Where to begin explaining tango, let alone guiding it?

Tango is often taught as an accumulation — steps, figures, vocabulary, rules. But, how will steps get me closer to feeling anything in life? Life is. Life does. Life is too massive to contain into definition. We experience it, and hopefully attune to what it means around us. I have heard countless times this dance described as un baile de sentimiento (“a dance of feeling / sentiment”). So, for the past several years in classes1 we have been exploring tango through feeling in a physical and flowing conversation. What is tango? I don’t believe there is one definition, but there are elements we can agree on. This article is about a different way to picture the whole of it: four living spheres that share space, each moving freely, absorbing — attuning in a shared middle that changes shape with every dance.

Starting last May in all classes we have been honing the infinite and subtle beauty found in el cambio de peso, which I like to think of it as “the exchange of ideas through combinations of weight / where our actively grounding leg is in play.” During the five classes a week and a Wednesday practica I’ve been setting up games to help each dancer realize their full natural spiral, their own axial coordination from floor (soles) to abdomen (nerve center) and allowing the thorax, arms and pelvis to experience movement (not dictate movement). It results in two dancers staying in suelto æquilibrium and a sense of play takes over — improvisation, curiosity, attunement, intuition. I witness, over and over, new dancers and experienced dancers open up really cool and complimentary movements together. Smiles broaden.

I hear teammates say “wow, that was really cool” “I didn’t know we could do that!” and “that felt so easy.” I witness them open up curved lateral and linear traveling movements. I feel them share quiet cambios de peso with the music — attuning before moving! No leader. No follower. Two dancers in a living moment listening to each other. It is beautiful. They discover movement on their own, together.

The game scenarios are suggested to encourage dancers to invite in the idea that it's okay to align in differing spirals. There is no need to mirror or react to the position of your partner. You can. You may. However there are vast landscapes of other combinations we may invite in.2 And several students remarked: “Oh — sort of like a Venn diagram?” I had to look up what a Venn diagram is.3 We are encouraging overlapping ideas — but the Venn diagram is too rigid, too two-dimensional, too limited for me.

For years I have been sketching, scheming, considering how to visually represent tango. I finally have a concept that holds limitless possibilities for tango to exist without ever being defined. “Open texture,4” as a philosophy doctorate student of mine called it when I described this idea of confluence in four spheres — tango can be felt and experienced, but never universally defined, because it involves agency, emotion, community, internal and external conditions, and cultural moments in time.

The Four Spheres — the concept at a glance

It’s a safe bet, I think, we can agree there are four major elements in social tango: Agency, Embrace, Music, and La Ronda. Each of these four is a sphere. Each sphere is autonomous and essential.

Agency and Embrace are in blue hues because they are internal elements — the ones we hone awareness and agency with. Music and La Ronda are yellow because they are external elements we absorb and attune to as we hone agency and awareness. Where they meet, a shared center forms — the green pastures — and it keeps changing shape as the spheres flow and absorb (sometimes unevenly) as we feel our way through tango by experiencing it.

How the spheres behave

Each sphere breathes. They expand, grow, and rest. They can shrivel with neglect, and the more they shrivel, the harder they are to fill back up. We tend to them by paying attention to each sphere — shine some light on them! Their size can change with importance — some days one sphere matters more than another. The goal is balance and attunement.

Each sphere may rotate freely, in any direction, when it wishes — like the trackball in an old Centipede arcade game5, not fixed to a single axis. And, they may occupy the same space at the same time, freely flowing as it wishes, independent and yet enjoying the benefits of sharing space and strengths the other spheres offer.

Each sphere has elements within and of it — ideas, concepts, elements. Some are basic and fairly universal, ones the community can largely agree belong in each sphere (see footnote for examples)6. But each person can add something personal to any of the four spheres of their tango — you can place a point that works for you, and you don’t have to tell anybody. The points can shift anywhere on the sphere. Any two points on opposite sides may become an axis if you choose to rotate around it for a while — or you can leave them as just two points that connect through the whole of the sphere. And all the points can gather into one small area, so the sphere looks like an eyeball with a dilated pupil — focused — versus a balanced, universal view.

How they come together

They rotate freely in any direction, like a trackball. But they can’t roll.

For them to absorb into one another they need attention and attunement.

Sounds like the best of uncluttered conversations to me. If you’re actually paying attention to the other person — interacting, attracted, interested — this draws another sphere closer. If Music is your strong point I am suggesting to allow this strength to invite in more awareness of La Ronda or Embrace to enhance your strength instead of standing on the music as a safety net.

Attraction only brings a sphere near. What brings them together is attunement. You tune to each one, and it tunes to the others, until they resonate — and that resonance is what carries them into the same space. You’ve got to attune to all four living organisms. Neglect one and it will just shrivel up and die — and then it’s really hard to bring it back. So from day one in classes we keep aware of the Music (how do we feel and connect with it), La Ronda (how and why to dance in shared spaces), Embrace (suelto embraces that breathe and harmonize), Agency (we focus more on the realizer than the navigator, seeking equal listening and formation of ideas).

Once the spheres are attuned, they absorb into one space, not merged because nothing is lost. A sphere offers its strength to another not by giving anything up, but merely by being present and allowing the other in…

We absorb the spheres into the same space .

Why the name Confluence Compass?

Confluence is the flowing together of two or more things like streams of flowing water, absorption of abstract ideas, or simultaneous events. The nuances involve organic blending rather than forced combination. There is a sense of autonomous paths coming into a shared space. There is a neutral or positive momentum.

Tango is not linear to me. According to the famous quote attributed to the legendary Argentine poet and composer Enrique Santos Discépolo:7 tango moves counterclockwise to stop time and immortalize the embrace.

If the objective is to forget time, to be ultimately present — to embrace the moment — then how can learning this dance be linear and stepped out into patterns? In twenty-one years I have never learned or heard a quenching answer to this question. Time marches on. But, we may enjoy the moments in-between.

So if you, too, are frustrated by collection-of-patterns tango, you are not alone. Infinite possibilities — and yet, brought together, still one cohesive idea others can understand. You can have your dance. I can have mine. We still meet in the same space. True tango isn’t just two people — it needs La Ronda, the community, the field where we are presently being part of something larger than ourselves.

You are invited to join us exploring this dance on the flip side. All are welcome.

Please take a second to 🧡 (like and why not also share) this article if you found it interesting! Also check out the footnotes below…

7

Enrique Santos Discépolo, known as Discepolín, was a brilliant Argentine poet and “personaje” who used bitter irony, theatrical depth, and street slang to capture human pain. He wrote immortal masterworks like Cambalache and Yira Yira, turning tango into raw existential philosophy. Yira Yira is one of my favorites:

• version with Carlos Gardel – (Spotify listen)

• version by Orquesta Típica Víctor c/ Alberto Gómez y Augusto Vila – (Spotify listen)

• and this gem by Ada Falcón with Orq. Francisco Canaro – (Spotify listen)

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Some go outward in their search, I prefer to go inward to understand this journey. It took me 7 years before I went inwards, 10 years to immerse in the feeling of this dance, 17 years to accept I was ready to guide others. This year marks 21 years.

I’ve been down a lot of roads in this dance. Trampled, patterned paths that promised somewhere and delivered dead ends for me. I walked them, turned around, walked all the way back. Sometimes I quit for years, other times for months. The first 10 years were rife with highs and lows… mostly lows. I began to love this dance when I refused to learn any more steps or sequences. I just wanted to feel and be left alone to be okay with myself in movement. I learned to trust myself by practicing self-awareness and acceptance.1

These past 3 years I’ve spent questioning everything I was ever taught or told about the dance. Taking risks. Trying new ways to interact, to guide, to understand what this dance actually is underneath what it’s sold as, told as, shown as. This relaunch is me sharing what’s been working daily with real people ignoring feet and tuning in to shared moments. An exploration of how to guide others toward the feeling of this dance I’ve been so lucky to experience in so many distinct places far and near.

So here is the invitation: a journey that doesn’t yet have a map — but has a way, a compass, and a growing understanding of navigation.

I want to be careful with this image of exploring the waters of tango. We are not the first in these waters. I’m not claiming discovery. I’m saying: let’s get out on the water, in real time, and rethink the shape of this thing for ourselves.

And here’s something about navigation worth sitting with. The North Star only works in one hemisphere. Cross the equator and the whole sky changes — you have to learn different stars entirely. Tango is like that. The constellations that guided one dancer will not guide another. There are limitless bodies, limitless inclinations, limitless ways a person connects to music. It cannot be one way. It was never going to be one way.

I remember standing in Buenos Aires when this finally landed. The walls of the shoebox I’d been dancing in fell down as the lid blew off, and I was then standing in a vast, open landscape that was tango. The feeling wasn’t panic. It was comfort. I was comforted that I will never know it all — and that’s okay. That’s not ignorance. That’s the good news. All I need to do is enjoy where I am, and when I’m done exploring there I can go to the next place and explore.

That’s what this relaunch is setting sail to achieve — an exploration with compass and no map. No curriculum, no steps. Curiosity, trial and error, endeavors to seek equality and freedom for dancers to share. We’ll wander, circle back, return to ideas and scope them out with different curves — the way dancers in a good tanda musically engage each other while dancing safely in the ronda.

Two promises before we set sail.

First: no shame here. I am not interested in any “right or wrong” conversations. There are “ideal and not so ideal” questions, suggestions and experiences to share. I threw out almost all of the steps I had been taught from 2005–2013; however, that is my journey and by no means am I suggesting anything you’ve learned needs throwing away. We’re not erasing the past. I hope you find new understanding of things you have learned. We’re shifting our perspectives — because in my studio, the most common thing I hear is:

“I didn’t know I was allowed to do this.”

