Remember that shy, distressed, euphoric girl from the last post? Milongas were so scary for her that that list of social dancing affirmations helped her find a way of being true within that world. Kind of, anyway. Along with a lot of practice, exposure, and embarrasing experiences.
Read MoreA shy girl who had been dancing Tango for about 3 years wrote this in 2001, or maybe 2002, in Chelsea in New York. This was one of the 3 sets of affirmations she wrote down to help herself imagine her future in Tango. At that time she found that practically every experience of Tango made her tremble, or made her euphoric or distressed.
That girl was me and I am grateful that she documented her first few mental acts as she started on the journey of this dance. This is the first of three pieces from back then, related to different aspects of Tango: dancing socially, being in partnership, and being in community.
I wonder how many new people I will get to know better by dancing with them this weekend?
When will I truly begin to realize how much beauty and value I contribute to this community?
How many more of my fears and anxieties about myself will I let go of the next time I dance?
When will I learn that my Tango is already as good as it needs to be?
When will I release myself from the idea that I need to be a better dancer than I am?
When will I fully realize that I am unconsciously growing as a dancer every day?
When will I know that even time away from Tango helps me in my growth?
How many things will I surprise myself by following seamlessly tonight?
How many things will I surprise myself and my partner by inventing when I lead tonight?
How many different ways are there to connect with another person?
How many of those am I actively exploring?
How many will I explore in the course of my study/apprenticeship of this dance?
How graceful will I become as a dancer of the Tango?
How many partners will I delight with my dancing?
How deeply will I be able to connect with another unique individual through Tango?
When will the songs I do not yet fully understand begin to resonate with me?
When will I find the confidence to really lose myself in someone’s embrace?
Where will the Tango take me?
How many new places will I discover through Tango?
How many new friends will I make through Tango?
When will I begin to become conscious of all the ways Tango enriches my life?
How many ways will I find to encourgage, nurture, and help others navigate the Tango?
How much of what I discover in Tango enriches and uplifts my life outside of Tango?
I wonder where the Tango is destined to lead me?
How many of my old neuroses will my study of the Tango heal?
How relaxed and alert will I learn to become in the process of my ongoing study of the Tango?
How many ways will Tango enrich my romantic relationships?
How many ways will my study of the Tango enrich my friendships and family relationships?
When will I discover what is means for ME to express myself in partnership with someone else?
When will I really understand that expressing myself is not the most important thing that there is?
How many old habits will I break through my study of Tango? How many new ways will I find to be in the world?
How many new patterns will become available to me?
How will the Tango connect me more deeply and intimately with my inner source of playfulness?
How will it feel to discover a deeper and more intimate connection with my inner source of playfulness?
And how will Tango connect me more fastly to my inner yearning for discipline? How will that feel?
Reading over these now, more than eleven years later, brings up for me a blur of memories, beautiful moments shared, Tango friends who have changed my life, amazing places and embraces discovered in the intervening decade. When I wrote these down, all those were just potential. It feels like asking those questions somehow must have orchestrated their unfolding.
And, I still am asking these exact same questions and finding new nuances in the answers that experiences bring to me.
If you are part-excited/part-terrified by Tango like I was (and still am), I wish you the imagination to excavate vistas of possibility through the space of your own thoughts and words and questions. Because there is SO MUCH BEAUTY out there, and sometimes it's maybe hard to know that it's really okay to...wonder about it. Love, Mitra
Note: Coming from a great conversations with fellow dancers, I think it's more accurate to retitle the article: "How dancers who want to become excellent at following in Tango can benefit from learning to lead." 7/23/13
Here in Mar Vista, it is wonderous exciting to be surrounded by a lot of nice dancers who dance both roles fluently. It makes practicas super productive and fun and raises the level of Tango dialogue exponentially.
Yet, since I teach beginners quite a lot, I often hear newer students wondering, "Why, oh why, shall I learn the goshdarned other role? That seems so hard and unnecessary !"
