It's weird, if I may digress, how private lessons just wear you out. I was so tired afterwards. I lay in the couch while my tango buddy had her lesson immediately after mine. I couldn't quite concentrate.
In any case, my tango was stripped to its bare nakedness and in front of the mirror of my self-consciousness I could see how I have been all this time walking downwards, not always connecting to the woman, not giving enough intention in the walks, tightening my upper body, and what else? I was discouraged. I slouched in that couch and wondering how I have underestimated the difficulty of being a good tanguero.
With that in mind we went to a milonga that was new to me: Gardel de Medellín. The environment was nice. We went all the way up beyond Boedo for the birthday of a friend. While it's a bit far away, I was glad to try another milonga not in that cluster found in Palermo Soho. The milonga, however, had a very different mix of levels: really good and extremely bad. I have never seen such bad dancing since Connecticut (outside New Haven). Some were so bad I wonder if I should laugh. The "really" good ones were not that fabulous, except for Ariadna and her partner (for those who don't know what the big deal is, Ariadna is the daughter of Gustavo Naveira, the inventor of nuevo tango style). I felt I was in New York again, split between the cliquey good people and the pathetic beginners milling around. I could dance with my own clique, and I did, but I wanted to branch out, out of curiosity for new people and open-mindedness.
The result is horrible dances and a rejection.
My beaten self-confidence in my dance from the lesson suffered a further downward spiral from that experience, only salvaged when I returned to my group and danced with my people.
What happened to the goal of being able to dance with anyone? No matter style or level?
Maybe I wasn't there yet, not even close.
The negative feelings, the self-deprivation, however, started ebbing after the cumparsita. When the eagerness to get the best dances disappeared in the room, in me, and I found myself as a follower being led by my buddy. This unorthodox fun triggered a remembrance of what tango is really about.
The simplicity of having fun and not abiding rules and climbing the ladder of success, success in improving my own dance or in getting better dances. The whole point of improving my dance or getting the approval of better dancers is to improve the level of enjoyment, but those ways aren't the only means and definitely not the goal. While returning to the flock salvaged my pride, by dancing as a follower (so a woman, for those who don't know a thing about tango), I felt crazy, and I was being a better follower than before! I felt connected to my buddy.
The DJ just kept playing the same six songs of Caló over and over again, and we just kept dancing until 5:30 in the morning. On the taxi ride back, my heart was lifted again. I didn't understand why until later. I realized the next day, after talking more to friends, that I only had bad times with tango, feeling disconnected from this dance, when that competitiveness in me, the need for approval from others, get the best of me, and the dance became another means towards winning, winning something. It is too obvious in tango, while I do similar things in real life. Tango helps me put the dramas in real life in the open, in the raw, for me to start re-examining my style of living.
And in the end, it reminds me the simple importance of enjoying what I have without having to compete for perceived better turfs. I've lived too long a life believing everything is a competition, that everything had a comparable value, and tango puts me in that situation every time I step into a milonga. Often I am chill about it, and that's why often I have a great time. But sometimes, I question myself too much, I question others just as much.
It wasn't a "bad" night, it was a night to learn something bigger than tango.
In other news:
- We ate at this diner place called "La Continental", very cheap and very nice. That's a lot to say about food in Argentina, the "nice" part. I really can't understand why such proud and varied people have such pathetic culinary culture.
- The saga of looking for a postal office continued, and possibly ended in frustration. I found a place called "Correo Oficial" or something, "Official Postal Service". Well, I showed them my stamps and they said it's some other "Correo", and their nearest office was two blocks away. I went there, and it was closed! So lame!
- Found more yummy media lunas!
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