That sentence is the whole reason I’m writing. It is loaded. On one hand I am thrilled — a dancer (most often a realizer2) is gaining ground on the agency of their own dance. However, more importantly this is an indicator of the imbalance tango has suffered for so long that one dancer, quite often, has this thought: “…allowed to do (this).” Allowed to feel comfortable. Allowed to speak and be heard. Hear this for a long moment. The only allowance I hope my dancers to be present with is allowing themselves more time, grace and enjoyment.

Second: this journey doesn’t run on looks, physicality, or age. It runs on presence. Anyone can come aboard. I love to witness people with “two left feet” discover their inner dancer.

Puerta al Tango Handbook

Don't take my word for anything in the articles to come. That would just be another pattern to follow. In the coming months, I hope you try out for yourself what we've been working on. Or come visit us here in Albuquerque.

Feel for yourself. Que la música nos manda.

🌊 Observations in Navigations

What captivates me most in listening to the ocean are the moments of—suspension—between—surges. Waves cannot be measured in precise counts; they refuse metronomic regularity. Instead, they arrive in variation–improvised in pace, flow, measure and magnitude. There is melodic rhythm, but no set pattern. Just like tango. The sea never ceases to move: it ebbs, it flows—even in stillness there is motion. It is alive. So, why not also in our dance?

Earlier this summer, while visiting family, I grabbed two solid days to rest by the Atlantic. For a while I watched the waves curl across the sands. However, it was while listening, dazed and drifting, that I tapped into their melody. I felt a connection–profound and liberating. The melody and improvisation of the waves allowed my body to release its tensions, to rest and reset. This same sensation returns to me in tango when I dance with another suelto soul—one who is letting go into the present moment. Suelto comes from soltar: to free, to release… to let go.

I believe the body already understands movement. Like the tides with the moon, we need only allow movement through grounded equilibrium. The same way the moon influences the undulation of the seas and oceans, I find in tango this sensation improves the fluidity, reliability, clarity of connections. Gravity keeps us connected to the earth in a perfect measure to optimize movement in tango; so, if we allow our bodies the weight and fluidity of water (which we are mostly made of) then there is a reliability to share as we shape movement with the music and the space available around us. When we stop calculating and let time open within us, movement unfurls naturally in a similar fashion of waves returning to the sea–the ebb–the gathering of movement back into center and potential for the next wave of movement.. Think of the waves: they surge, then they gather. There is a returning in wave formations that I find akin to how I explore the dance and deeper connections with the music. It is in this moment of suspension—the gathering of time and energy between the waves—where I find tango and then share it with my partner and all of the other dancers in la ronda.

As a fun experiment, best with headphones, let’s listen to two recordings. Either move around your space with the surges and suspensions in each of the audio tracks, or just lay back and imagine movement. Be curious how your body feels, responds and stays in sync with the sounds. Here is Audio File 1:

How do you feel? What did you feel? Were you able to stay in the flow or were you distracted? There is no right or wrong, only observation, awareness and curiosity. Let’s repeat this exploration with Audio File 2:

How were your movements and levels of awareness with this second audio track? Hold on to these observations for a moment.

Repetition fatigues. Variation restores.

Variation, just like wave patterns, restores a calm sense of attention. I am not suggesting we add complexity, nor an arsenal of steps to know. Rather, I find exploring the depths of simplistic movements to be the most rewarding to share in this dance with another human. Rock and blues are built mostly in three chord combinations, yet the emotional range of expression is endless. Tango as movement, not music, is the same. With only three traveling moves—forward, backward, lateral (curved or linear)1 —we can create innumerable possibilities if we listen for timing, savor the pauses, and allow connection to shape the phrase. When we add in pivots we create even more pleasing complexity to the shapes of these phrases. The richest form of expression for me is in the coming back through center, whether it be a transition en roce (rozar - to sweep through) or in cambios de peso (exchanges of weight or weights). It is in this gathering where both dancers are truly equal, transitioning into, through and onward from center. When we set off to travel, one dancer is dependent on the other for navigating which direction. Once movement toward this direction is initiated it becomes a truth. We humans are incapable of changing direction mid-stride, therefore the arrival-gathering-centering into the new “home.”2 We have to arrive in this newly embarked location before moving on to the next idea. When dancing the gathers we are dancers collaborating in how we realize and share our equilibriums.

Attention restoration theory (ART)3, developed by Rachel and Stephen Kaplan in the 1980s explored the positive benefits of humans being in natural environments. I believe this, and also find it equally restorative to be in a flow state of natural movement (non-technical, imperfect) where bodies are allowed the full extension of their movements without constraints from fear of doing something wrong or “dancing tango.” I recall the feeling my body has in the sea and while listening to bodies of water. I bring this into the music and share it with my partner. I forget about “doing tango.” I allow movements to go laterally, or forward, or backward, or exchange weights, or pivot—without exertion—or gather…it doesn’t matter in what order or what we are doing as long as they remain in a reliable realm (see footnote #1). All that matters is how it feels and do the movements transition smoothly and intuitively between traveling steps.

That is to say I prefer to hone the skills of naturalized movements that surge and gather the energy in reliable, but variable, flux rather than performing patterned steps. I don’t want to think when I am dancing. ART talks about the mental fatigue humans experience when constantly seeking and evaluating information. Tango taught in sequences and steps has this effect on me. I don’t want to count or complete tasks or do anything predictable. It is far more pleasing to be reliably creative with another person. Like the waves in Audio File 2, I wish to hone the skills of effortless attention. If I explore this dance as moving myself in equilibrium and curious awareness, unhurried—suelto—then at any given moment I will have the tools to adapt. I don’t need to know steps or patterns, only the intuitive awareness of possibilities. My partner can rely on these movements that seek the sea bed before surging into the next wave of movement. It is not predictable like in Audio File 1. Instead it is reliably in motion (Audio File 2) and therefore opens the door to creating movements and ideas together.

Audio File 1 (in blue on the graph above) is a single wave isolated and looped from Audio File 2. Every surge is identical, arriving at the same tempo, the same volume. Audio File 24 is the Mediterranean Sea itself (in green on the graph). No two waves alike; some swell high, others recede, pauses open, silence stretches. The body relaxes in the face of this unpredictability. It attends without calculation. It breathes. I would personally prefer to dance a “green” tanda than a “blue” tanda like the graph above.

The lesson of the sea is not instruction in steps. It is instruction in listening and quality of movement. It is a path to how our bodies may flow without constriction. The ronda feels like a calm sea when everyone is listening to the music; we are dancing all together.

→ And just as the sea teaches us to listen, tango itself gives us words that remind us how…

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Language Matters: Suelto & “futuring”

Why these two words change how you move: let go of tension, stop anticipating, and stay present.

Few words capture tango’s spirit as fully as suelto. From the verb soltar—to let go, to release—it literally means loosened, free, unchained. In Argentina and Uruguay, its meanings bend with context:

Loose, relaxed movement — fluid, unrestrained, natural.

An unbound animal — out of its cage, off-leash. We are animals, too.

Emotional freedom — liberated, uncommitted, free of “futuring.”

To dance suelto is to liberate your partner—and yourself—in the name of equality.

“Futuring” is my own coinage, a word I began using in 2022 instead of “anticipating.” The difference matters. “Anticipation” makes dancers tense, as though waiting for an exam. “Futuring” makes them laugh, relax—the shoulders drop. The term names a common mistake: moving toward a pattern that doesn’t yet exist, rather than co-creating in the present. To let go of futuring is to return to the unscripted moment, where tango lives.

→ Of course, words only matter if we live them in the body. That’s where guiding—and being guided—begins.

Guiding Tango: Lessons I Am Learning Along the Way

What I keep discovering as a guide: not patterns, but paths toward freedom, equality, and co-creation.

In classes this past summer we listened for the moments in tango music that move like waves —not predictable — but unmistakably alive. As both dancer and teacher, I’ve learned how much the arms determine whether equality deepens or erodes between two partners.

Our arms are not ours. They are theirs. They belong to the music and to the embrace. A rigid frame can break a connection for an entire tanda; a suelto embrace can set it free. Again and again, I watch students soften their arms, and something changes: they smile more, they do less, and the dance breathes.

→ Still, understanding is one thing; training it into our bodies is another. That’s where practice comes in.

Coach’s Corner: Practicing “Home”

A practical drill for finding balance, grounding, and presence before every move.

Picking up from the previous article, Awareness, The best training isn’t to learn more steps. It is to find home.

Not literally. Home is the feeling of safety, of presence, of unhurried belonging. To arrive there with your partner before you move on is to dance as an equal.

Moving with the accents should feel like being carried, not pushing. As navigator, if I bring force, I unbalance my partner. If instead I hone this sense of home, the stored energy gathers in us quietly—an elastic reserve—and releases only when the music crests. This is contralateral (contra-cuerpo) technique at its most natural, effortless, unforced.

In class, we often build challenges around this idea. For example:

• Center the embrace. As you meet, think “home.” Rest fully into your standing leg.

• Shape the arms. Last of all, let the embrace rise softly from the back, not the shoulders. The closed-side arm molds like water, not steel.

• Wait for release. Do not travel until the shoulders let go (hombros sueltos).

• Spiral into motion. Only then do you move, perhaps laterally, perhaps simply. The point is not the step—it is the co-creation.

Travel only on the accent. When no accent comes, gather, breathe, wait. Then release when the wave arrives.

Do less. Less is more.

→ Once the room is settled and respectful, the music itself can take over as our map.

Music as a Map

How to feel tango’s pulse like a heartbeat—and why accents, not counts, are what move us.

