Stay Outside the Tango Game

There is a game inside Tango. It is powerful and patient.

It waits for us all. You drift  in and out of it – don’t you. Most times when you step inside it – it hurts you. But sometimes you think you win – that you came out well.

You didn’t.

If you play the Tango game you are already lost. You betray everything you love about this way of life.

It lurks in milongas. It hides so invisibly in our vanity. It lies in wait in our dreams. It laughs at us.

Don’t pull that handle. Don’t play. Stay on the outside.

Tango offers so much and the game is just what happens when something so powerful interacts with all of our fears and with our fragility.

Tango itself is already full of individual aspirations and disappointments. It doesn’t care about you or your fears. It has no concept of your aesthetics or of your successes and failures.

When the game calls look the opposite way – look to your partner and to the music that calls you. Keep learning. Never quit.

Stay true to yourself. Stay with the floor. It will always be there for you.

Hearing not Listening in Tango

I was at Leroy’s class today and he said something that really struck a chord. He said that he hears – whereas others just listen.

I thought this was really an interesting concept. Don’t just listen to your partner -that doesn’t change anything – instead – make sure you hear them. Work harder.

Once we become a reasonable standard of course we want to listen. It is all about our shared dance – the music – and how we interpret it and communicate with each other. So we listen – of not with our ears – but with our bodies,

She – or he – may not have much to say. Or they do – but they speak very quietly. Or perhaps you aren’t the kind of person they normally show themselves to on a first date.

Or they have a lot to say – and they are saying it to you – but you really can’t hear them. How frustrating is that – I am actually trying very hard to talk to you and you can’t hear me. You are on the wrong frequency.

Or – if you can hear me you don’t take any notice. You just blunder through it all.

You listened but you didn’t hear.

Leroy was I think saying that he hears everyone. The quiet ones, the distracted ones, the loud ones, the people he doesn’t normally feel a fit for. The incoherent ones,

He listens so well that he hears them all.

And then he acts.

I am sure we can imagine a farcical situation where both tango dancers are listening so much that no-one is in fact saying anything at all. But to me this is not normal – I think reasonable Tango dancers are both trying to hear and to communicate.

But they might be listening instead.

Tune yourself to hear …  Listening is for Wimps.