There is plenty of info and lore out there about why leaders can benefit from learning to follow. There is perhaps more mythology and cogitation about why followers should NOT learn to lead. All this sparked me to really articulate the reasons why I encourage beginner women to learn the basics of leading.
There are basically two big reasons as I see it. One has to do with the value it brings to your following (and your learning how to follow well), and the other has to do with the value it brings to your experience of Tango community and culture as a whole.
Value to your Dancing and Learning Process As A Follower
Value To You As A Community Member
That’s my take on it. I would love to hear your comments and responses to all this !
Oh, and did I mention that you will have way more cred with great dancers if you lead as well as follow ? I think I did not mention that ! Hm. You. Will. Have. WAY. More. Cred. And more to talk about. Including, the Tango Fairytale Game. Good luck and love, Mitra
Photo by Andrei Andreev
Mitra Martin is Co-Founder of Oxygen Tango School with Stefan Fabry. She dances with vavoom, leads a mean ocho cortado, and almost considers herself "INT-ADV."
In-ter-med-i-ate. Such an interminable word. So medium. So approximate. Who wants to be an intermediate Tango dancer ? The answer is, nobody ! I mean, honestly, who even knows what an intermediate dancer really is ? And yet, intermediate is, verily, a necessary step toward the sexier and more coveted "INT-ADV."
Leveling is notoriously difficult in Tango, BUT it is actually a crucial thing for exactly one reason: without clear levels or standards of achievement, students don’t improve. Or, they improve verrry slowly and erratically, by random luck or the grace of fickle Tango gods.
We want everyone to improve smoothly and steadily, and so, at Oxygen we are working, nay, fighting for precise articulation of levels. (We have actually developed, with our teachers’ input, an explicit framework of techniques and movement contexts that defines what we believe dancers in our 100-level should have under their belt. A hot topic at Oxygen Labs !)
At Oxygen, we are putting a stake in the ground, that "all intermediate dancers know both roles." Exciting !!
As part of this, we put the exciting stake in the ground that “all intermediate dancers know both roles.” This has indeed been intensely kerfuffling for our community, I donʼt think Iʼm exaggerating when I say it put quite a few of our dancers directly into a tizzy.
There is definitely enough historical and anecdotal info about why it’s obviously hugely important and valuable for leaders to know following so they can lead well. What is less obvious, and maybe more controversial, is why/whether women should lead. Which I talk about here.
As we see it today, each dancer has their own choice about how to go from being a proud “Complete Beginner” to a humble, but true, “INT/ADV.”
We have actually witnessed several different possible productive paths for beginners in basic classes, and each dancer should choose what feels great for them. Here they are. Each phase could last a handful of months.
1) Follow for Fun, Then Lead for Fun: Follow in basic classes -> follow at practicas and more diverse settings -> Lead in basic classes -> Lead in practicas -> intermediate in either role
This is probably the most fun, relaxing and comfortable way for BOTH men and women. You become familiar with the structures, principles, music, geometries, and connection of the dance, and then you naturally end up creating more of the content of the dance yourself. The only danger is, you might get so addicted to the joy of following that you forget to go back to and learn to lead!
2) Follow To Lead: Follow in basic classes -> Switch between leading and following in basic classes -> Lead in basic classes -> Lead in practicas -> intermediate in either role
This also works, but can be less fun because the Tango newcomer (male or female) may not get the opportunity to follow experienced leaders, which usually helps them dance at an intermediate level in either role, and also be more motivated.
3) Follow/Lead Interweave: Switch between leading and following in basic classes -> Follow at practicas, lead at practicas -> intermediate in either role
There are lots of reasons why learning the basics of the other role is pretty great for your own role. Also, by the way, it can be extremely enjoyable ! We have witnessed that many learners who tackle Tango this way accelerate pretty darn quickly. There is definitely some “ramping up” time as your brain expands and rises to the unique challenge of switching between roles and brain hemispheres. Switching back and forth helps you understand some critical things about each role that can be hard to explain any other way.