Ocean waves are variable, unpredictable. So is tango. Both offer the body a kind of restoration. Joaquín Amenábar reminds us: the music is the only leader. Dancers follow it together. The accents are our pulse—the blood in our veins. Without them, we wither. With them, we move.

To hear the pulse, try this: use your hand to mark the beat, rising and falling gently. Some accents drop your hand more deeply than others. Those are the ones that drive movement.

A few tangos with strong accents to practice with:

• “Viento norte” (1929) by Orquesta Típica Victor - instrumental. (YouTube) (Spotify)

• “Una vez” (1943) by Orquesta Típica Victor c/ Ortega del Cerro (YouTube) (Spotify)

• “Malena” (1942) by Lucio Demare c/ Juan Carlos Miranda (YouTube) (Spotify)

• “Malena” (1942) by Aníbal Troilo c/ Francisco Fiorentino (YouTube) (Spotify)

• “Garúa” (1943) by Pedro Laurenz c/ Alberto Podestá (YouTube) (Spotify)

Waves crest, release, vanish. So does music. If we allow time to gather—if we both “find home”—the release is effortless. The whole body travels, not the feet alone. Waves have no feet. Neither should tango.

→ But practice doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It unfolds inside a room, a ronda, a community. And here is where small cultural details matter.

Cabeceo Corner: shoe grace and social awareness!

Things to Know In and Around La Ronda.

A simple rule of milonga etiquette: never put shoes on a table, and avoid changing them in a seat directly beside the dance floor.

In Buenos Aires, you’ll see dancers slip into their shoes in the lobby, the bathroom, or at tables set back from la ronda—the floor’s edge. Why? Because the perimeter tables are for resting, listening, exchanging miradas and cabeceos, and quiet talk. To burst in with coats, bags, bent heads, and shoelaces is to shatter the atmosphere.

Instead, make discretion a habit:

• Remove your coat before sitting.

• Mark your chair with something small—a scarf, a fan, a bag.

• Greet briefly.

• Step aside, change shoes away from la pista (dance floor), tuck the street pair away.

• Maybe grab a drink or settle in and see who is around, dancing…

This preserves the flow of the room. It also opens chance encounters: people remember the dancer who is respectful, who carries themselves lightly. Once ready, bring a drink to your table and enjoy. With practice, this becomes second nature—an unconscious act of cultural respect.

→ Which brings us back to where we started: not with steps, but with listening.

La Salida

Exiting one idea and moving on to the next: carrying the lesson of listening into your next tanda!

Until next time I hope you enjoy exploring these ideas! We will talk about our arms, seas and horses — maybe even seahorses — and how the arms are not ours!

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The best way to start learning tango is to do less.

Not less dancing, not less music — but less doing.
It begins with awareness. Before steps, before technique, before the mind starts filing things into right and wrong. We should be asking instead: how am I right now? How is my partner? What is the music asking of us? These are the questions that open the door to natural movement in harmony with others. The rest (more dynamic possibilities and techniques) in time, walks through on its own.

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve quit tango.
From 2005 to 2016, I must have walked away at least a dozen times — confused, disoriented, frustrated, or just plain tired of memorizing steps that didn’t resonate with what the music was saying. But, life kept finding oddly comical ways to lure me back to tango. I never came back for the flash of fancy steps. It was for the moments of meaningful connection. I came back for the moments when I forgot I was “doing tango” at all, and simply felt… understood.

Do we feel understood when we read from a script? Or, when someone talks at us and never stops to ask how we feel or think? Me either. If tango is a walking conversation to the music, then why do we study it like a type-written lecture?

Picture a dancer at rest — standing, breathing, aware.
No rush to move. No checklist of what comes next.
Then the music arrives, and a small shift happens. A breath. A change in balance. The spine lengthens, the eyes soften, and something like a conversation begins. This is tango when it starts from awareness. Our bodies move naturally when we let go of control and allow ourselves the time to just be. The moments between the words… between the moments… is where we connect. How can we know ourselves if we are constantly doing? How can we hear the world if we never pause to observe? Tango is complex, yes; however, it is also quite simple. Begin with the richness of simplicity to open up to a greater understanding, and aperture, and enjoy the now with no worry about “mistakes.” The rest — the turns, the dynamic pauses, the precision of musicality — will embody in us on its own as we allow time to gain the tools for heightening awareness and hone or ability to embody intuition in flowing movements.

Here is a clip from a film a love by Jim Jarmusch. I find it compelling in its “simplicity.” The poem is especially appropriate for what this article is about. I love how time unfurls for the viewer to experience what the character is living in seemingly mundane moments. It’s beautiful to me:

Like a Toddler Learning to Walk

A toddler doesn’t learn to move by memorizing a fixed route. They touch everything, shift in every direction, and gather information from each new movement. They are not afraid to make “mistakes.” So why not allow ourselves to gain our tango sea legs like a toddler? It’s all about gaining awareness for how our bodily vessel operates, so why not make it fun and simple and without steps!

In early tango, we want that same energy of exploration:

• Curiousity — explore the five essential elements without worrying about “getting it right.” Do it wrong! The only mistake is doubting yourself.

• Unselfconscious — let the body respond to balance, music, and partner without overthinking.

• Adaptive — go off balance, be curious why, laugh it off, recover, try again, and keep listening and giving it a go.

Patterns like the basic-8 can interrupt this natural learning arc. Imagine asking a toddler to walk a prescribed route before they’ve learned to balance — they’d spend more time trying to remember the order than understanding how to move and feeling the ground beneath their feet.

Tango grows best the same way toddlers do: by exploring freely, noticing what works, and building balance before choreography.

When beginners focus on their partners—truly listen—their bodies begin embodying themselves. The spine lifts, the breath evens, and the body returns to its own natural shape, no longer bent to fit a memorized pattern. I have witnessed this and experienced this for over two years now at the studio1. In contrast, the pattern-bound dancer is easy to spot—eyes lowered, willpower poured into the feet, movements that seem more concerned with getting it “right” than feeling it.

I’ve seen it often: a formerly tense dancer sinks into the music, and something unexpected arrives—an intricate turn, a seamless pause—movements they’ve never “learned.” When I ask how it happened, they almost always smile and say: “I wasn’t thinking… I was just listening.”

Before we can dance well with someone else, we have to know what’s happening in our own body. Not in a “fix it” way — just noticing. That’s why I always go back to the simplest movements first.

The Five Essential Elements

At the studio, we begin with just five essential movements, then give space for awareness to expand them with tools like alignment (offset and in-line partner), systems (parallel and crossed), timings (simple, double and syncopated), curving and bending linear lines, rebounds, “drops” and cadences, staccato & legato2. So many cool tools we add in with time to make a “simple step” divine. But first we need to begin (or start over again)3 like a toddler’s first explorations, these are simple but endlessly adaptable:

• Exchanges in equilibrium — shifting of weights without travel; the most essential element.

• Forward movement — linear or curved, releasing energy behind the body.

• Backward movement — linear or curved, releasing energy into the floor and toward the partner.

• Lateral “apertura” movement — the only time the legs open away from center.

• Pivot — a vertical rotation following a completed movement, aligned and nearly effortless.

It is this curious energy we want in early tango: to explore the elements freely, notice what works, and let movement grow naturally, rather than squeezing it into a preset pattern we’ll only have to untangle later. Patterns like the basic-84 can interrupt the natural learning arc. Imagine asking a toddler to walk a prescribed route before they’ve learned to balance. Tango is jazz: the movements are instruments, the music is the score, and the dance happens in the space between.

Once you can name these movements, the fun part begins: seeing them show up in daily life when you’re not even thinking about tango.

Practicing Awareness

When students ask how to practice between classes, I tell them not to “practice tango” in the usual sense. Instead, notice how you move through the day: in the grocery aisle, waiting for coffee, standing in line. Feel how balance shifts. Let the hips release, the neck lengthen, the arms swing freely.

When people focus on awareness rather than “doing tango,” they slow down. They listen. They discover movement on their own—and it’s often more musical than anything I could plan for them.

When you’re ready to give these ideas a little more focus, here’s a way to explore them without overcomplicating things.

Coach’s Corner

How to practice alone

• Stand with feet parallel, comfortably apart (not touching).

• Balance weight evenly, then let it drift 60/405 from one instep to the other.

• The 60% balance of weight blend is your active leg. Your true center of gravity (axis, equilibrium) is not on or over your foot! It stays mostly between your feet. only 10% blends over to encapsulate the ball of foot of the actively grounding leg (the only leg to have a supple knee… the 40% leg is less bent!). You’ll know it’s right when you feel your body drop tension and be able to breath.

• Loosen toes, shake out arms, soften knees.

• Imagine a breeze, a hammock, or the slow roll of the sea.

• Move from the grounding leg so the whole body travels together.

• Notice how it feels when you arrive balanced — versus when you send the foot first and feel off-center.

How to practice with a partner

• Focus less on going and more on gathering together.

• Listen to the music and to your partner’s balance.

• Choose direction only when needed for safety and flow in the ronda.

• Move through the five elements instead of a checklist of “steps.”

• Pause. Breathe. Let the moment arrive before continuing.

Even the words we use can change how we move with each other.

Language Matters

A quick guide for the words we use at Puerta al Tango

We avoid “leader” and “follower.” We don’t need any more power dynamics in this life! Instead we use:

• Navigator — guides the couple safely through the ronda, while listening for their partner’s ideas.

• Realizer — brings those ideas into full expression.

This is a dance of equals; changing the words changes the dance.

And just like words can guide the partnership, the music can guide where we go next.

