tango instructors, followed by a milonga - and  
it was FREE. I emailed S. and asked her if she would like to attend. I  
told her I knew NOTHING about Argentine Tango, but that some  
instructors from Argentina would be talking about Argentine Tango and  
be giving a demonstration (and it was free - which I didn't mention -  
obviously). She thought it may be fun, having never danced the tango,  
but had be taking West Coast Swing lessons. And thus my fate was sealed.

That Friday night, I didn't understand most of what they were talking  
about - both the guest instructors and tango community dancers, but  
when the guest dancers took to the small dance floor...something  
magical, beautiful, sensual, and elegant came alive in front of my  
eyes, and in my heart, and in my soul. Never (outside of a dance  
recital) could I imagine, two people, dancing together, as one, in a  
social setting. I knew then, I would learn this extraordinary  
dance...and I can say "learn this", rather than, "try to learn this",  
because I quite realistically gave myself 10 years to learn. This was  
October 29, 2004...and I will admit that it took a large part of those  
10 years reach a level of competency that makes the dance pleasurable  
for my partner.

So now it's been 14 years. Although S. and I parted ways after the  
next date, I've always been grateful that she was interested in dance.  
And as for those instructors: this is them on a much larger dance  
floor. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0oyWqOTU04