For instance, many followers move timidly, worriedly, hurriedly, and/or passively for MONTHS. Once they do a little bit of leading, the understand clearly that this quality of movement makes life hard for the leader, and they start naturally moving with more vavoom.
Or, for instance, many leaders focus inexorably on their own movement, and move about without being aware of where the follower is, or which leg she is on. Once a leader has experienced following, he is far more likely pay attention to those kinds of details wherein the whole point of Argentine Tango resides.
Notice that there aren’t any paths that get you to intermediate that do not include following. The reason for this is that it is (deep breath) impossible (there, I said it) to comprehend Tango without having a kinaesthetic reference point for the experience of following. Sadly, today’s most popular progression in Tango for men (Leading -> more leading -> more leading -> mooooreee leading....) -- which is so apparently natural that most guys do not even really THINK to question it -- actually keeps them dancing at the beginner level forever.
Pretty much any of the others, #1-#3 will work beautifully, and you should choose the one that keeps you feeling excited and motivated about Tango. Have fun out there ! And by the way, I would love to hear your comments about your own learning process so far. Sincerely, Mitra
The photos in this piece were taken by Subbu KS at Oxygen Tango Slumber Party in March 2013 at Weller House Inn.
Mitra Martin is Co-Founder of Oxygen Tango School with Stefan Fabry. She dances with vavoom, leads a mean ocho cortado, and almost considers herself "INT-ADV."
Accelerator...A good word to sum up how it feels around Oxygen Tango.
When I got to the 10th Oxygen Ball for the 10th Oxygen Tango Challenge class on Friday June 28th, the anticipation and excitement was as strong as the familiar heat of a milonga. There was a packed house full of familiar and new faces all listening as Mitra talked about the Tango Challenge journey.
Like most of the others I was waiting for the dancing to begin again, but for the 5 Tango Challengers there that night it was a different experience. To get an inside peek into their adventure, I cornered husband and wife tango challengers Gordon and Zana when they took a break to cool off by the fan and pumped them for info. (The fan that never seems to penetrate to the dance floor).
Listening to them was a reminder how overwhelming diving into a crash course in a new experience can be. I was surprised how much it seemed to change them, and how much meaning they both pulled out of it. While everyone was on the same journey together, the experience was very unique to each individual.
For example, Zana enjoyed the group experience and camaderie and experienced a relatively smooth path. That camaderie kept her motivated, and having tons of classes made it a great immersion experience. I smiled hearing that she had no more life outside tango and that her friends don't know her anymore and that she now had new friends! (Ah, the Tango vampire transformation!)
Gordon called it a "revolutionary experience" and something that gave him meaning from the inside rather than just learning technique. His experience was "challenging, full of blood, sweat and tears." For him it was more of a solitary struggle, with the first month full of fustrating pieces-like a jigsaw puzzle without the final picture, but he found the joy in the dance by the end. For him it was a personal and meaningful experience.
They both summarized very nicely what took me years to realize in the leader and follower roles-that it's a challenge, and the payoff gets better and better as you go.
It took me awhile to find that new "tango world" though I searched for it for years. It's amazing to see the immersion and how fast they improve and fell in love with it and even found connection and meaning during the journey.
During the ball, it was even fun dancing to the live music which can sometimes be a challenge depending on the band. Even the DJ (Varo) was digging it. When I asked Mariana (a tango dancer of some experience) what she thought of the performance of the Tango Challengers, she lit up as she told me how she really loved seeing the beginners and all the hard work and effort they put in. And the intense concentration on their faces under pressure of performing.
It was so much a surprise when Varo finally called out "Last Tanda!" that 4 women fainted... or just cried out "NO!!!" in unison. Interesting how the DJ always has numerous women surrounding him...
And then the part very few others will see of Mitra's serenading during cleanup and the very end with the world famous cleanup song. The whole thing was over so fast.
Seven more challengers will perform next time at the graduation ball on Friday July 26th... soon Oxygen is going to need a bigger space!