Music as Map

What we are listening for this summer is mood. How does the song make you feel? How do the different parts that comprise a song make you feel? Let your body think for you. Sing along even if it’s just using “la, la lah’s” (best not “pa” or “da”). Allow your body to express that feeling — both dancers!

There are two types of tango constructions: tango canción (parts A and B) and tango from (parts A, B and C). Each part can range from 1-5 phrases. . Hearing them is like reading a map: you can intuit the curves and rises coming later.

When you can do that, the music is never really over. It just changes shape.

Examples of some constructions of songs we’ve used in class:

• A–B–A–B–A — “Niebla de Riachuelo” (Fresedo)

• A–B–A–B–B — “Nido Gaucho” (Di Sarli/Podestá) - an irregular construction of part A of 5 phrases (1-4 in 8 steps, 5 in 6 steps) and part B in 2 units of 14 steps of 3 cells (4 steps + 4 steps + 6 steps)6

• A–B–A–C–A–B — “Ya Estamos Iguales” (Troilo/Marino, De Angelis/Dante, D’Arienzo/Echagüe)

Each part invites a different quality of movement. I recommend the work of Joaquín Amenábar for learning to hear these changes more clearly.

Cabeceo Corner - a sidebar for social awareness

Don’t chew gum while on the dance floor. This is our simple tip for this week!

In Closing

And then there’s the part we can’t teach.
The quiet moment after the music ends, when you’re still standing in your partner’s embrace. No movement left, just breath and the hum of what was shared. That’s the space where awareness lingers — where it settles into the body so it can be carried out the door and into the rest of life.

Because this isn’t just about tango.
It’s about how we choose to stand with another person. How we pause before rushing into the next thing. How we notice the smallest shift in balance — in ourselves, in someone else — and respond with care.

When you can do that, the music is never really over. It just changes shape. And every step, even the ones off the dance floor, begins in awareness. Awareness is curiosity and patience; allowing is giving ourselves permission to move freely. We don’t “let” our partners express—we actively seek their voice. That’s where the dance begins — in equality.

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This article is long, I know. It is best read, seen, and heard on Substack (app or in a web-browser) where the footnotes are conveniently hyper-linked and the video clips are viewable.

The most influential teacher I had in this dance was my dog, Bo.

I’ve been wanting to write about our last year together for quite a long time. I’ve been guiding Tango here in Albuquerque since January 2023, as my life’s pursuit. I had never expected my path to lead to being asked to teach dance. As this new year began, the right moment to write about him, and his sister, Zinn, finally realized. They came into my life in my young twenties when I truly needed some grounding. They bettered my life and ability to be present. I miss them. Every day I’m encouraged and heartened by their memory to move forward on better paths. They are no longer with me; yet, it is not loss that I feel. Rather, I treasure how both of these noble canines graced my life with gifts they left with me to carry on.

One of my favorites songs is a milonga about a man walking with his faithful dog… “Con mi perro”1 ←( click this # footnote to hear my favorite version by Rodolfo Biagi c/ Alberto Amor. Then click the number of the footnote, again, to return here to this place in the article if reading on the Substack app or web browser).

The orchestra in this version of “Con mi perro” reminds me how it felt when barreling through the mountains and streets with my 105 lb. pitbull-mastiff, Bo, many years ago. The word “milonga”  carries two meanings in Tango: 1) a style of music played during a milonga, which also means 2) the social event where dancers gather to harmonize and celebrate life through dance.  I am partial to the African (Ki-Kongo) root of this word meaning “line of dancers,” etymologically speaking. As the dance socially grew into what is Tango, the word milonga took on more the meaning of “party,” or social gathering… with lines of dancers.  

Tango lyrics are rife with stories of loss and losing; yet, Tango itself is not serious. Rather it is full of emotion and feelings… sentimientos. We connect to the music with our life experience. It doesn’t matter if you understand the lyrics word for word. We understand vibrations of music and voices. The milongas in Buenos Aires are full of life, laughter and the social swirl.  You feel in a milonga, not at a milonga. Now, not all Tango songs (temas) are heavy or sad. There are some laden with hope like “Lo que vieron mis ojos” (footnote #2)to see how I danced in 2019). There is a song about a man preparing his homestead for his love to arrive (“Nido Gaucho”). There’s one about a youth preparing for a night out, full of anticipation, confidence and ready with a plan to get the password (contraseña) to sneak into the social swirl of a milonga (“Bailarín de contraseña”) 3. 

For me, “Con mi perro” (1946) captures what it was like walking with Bo, especially in his youth. Zinn was always more aware of the world and her surroundings.  She took the time to observe the world around her. It took  Bo and me a while to catch up with this more fulfilling way of walking through life.

[Video: first trip off leash. Zinn (part wolf) is the one contemplating and aware of what’s around her… and Bo (pitbull-mastiff) is focused on the stick. Michigan 2001]

I learned how to walk the last year of his life.

Overnight, our pace changed from hours of rambling long-hard miles through the mountains of Pennsylvania to a final year of slowness. A tumor had ruptured on Bo’s hindquarters in January of 2010. I didn’t have much money in those years, but I provided the best food and care I could for both Zinn and Bo.  Dr. Gene Witiak and his veterinary staff patched him up.  Dr. Witiak mentioned they had a “coupon” for Bo’s surgery. I never saw this coupon nor did they ever send me a bill that I recall. He said the whole staff agreed Bo should have it, this mysterious coupon. They were very kind. They saved his life.

“You’ll most likely have one year. You’ll need to walk with him at his pace, make it your pace. Make it count.” Dr. Witiak is a remarkable human.  Animals love him, that’s all one really needs to know about a person, sometimes.

I was still trying to piece myself together from losing a deeply meaningful relationship the year previous with the person who politely tricked (trampita educada) me into my first Tango class.  I had lost sight of her in my day-to-day life.  I was worrying too much about the future and working for the future, digging myself out of debt incurred when a customer stiffed me on my biggest renovation job early in my years as a contractor. It took me many years to financially recuperate from it.  I lost sight of the present.  My partner was there for me, but I realized too late I was not always truly present for her during those years trying to get back in balance.  It took me a long while to realize this and to own it. Being present is the whole point of life and also where this dance lives inside us. So, on the precipice of also losing my closest companion of 10 years, Bo… being present was all the more precious.  I wanted to make each walk with him count.  

In Argentina one is only considered a true dancer when they have la caminata (their/the walk). From 2005-2016, in the U.S., I don’t recall any class focusing on la caminata, nor the music for that matter. It was just class after class of flashy moves: ganchos (hooks), boleos(throw/whip), leg wraps, volcadas ( essentially “tipping over” leans off axis) — “Tourist moves” — I heard them called quite often said by Argentinians and people I studied this folkloric, social dance with down there for over 9 months between 2016-2022. I had lived in Argentina for a year at age 18, so the language and the culture was already relatable. These moves, in themselves, are a part of the dance’s possibility of expression but not as spectacle while social dancing, in my opinion. When we are social dancing there is quite often not enough space, let alone musicality, to perform these moves and people can get hurt when heels come off the floor. There are subtle ways to infuse these flashy moves into la caminata… and when I see two dancers express one of these moves to the music and in equilibrium it is indeed a gorgeous sight and worthy of recognition. However… but… yet… most people —stop—get into position—reposition themselves—then fire off the “step” (gancho, leg wrap, what have you)—then regroup—reposition—and often go right into the next flashy move.  There’s no flow. I mean, to each their own. However, to me… nothing speaks artistry, prowess, style and character like two people walking to the music in a lovely, flowing embrace. I prefer to live in the music, embraced… creating moments with my partner.  Simple things are so very pleasing.

It takes time to hone one’s walk, and we Northern Americans have had a reputation of being too impatient for this. Yet, I don’t believe this is true. I think we are ready and capable of spending time honing this essential and graceful element that is the dance.  It’s more a matter of exploring its vast beauty with curiosity and dedication. 

I grew so tired and disconnected from all those classes of “steps” during my early years.  I quit Tango so many times.  I felt ridiculous performing these fancy moves during classes. It created doubt that I “didn’t know enough” or “I don’t have enough steps.” We don’t need steps. We need connection. I had heard people mention la caminata as being the most important element in Tango, along with the connection and the music!  Yet, no one was working on la caminita, though, that I recall.  I quit Tango so many times. In 2010 I didn’t dance. But, in that year I learned how to walk with my dog, Bo, during our last year together.

My greatest teacher for the walk was Bo.

Bo was a 105 lb. (47.5 kilos) pitbull-mastiff who luckily the world made sure came home with me from a rural animal shelter outside of Des Moines, Iowa in November 2000.  It was a comical ruse how the staff got me to adopt him. I’d been working on a theatre set in the early autumn days of Des Moines. A college student, apprenticing with me on the set, and I were talking about dogs.  I said something like “I always wanted a larger breed dog, but my older brother got to choose from the shelter - (we ended up with Cleopatra, a basset hound with plenty of personality).  But I don’t have the time for one.”  

She stopped working and looked at me with the appropriate expression and said: “what the hell are you doing now that you can’t have a dog?” I had no answer. “Good point” I guess I said, and probably laughed. Probably took my hat off. I don’t rightly recall. That night I asked my housemates how they’d feel if I did spring one from the cages. They said sure. I visited a dozen shelters over the next couple of days, but nothing felt right. The search fell to the back burner. A few weeks passed and I was driving back through rural Iowa from a tiling job way out among the long rolling fields for grain and corn to the west of Des Moines. For some reason I turned up a random gravel road and I had no idea why at first. There at the end of this long drive, if I recall correctly it was a long drive, there was an animal shelter. I was 23 years old and strong.  When I walked in, it seemed like they already had the dog in mind for me.“We have the perfect dog for you. Are you looking for a dog?” They brought me up to the cage of an emaciated pitbull snapping back at an equally salty black lab neighbor.  They had named this pitbull Marmaduke.  “What do you think?” “Well, he’s pretty aggressive… and also not a Great Dane.” “Oh really?” I instantly understood why they had listed him as a great dane instead of a pitbull.  The breed was greatly misunderstood. He was big despite being 20 lbs underweight. There was mastiff in his bloodline.  “He seems a bit much.”  “Want to take him out?” “What about that one?” I pointed to the dog sitting in the cage next to Marmaduke. It was a wolf-shepard sitting stoically, just calmly looking at me.  This dog nodded at me. “I’d like to meet that one.” “Oh, no one has ever asked about Tipper.” “Tipper?” “Yes.” The woman opened the cage and lithely Tipper strided out, sat down and offered me her paw.  “I’ll take her.” “Oh! I’ve never seen her do that before.” “I’ll take her.” “You have to go outside and spend time first.” “Sure, but we can start the paperwork.” I looked at her and said, “how bout we change your name?” 

“What name would you like on the paperwork?” It took me a moment to arrive at her new name. She seemed so wise and intuitive, so calm and aware of everything around her. I was reading Howard Zinn at the time.  “Zinn.”  “Zen?” “Z-i-doube-n.  I think that suits her.”  “I think it does, too.  Want to take her brother, too?” “Her brother?” “Yes.” She pointed to Marmaduke who was still salty at his neighbor.  “Um, no that’s ok.” “At least take him out, too. Just in case. We can give you two dogs for the price of one.” “Is that normal?” “You look capable.” “No that’s ok. He seems aggressive. Just the one.” “He is a sweetheart. At least take him out next.” “Sure.”

Zinn was the coolest dog I had ever met. We hit it off fast and steadfast. I’d never known that type of bond straight off. When I took Marmaduke out he was interested in everything but me, which is fine. He was calmer outside, away from the black lab in the pen next to him. It was nothing like hanging out with Zinn, though.  She was a whole other bonding experience.  Marmaduke and I spent a while outdoors and I watched him explore his freedom for the whole time allotted.  When we got back inside, the staff asked if I wanted Marmaduke (Bo), too. I said “no, thank you,” while watching him snap at his neighbor.  In his defence he was not the instigator. I think he just had enough of whatever bs that other dog was spraying. Zinn was in her cage just looking at me as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She probably knew she already had my heart. They let her out and she greeted me first and then she put her nose to Bo’s cage until he calmed down. Then she followed me into the lobby where the paperwork was officially filled out. They had called my housemates and references while I had been out with both dogs. All had checked out.

“Do you fix drywall?” “I do, I can.”  “Would you take a look at a repair we need done? We can hold Marmaduke for you.  We can pay you and you can adopt him at no charge, too.”  “I’ll fix the drywall for free, really no worries. But I just want the one dog.”  “Can you come next week?  We’ll hold Marmaduke for you.” “Uh. Sure. Next week is great.”  “Bring Zinn with you. They can play while you work.”  “Will do.”

The first week was a bit tough. Zinn had abandonment issues. She struggled with being alone. I couldn’t always take her on a job. Otherwise she was great, everybody loved her. It was nigh impossible to slip out a door and close it without her pretty much re-materializing behind me on the other side of the door. I remember trying to talk calmly to her while slipping myself through a mostly closed door… and before I could shut it she would be behind me on the other side.  Lightning fast and nimble. She already had my heartstrings. I knew she needed her brother.

The day came and the two of us drove back out west, and a wee bit northerly, to the rural animal shelter. The staff already had the ruse in effect, unbeknownst to me. I walked in and there was Bo/Marmaduke already with them in the lobby. The two dogs saw each other and leapt into the air – embraced each other – fell to the ground still embraced — and began rolling and  kissing each other, whining with joy, tails a’waggin’ every which way. The staff started crying at the sight.  The whole dang room was crying. “Right. I’ll take both dogs.” It was a touching moment, I was not immune.

The drywall repair room had a window view of the outside run where Bo and Zinn were playing. It was pretty awesome to see them together.  I went out and joined them between drying set coats of drywall mud.  He was much more interested in me this time. She was so happy. The staff thought Bo was being bred as a fighter and Zinn a baiter, perhaps, before they came to the shelter. No doubt she orchestrated the great escape from whatever place they had been previously.  She had fashioned a little hut in the tall grass where they were later found by one of the women who worked in the shelter. She said it was impressive this little hut where Zinn stood guard and where Bo had been hiding.

I finished the job and said “Ok, let’s pack them up.” “Oh, you can’t take him today. He still needs a shot.”  “What do you mean I can’t take him today?  How will I explain this to Zinn?” “Oh.  Oh!” “Can I leave here her with him overnight?” “No, this is against policy.” “How am I going to explain this to her?  I could have easily come tomorrow and done the job.” There was nothing that could be done. I had to drag Zinn back into the work van. It was awful. A few miles out she deflated and began to cry. It was heart-wrenching.  She wouldn’t eat or drink. I had to carry her limp body into the house.  She cried all night.  I tried to assure her.  She cried Man Ray tears.4

It wasn’t until we were a mile out from the shelter that she re-animated. It had been nearly 24 hours of heartbreak.  By the time we pulled up to the animal shelter she was fully herself.  She never let Bo out of her sight after that day. 

It took a year to smooth the aggression out of Bo toward other dogs. He soon became the loveable lunk he was by nature with a fan club anywhere he would go. Bo got his name from the neighborhood kids in Des Moines as they’d hang on him and go for a drag-along.  Bo was strong, like a bull… but more like Ferdinand the Bull5. The kids would skip around him sing-songing “Ba-bo-bo-Ba-bobobo… Bobo!” The name suited him, he liked it. So it became his. 

Zinn was with us all too briefly.  She died in my arms on election day of 2005 while playing outside with her brother where a weeping cherry tree now thrives in Pennsylvania.  I believe she held on until knowing both Bo and I would be alright in this world.  Dr. Witiak said as much, too.  He thought she knew she was sick for quite a while.  She was playing full speed with her brother outside.  I put down my hammer and climbed off the roof of my friend’s house to take a break with them.  I was watching them having a blast tearing around each other and wrestling. She stopped and looked over at me with a big wolfish smile. Then she collapsed as if a switch tripped the light out of her.  My friend heard my yell and hopped off the roof, grabbed Bo and threw open his little van.  I was trying to give Zinn CPR in the back.  Fred was driving over 100mph down our country roads to the veterinary.  We blew past a cop and the copper just watched us pass.  Bo never once looked behind him.  He stared ahead from the passenger seat out the dash window.  Bo knew she was already gone.  I still kicked in the door.  I felt bad about that.  The staff were so kind to play along.  She was dead.  Dr. Witiak still called everyone to order and they brought her into the emergency room with me.  They performed the motions of resuscitating Zinn.  I heard one of the junior techs mumble a confused statement “... but she’s already de(ad)...” which got cut short by one harshly hushed word from Dr. Witiak and they kept the motions going until he stopped. Dr. Witiak took off his mask and walked up to the side of me. He put his hand on my shoulder. He didn’t stand in front of me, he stood to the side of me which was really kind of him. “She’s gone. You did everything you could.  We did everything we could.”  He patted my shoulder and softly stepped out of the room leaving me with a very kind tech assistant as I shattered. I said goodbye to Zinn. I didn’t know I could take her home and bury her myself.  A week later they gave me the ashes and for years I couldn’t understand what to do with them.  That night the fellas took me and Bo out to our local and regular bar.  The juke box played our songs and the bartender, who rarely spoke to anyone, said he’d miss her.  He gave Bo an extra treat he’d brought in just for them. Bo and Zinn were the only two dogs allowed in that bar in those days.  I had heard this ex-cop barkeep say once to some fella bringing in his dog: “What the hell’re’ya doin’… no dogs.” This fella was confounded because he could see us down the long skinny room at our regular table.  “What about those dogs?” “Those aren’t dogs, that’s Bo and Zinn.”

Zinn had picked me. We met at a time in my life I needed grounding.  I was told I was the first person she ever engaged with.  Maybe it was true for both of us.  Bo became a huge part of my life thanks to her.  I learned so much from her in our short time together.  

Bo and I would continue on many adventures together.

In January of 2010 Bo came home after his surgery and never ran again. His gait of juggernaut muscle was then a slow amble that allowed time to relish moments as they came into view (or smell). We walked. We walked together for that last year, every day, twice a day. It was fascinating to witness him begin to slowly savor moments for the first time in his life of 10 years. This made the transition, and the sense of ticking time, soften.

I also learned how to walk that year, how to feel and let everything filter through each present moment. Each step would bring it closer, the end, for my best friend. And yet he showed me how this would not matter for here is a rose, and here is a stick, and here is the wind through the catalpa leaves ~ listen ~ and there behind us, slowly turn round, smell a dandelion visited by a bee.   

The walk, la caminata, is the conversation that meanders in equilibrium, flowing in the adaptable moments without future and only a past of nostalgic feeling. In Tango, la caminata is two people harmonizing movements between themselves and with all other partners in la ronda (the round, the line of dance).   We remain absolutely present with the music while adapting to the social movements of everyone around us… space, time, equilibrium… all the while remaining in motion. Sometimes imperceptible to the eye but deeply felt in the embrace, like the river reed feels still waters. 

With Bo I learned I could not practice what I thought was a “Tango Walk.” There actually is no “Tango Walk” in my opinion. It’s not something we create.  It is an expression of who we are and how we feel the music and the moment.  There is no reason to contrive it when we can just be it.  During our first nine years (2000-2009),  Bo and I always moved too fast. We often had our heads down.  We loved the exercise and the getting to places, but perhaps we missed too much of the journey.  Zinn was always more about the journey.  She knew things. The year of 2010 brought on a slowness that gave Bo this awareness which he then passed on to me.  

 The first wintry months of that year, up through Spring, I kept disturbing his peaceful amble the moment I tried to “Tango Walk.”  We had to walk so slowly so I thought why no practice “the Tango walk.” I soon grew  tired of saying “sorry” to Bo every time he would have to stop, look at me and inquire if I was ok.  I mean I was walking strangely, manufacturing this so-called “Tango Walk.” I was perplexing his ability to be lost in the moment, living in the present which he was sharing with me… but there I was contriving an activity.  He really did stop and look at me with a worried expression… and he would hold the look for longer than usual.  He was too old for “slow man” games.  Time was waning.  We had never had this dynamic between us apart from horsing around with the slow-man theory.6 He was concerned.

Dogs love and fear slow-man like little kids love being fun scared.  But the time for those games had ended. I think he just wanted me to be myself.  I wasn’t in a great place those days. I was stuck in the past and hoping the future would be better. I needed to change before it was too late.

In the months that followed, as Spring thawed further into Summer, I quit trying to contrive the walk on our daily ambles.  Instead, I put every effort into staying in the pocket of his moment. I started to focus on how my body and movements could more naturally arrive (gather) in smooth, dexterous equilibrium from moment to the next. In a relaxed state it was much easier to flow my movements in harmony with his. I focused more on the second half of each step, when we bring our legs (where they rejoin) back together while walking. In Buenos Aires in 2016 I learned this is called “el roce / rozar” — to sweep our equilibriums through center by bringing our thighs back together before moving onwards – but not our feet!

I worked on allowing my heels to absorb the arriving movements like the wave rolls toward the shore, without tension anywhere. The leg that was me, the one connected to the ground,  became more the leg that would move my entire being from one place to the next in fluid equilibrium.  I found that my heel was then naturally “landing” the free leg, absorbing my weight as the sole of the foot rolled into grounded equilibrium. The feeling reminded me of a calm ocean wave coming up through the sandy shore.  My weight – Gravity – began to settle nicely, sure footedly, as balance was sent as this wave from one ball of the foot to the other. Both feet always available like water through sand, both ready and willing receive my active weight. I was able to shed tension.  

Water is extremely difficult to compress.  So, too, our bodies shouldn’t either… or crumple.  We need our full volume – our full volume of water – our full presence in each moment in order to be fluid.  I spent that year exploring how to move like water, like mercury, liquid… the lack of tension combined with active connection through the leg that is the conduit through the ground was key. For tango dancers, I recommend taking note that both knees are equally soft and only the actively grounding leg has the knee that is more actively flexing. The free leg should never be bent more than the actively grounding leg. The traveling leg is free — inactive — flowing in the wake of the equilibrium. If it is resting, not bent more than the grounding leg, then this a sign that it is indeed free. If the free leg, the one not supporting us, is bent in front of the standing leg you are no longer in the present, nor are you able to move freely or swiftly.  It is impossible to exchange weight to the music or the moment. I call this “futuring.” The active grounding leg is the one with the muscles around our knee absorbing our weight and keeping us in a ready state to move - to send our bodies to the next place.  Also, if the free leg is being held off the floor or drawing its own movements with the foot… this is also “futuring” and not being present in the moment. The free leg must be free… like a weight on a string.  60/40 we call it at the studio.  Boxers, kickboxers, athletes all use this concept and it is proven to be the most ideal for swiftness, balance and power.   The concept that Tango dancers should be on one leg, in my opinion, is unfounded, taxing to the body and hinders the ability to be present and relaxed in the moment.

Walking with Bo that last year I had to be ready for slow motion changes of direction, to be mindful so as not to disturb his flow.  The only way to gain this was to be relaxed, to relinquish, to surrender into each moment with him.  Soles sinking, yawning, allowing everything to gather, relish, root and quietly observe with my friend what he was aware of in any given moment.  The harmonizing of pace and the moment, without thought, became an artful exploration of how to experience more meaningful time with him. For him it was savoring the smells all around. He was living a year of scents. This allowed me to arrive into each moment instead of going somewhere in the future. In classes I call this the gathering… gathering movement into a “centered now”… coming back to center, gathering our beings into the present and just being… being available, relaxed and ready for nothing or anything. The walks with Bo taught me this art of arrival simultaneous with the present. I would leave the flip phone at home.  Clocks were unthinkable.

Bo was showing me how to walk with feeling…

I think of him so very often, on walks whether it be down the grocery aisles, in the mountains of New Mexico, meandering through museums, perusing the stacks of stories in used book shops, and the walkabouts alone or with friends when it’s best to let thoughts drift and the moment just be. I try never to bring a watch and also turn off my phone completely so there is no time. La Caminata can be practiced anywhere.  It is us, not a thing for the tango stage. It is about learning how we move, who we are traveling in motion, and why it feels so good to share with others. Knowing our own walk grounds us, centers us and allows us to remain ourselves in motion. Bo was my best teacher, and I take that year with me everywhere I go. 

As winter returned with a brutally cold November and December, Bo wore a puffy navy blue down vest with silver snaps and brown suede shoulder patches. My father had made this vest some 30 years previous for my mother. I have only one photo of Bo in the puffy blue vest, trapped in an old flip phone I still keep with me in hopes one day it can be retrieved.  Yet, I see him so clearly in the memories of our last year of walks. The vest kept him warm. It embraced him. He was dashingly handsome in that puffy navy blue goose down vest with suede shoulder patches.  Everyone in town told him so. He would politely accept, “thank you much,” and we’d walk on.   

On the 22nd of December, 2010, Bo got low.   

The frozen ground was opened.  We lit a fire and warmed the December night while his body lay on top of his favorite blanket of brown wild horses in the small wooden library room outside of which where Zinn had passed.  Three close friends, who loved him too, and I laid him low along with Zinn’s ashes.  We drank to their lives and exchanged our favorite Bo stories, there are many, and the laughter shielded the cold further than the fire and our faces never froze that evening.   There is now a thriving weeping cherry tree that blooms as winter ends on that very spot, one of their favorite spots to sit and summer watch the lightning bug theater amid the towering catalpas down the sloping hill alongside the creek.   

Six years later, after falling off of a building7 and surviving with only a scratch,  I arrived in Buenos Aires to re-learn Tango from the beginning.  La guardia vieja, “the old guardsaw that I could walk.  El nene Masci, El Chino Perico and Juan Lencina8 all asked my main teacher, Monica Paz: “how does this tourist know how to walk?” It lead to them teaching me their dance, not the tourist moves, and be invited out with them to milongas. I am still seeking and honing my caminata. I do not have the walk, yet. I am in no rush. I do walk with feeling. La caminata, el abrazo y la música are the dance… the walk, the embrace and the music. I had put in the time and foundational work for my own personal journey. I was on my own road seeking my own caminata, and they could see it and feel it and it gained their respect to teach me how they actually dance. They didn’t sell me steps.  The doors opened to more authentic experiences learning with and from them because I had put in the time and effort to find the walk. Then they opened the view wider of how to walk. The real doors to social Tango opened up and I finally began to love the art of this social dance:  Argentine Tango.

It is all about walking with feeling.

~~~//*\~~~

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♥️ Please, please, please hit the like button if you enjoyed this piece. It really helps. It helps others find this project and these articles on Substack.

Special Thank you to Jutta Lehmer and also my Aunt Liz and cousins, Ted and Amanda, for all of your support, feedback, perspective and guidance with the written word.  To my parents for their read throughs.  To Batt Johnson for the expertise and generosity in exploring possible narration (one day), guiding me to understand the spoken word beyond the written.  To my friends who read early versions of this story and encouraged me to keep going: Risa, Summre, Susan L., Jennie H. and  “Cake.”   And to the dog shelter in rural central Iowa I stumbled upon and their brilliant ruse to get me to bring Bo home with me, too, when I only thought I needed one dog in my life.  I did need two.  To all my Des Moines family, Maine family,  Liverpool family, European family, Argentine family, Northern Americas family and the community I love here in Albuquerque!

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Man Ray’s Larmes “Tears” (1932)

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“The Story of Ferdinand” by Munro Leaf - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Ferdinand

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La Guardia Vieja is a term of endearment for those who experienced the Golden Era of tango in the 40s. Juan Lencina was a phenomenal teacher and influence for me, and a great friend. He got a kick out of the fact I could walk, but added “Hay que liberarse la cadera, pibe! (You gotta liberate your hips, kid.” I had been taught previously that the embrace was a frame… which locked my hips up. Juan Lencina chucked all that rubbish on day one and I can’t thank him enough for it. He passed away a month before my second trip (2017). El Nene Masci was a cheeky and impatient teacher, impatient is if he were an older brother tasked to teaching some tricks to a younger sibling. I had to really know Tango systems, movements and navigations for he would only show a movement twice and if I didn’t “get it” well enough on the 2nd try he would move onto something completely different. I loved the challenge of having to know movement and alignment and extrapolate it in real-time. Monica Paz was a wonderful teacher who facilitated these lessons with the great milongueros and later she would guide me further into understanding how *the feeling* was to be transcended. El Nene started off the first class with some bullshit *tourist move* called “the Americana” of all things. It was deflating until Monica said to him: “con respeto, Nene. Este pibe sabe caminar. Fijate. (With respect, Nene. This kid knows how to walk. Check it out).” He was skeptical until he saw me walk with Monica. “Cómo este turista sabe caminar, pero cómo?” “Sí! No?” Then the real lesson(s) began with El Nene. We went straight to signature movement possibilities of his personal expression of the music . El Chino Perico came to the studio on afternoon to do just a one-hour lesson at $200! That’s a lot of cabbage, but he was 80 years old and considered “el último milonguero” (the ultimate / the last milonguero). He also started out with a tourist move until Monica says “con respeto, Chino, pero fijate que este pibe sabe caminar.” “¿Cómo este turista sabe caminar?” After witnessing me at least have a foundation of the walk he says “Pero… ¿Cómo sabe este turista caminar!?” “Síííí, no?” He then went on to teach me for almost 3 hours, with enthusiasm, moves he loved and even set up an obstacle course that he and his mates used to do as youth to practice. It was intense and rich. Then he invited us out, me, Monica, Barbie, with him to find a milonga to go to together. In NYC, Carlos Horacio Funes befriended me at The Ukranian after acknowledging with a hand gesture approving of my walking with the music (and my partner). He invited me to sit with him during the milonga. I always loved seeing him whenever I could make it to Milonga Ensueño back when Gayle and Tioma ran it on Monday nights in the Lower East Side (NYC). The walk will open up doors around the world in this dance!

The predictability of the flow

I used to think la ronda (the social dance floor) was mercurial… a shapeshifting, chaotic mass of bodies moving off the music where at any moment there could be a collision. But la ronda is not mercurial by its definition of ‘subject to sudden or unpredictable changes of mood or mind.’  Since 2013, when I experienced dancing in Europe at encuentros where the dancers were actually harmonizing movements to the music, my opinion changed forever and I made a lot of long-lasting friendships.  The ronda is a constant. It is the amalgamation of the energy of everyone present.  It wishes to flow and harmonize. If we try to navigate dancing our limiting Tango sequences outside of the music and harmony of the whole… it will feel restrictive and chaotic.  However, there’s an inherent flow with predictability, almost like in chess, in la ronda when all of the dancers are dancing with the music.  The music has patterns, structure, in each measure (compás) and in each phrase (frase).  I love how cómpas means both a musical measure and also a navigational compass.  This is why I named my foundations classes: Beginnings | Compás.   

If we allow the music to drive our movements we begin to intuitively have a sense of where space may open and where other dancers around us may move.  It becomes similar to how  jazz musicians have a sense where, musically, each other will go with the music.  The music does tell us when to walk and when to turn.  I remember milongueros asking me  “por qué los yanquis giran tanto cuando la música manda ‘ni al pedo girás!”?  Why do you Yanks turn (make circles) so much when the music is telling you ‘not even if you are plastered drunk should you turn!’?  Yanquis (sounds almost like “junkies” in the Argentine accent) is how most people in Argentina I lived among delineated folk from the USA, since we are all “Americans” from Tierra del Fuego all the way up to the northern seas of Canada.  It’s all “the Americas.”  So to distinguish regions, I was a yanquis (yankee), even though I’m a Phillies fan (baseball humor).  One of the most common questions I was asked by milongueros and milongueras was:  “por qué los yanquis giran tanto?  Giran, giran, giran (why do the yanks turn so much?  Always spinning around and around and around?)” They would make similar gestures with their hands like an out of control merry-go-round. They didn’t understand all the spinning when the music, to them, was saying: “Walk!  Don’t even think of spinning!” It was perplexing to them. “Ni al pedo voy a girar cuando la música manda que caminamos! (not even plastered-drunk would I spin when the music is clearly flowing linearly!)” I lost count of how many asked me in the milongas of Buenos Aires. I luckily had focused more on la caminata (the walk) and had more tools to flow with them in las rondas.

Perhaps this intuition we may gain is the hive mentality that we humans sometimes ignore as we subscribe to the illusory idea that we are singular individuals. Maybe. I don’t care much for being an individual, but rather to be myself while being a healthy part of my community. I feel a lot of freedom in this. I don’t feel restricted in the least. I quite enjoy the idea of equilibrium and helping balance the flow for the whole.  Never once have I felt restricted in expressing the dance in this mindset.  

How may we harmonize? 

By knowing our instrument — our own bodies. By hearing others, sensing their ondas (vibes) and listening for the melodic rhythms — the current that is the music. If one person starts singing out their own solos, showing off or completely ignoring that there is music, then the others around them get pulled out of harmony. The sense of togetherness – sharing space – is strained. The music is telling us when to girar (spin/turn) and when to caminar (walk)… if we listen! 

La ronda is the hive, the music of the tanda (the social collective agreement)  sets the current for the smooth movements of the dancers together. In the tanda, etymologically meaning “a social collective agreement”1, all those dancing are agreeing to dance with their partner – and everyone else on la pista (the dance floor) – to this particular grouping of songs by a particular orchestra. 

If we only learn steps, then it will be improbable there will be space or ability to complete those sequences in a moving ronda. The music does not care for sequences. La ronda is not impressed by sequences. The dancers around us are not enthused by sequences out of sync with the music. No one who understands Tango will be admiring anyone performing a sequence, especially if it is disrupting others and off music.  

The most admirable dancers I have ever witnessed — the ones embodying the music and respecting la ronda – which is respecting all the humans also sharing the floor — all had these qualities in common: they gave space, they adapted to space, they flowed in their space and they danced to the music. They danced to the music.  They all danced to the music which means even if one pair is following the piano, another the bandoneon, perhaps another is melodically flowing with the cantante (singer), and another is marking rhythmically with the bandoneon… they can all still harmonize because they are listening and sharing the commonalities of space, floor and the music. For them there was no sequence.  I don’t recall watching any of these gran bailarines de la pista (great social dancers in social milongas) perform figures. They understood their instrument. I appreciated and admired the gran milongueros who were immune to the delusions of grandeur or posturing.  If they did a little showboating it was in good humor and well within the flow and safety of la ronda.  These were fantastic moments and usually encouraged banter between spectating friends and the milonguero/as dancing.  Tango was alive and living.  They attended to the well-being of their partners and those around them. They gave more space to pairs who may be struggling. They kept la ronda moving. It did not matter if their space was ebbing or flowing because they were in equilibrium. They had gravity and gravitas. They knew where they were and how to move effortlessly into the space opening up for them.  This is what I observed with the best of dancers I was lucky enough to get to know and learn from and witness:  Juan Lencina, Monica Paz, El Chino Perico, El Chiche, El Nene Masci to name a few.

There are no “mistakes,” only the prisons of tension.

Setting aside the social agreements of dancing socially in a milonga, let’s talk about we as individuals and what we can bring as dancers to each moment.  At the studio in late August, while I was trying to finish the 9th draft of The Bull of Doubt (an article still yet to publish), quite a few dancers were brave enough to express their fears and concerns for making mistakes. Even though I say in every class that “mistakes” are welcome, even blessings in Tango, I know this is a hard concept for a lot of us in our own life experiences and how we have adapted to life. I try to remind everyone that the only “mistake” we can make in Tango is to carry tension - worry - because this becomes a weight our partners will have to burden with us. At the moment we are just talking about the context of movement, and not the social setting agreements.  Mistakes will happen, but our best plan is to allow the body to move and shed doubt, shake off worry, and just do the best we can in the moment.

I try to remind everyone in classes that the dance is not a native language to any of us on this planet.   Some of us will be born in closer proximity to it, within a cultural epicenter that will make it more readily accessible; however, like all art, it is accessible to any human who seeks it. So if we view Tango as a language we are all learning we can forgive any grammatical (technique) shortcomings and I am sure most of us will agree that as long as we communicate with curiosity, generosity and soul we will have fun understanding and following each other’s side of the conversation. 

"No mistakes in the tango, darling, not like life. It’s simple. That’s what makes the tango so great. If you make a mistake, get all tangled up, just tango on." - Al Pacino ( Scent Of A Woman2 ) 

Even if this movie scene isn’t quite the social Tango I seek and love, it was still two souls enjoying a moment. The struggle of dusting ourselves off and picking ourselves back up to carry on is deeply rooted in this idea of vulnerability.  We tried. We “failed.” We had the courage to keep going.   Be vulnerable to make mistakes, do our best, be in the moment and allow ourselves to be felt unbridled, untethered, unrestricted… give!  

This fear of “doing it wrong,” is very common.  It can paralyze a dancer.  Once in our heads – when we are thinking too much with our brains –  it is very difficult to relax.  Since Gravity is not us, but external, we can remove our egos, our fears from the situation and it becomes more like asking a friend to help us. The floor is also our friend. It is a constant, depending on the venue, beneath our feet.  Why not surrender to our best selves, the present, the moment. Surrender to the idea at hand, when realizing, and make it live! Surrender to Gravity! Surrender to this concept of having NO plan as a navigator… be in the moment, adapt, flow.  Let’s have fun discovering this new language and see where the conversation leads us, equally and together.

Harmonizing doesn't mean we sing the same notes exactly at the same time.

Music would be boring to listen to if it were all the same note being played at the same time by all of the musical instruments and voices.  Same as in the dance.  If we allow gravity to connect us… AND OUR FREE LEG… to the floor (if we are holding our free leg off the floor it is no longer free – it is a prisoner of tension) then we feel the subtle shifts in equilibrium that allow musical cambios de peso (exchanges of weight) and the exchanging of systems (parallel and crossed).   We begin to feel more connected,  of being in an inclusive current, even when we are in a pause.  Like river reeds, juncos, we can still flow in the music in a pause.

The gravity of doing something wrong… let it go.  I love “mistakes” when there is no tension. It is like hanging out with friends and one person mishears someone and says:

“Wait, did you just say ‘dingo’?!” 

“No!? I said ‘don’t you know,’ but that is hilarious… I wish I had said ‘dingo’.”

“Oh, I am sorry, I thought you said ‘and there it was, dingo!’”

“I’m glad you heard that, dingo!”

And now you have an inside joke to share and take with you.  Something similar to the above happened in Liverpool with my mate, Jayne (a boss artist and dear friend of mine), when we were talking with a neighbor of hers who must of mistook the local saying “dey do do da’ don’ dey do (they do do that don’t they, though)” into “dingo.” It took Jayne a day to realize why the neighbor kept saying “dingo.” Now Jayne and I have “dingo” in our language. Tango is like this for me. It is way more fun when moments like this arise in the dance.  No pasa nada (no worries, let’s keep going).  Go with the flow and free Gravity to do its job enriching our embraces and connections with the floor.

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The best-laid plans of mice and… we humans.

Having plans for the future is humorous at best, en la ronda tanto como la vida (in the social dance round just as much as in life). How to transfer the feeling of this dance to others essentially boils down to exploring ways to help dancers remain active in the moment – to not future or anticipate.  “Futuring” is a term I use when a dancer's toes are darting out first expecting the body of limbs and weight to follow in equilibrium.  When this happens the dancer is in two places at one time and out of equilibrium.  Only the actively grounding leg has the connection, power and ability to send our torsos through space in equilibrium.  

To be in the moment we need tools, that is to say understanding of components of movements.  Let’s take martial arts and boxing for an example, just for a moment.  My experience all throughout my teens was learning patterns in various martial arts.  While they were interesting to learn they also trapped me into a pattern. They were often long sequences and the sequences changed every other week or so. I paid for my own lessons with my dishwashing job on weekends.  I only had one good teacher of martial arts in those years, her name was Susie.  She was an anomaly of thick glasses, greasy hair, a cackling laugh and a stride as if coming off a motorcycle.  She worked at the Dollar Store during the day and bounced a New Jersey biker bar roadhouse some nights.  She had a reputation of marching big burly dudes out by the ear or in a wrist lock giving them a good talking to.  I learned Tai Chi from her and my brother and I were pretty much her only students for a while.  She taught us how to move.  I don’t rightly recall sequences in her lessons.   I still use everything she taught me still to this day.  The rest of the martial arts I quit after hearing a stand-up bit by the infamous Redd Foxx when he made the comment: “now how will that help me in a brick fight?”  I asked myself the same question.  I stopped studying martial arts when I left for Bahía Blanca, Argentina at age 18 to live for a year.  In that year a brick and belt fight descended upon my friends and me on the streets one night.  It happened so fast.  None of that training helped one bit.  I grabbed my friends Alexia and Marianna and we booked it out of there with the rest of the group.   

I have taken up learning western boxing and Muay Thai kickboxing since February of this year.  Because of the 1980’s Jean-Claud Van Damme movies I never had an interest in studying Thai kickboxing.  It was too flamboyant and showy for me.   Argentine Tango suffers the same fate with all of the stage tango shows (tango del escenario) and Dancing with the Stars, which have about as much to do with social Tango as JCVD has to do with authentic Muay Thai kickboxing.

I find a lot of parallels between western boxing, Muay Thai and Argentine social Tango.   They exist in the present and rely on bodies free of compression or tension.   Groundedness and use of the balls of the feet to pull energy from the ground is the same. Sixty-forty ratio of remaining grounded, this is the distribution of weight for faster reflexes without tension. Sixty on the power leg (the actively grounding leg), and forty percent on the stabilizing or “free” leg.  Responding to our partner’s movements and understanding inside and outside partner alignment is also similar.  What I love about learning boxing and Muay Thai is that we hone components and then work on transitioning between them in combinations to better understand each component. Components in boxing would be: the jab, the cross, the hook, the uppercut, the slip, the parry, the pivot to name a few. I use the same approach in guiding Tango by identifying components and then studying how to transition into and from each one, why they work and the how’s and when’s. Components in Tango would be:  the gather (juntar), the roce (sweep), the exchange of weight (el cambio de peso), forward movement, backward movement, lateral in contrabody, lateral in ipsilateral, the pivot, the coil, el cruce1 (the cross) and el corte (the cut in suspension) to name few.

To be present in Tango as much as in boxing we need to understand the components and how to transition into and out of each one fluidly – without thinking – as we move into and out of spaces available to us.   The music will guide us.  The floor will support and give us power and energy to move.  Gravity will help us shed tension and communicate more clearly.

Luckily Tango is generally not violent, although there are always a few selfish or ignorant dancers performing wildly off the music.  Occasionally the innocent get kicked, spiked with a heel, elbowed or plowed into like bumper cars.  This happens when certain dancers are completing sequences they learned and are proudly displaying them for all to see.  They have not yet realized that no one cares.  People just want to dance and have a safe time uninterrupted in conversation with their partner.  They just wish to dance in the flow of la ronda and listen to the music.

So how do we achieve this?  How do we create harmony, and more importantly how do we find the road to understanding how to move ourselves in the why’s and when’s the music is offering us?  The music is the key.  Relaxation is the key.  Yet, to use the word “relax” we become tense.

“Gravity” is the new “relax”

I rely on the constants.  Change is constant. Time is constant, even if it is relative it still flows onwards. Gravity is constant on Earth, depending on the ground beneath our feet2.  Change is good. Exploring how we dance the music and with which musical instrument, from one valley (between musical phrases3) to the next, is far more dynamic than any possible dance sequence.  I’ll stand by this statement long after I physically leave this planet.

Time is relative, indeed, but it is also constant.  We know clocks are not necessary for truly living on this planet and neither is counting the beats for expressing ourselves with the music.  I mean this in the sense of chasing the rhythms by stepping in a 1,2,3,4 or 1-and-2, 3, 4 beat, for example, instead of allowing the music to sweep us through center on the rhythmic timing or in melodic rhythm. Why chase time when we can roll with it?  Tango music and Time do not need us to count or quantify the moments given us. If we are observing a musical ronda, meaning the dancers are actually dancing to the music and not just making movements on top of the floor, we will observe expressions of Time relative to the pairs in conversation.  One pair may be following the rhythmic current of the piano or the contrabajo (upright bass).  Another may be lingering like two river reeds (juncos) with the cantante (the singer) or the bandoneón stretching a moment of deep feeling.   Each pair will be having their own moment in distinct expressions of Time.  However, the current always moves onwards. They are all passing through the same moment.  The song still lasts the same amount of seconds for everyone.  They are in harmony because they are in the music.  These recorded songs we dance to the vast majority of the time at milongas will be consistently the same length of time as when they were recorded.  This expression of Time, for me, is the beauty of life.   We may slow down our experiences, our senses, for moments and then allow It to sweep us away.

Gravity is also constant, depending on the ground beneath our feet.  Without it there is no dance as we know it and enjoy it.  I think we can all agree that given the choice, we’d rather experience Tango with gravity.   Since it is a constant and it is already connecting us to the ground, rooting us with the ability to move, why do we fight against it so often when learning this dance or teaching it to others?  Why are so many dancers told to “be light” and even more so told “to be on one leg” when this is an artform of exchanging weights and wordless feeling?  It makes no sense to me, whatsoever.

“Gravity” is better than “relax.”

“Relax” is not a word anyone wishes to hear in a moment of tension.  It is a habit I have been trying to break as an instructor.  Over dinner the other night with my friends Mona & George, Mona expressed how intellectually she always understands what is needed to be “fixed,” but since the how was the struggle, the last thing she wishes to hear in a moment of tension is the word “relax.”  It is a bad habit most instructors have.  It’s as hard to break, I find, as truly liberating the free leg when we are dancing. So, I started using “gravity” a couple of weeks ago and it is really proving to be more positive in helping students to relax since it is no longer directly about them.  “Relax” connotes something we are doing wrong. Gravity, conversely, is external. It is an ally that will help us understand and feel the how’s of movement which in turn opens us up to the exploration of the why’s of moving in certain ways instead of others.

Gravity being external relieves us of actively trying to connect with the floor.  If we provide surface area, by not scrunching our bodies, Gravity will do all of the work for us in connecting us effectively with the floor in a way our partners can feel and understand. Sometimes during classes and practicas all I have to say now is – “gravity, gravity, gravity” – and the students feel their shoulders relax out of their ears.  This allows more natural weight to flow through the soles of their feet. This grounds them with greater potential for movement with the floor. They enter the current the music offers and off they go into the flow.  Gravity, with the floor, have been our best friends these past weeks.  I have witnessed dancers,  who have been hindered by tension and fear of “doing it wrong,” begin to shed this restricting fear that grips their bodies with binding tension.  It is such an awesome experience to be able to be there with them and experience the beauty of uncoiling the negative tension and then allow natural coiling4 and releasing of positive tension that comes naturally when we walk contralaterally (contracuerpo).  If you look and feel like John Wayne walking, this is not contralateral.  Paul Newman would be a much better choice, as he has nice contralateral movements… more fun to move like Cool Hand Luke5. 

“The best-laid schemes o'mice an' men Gang aft agley.”- Robert Burns (1785). Translated from Scottish English to American English:  “The best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry.”

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Thank you to Jutta Lehmer for early proofreads, edits and challenges. To my parents for help segmenting this idea into 3 parts instead of 1. Always so much appreciated.

Next week we’ll continue with 6.2~ Gravity (part 2): The fear of doing it “wrong.” and then 6.3~ Gravity (part 3): The future has no gravity. Soon we will finally get to articles: 7~ The Bull of Doubt. Followed by 8~ Octopossible Navigations

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Cool Hand Luke. One of my favorite films. When we dance with tension we do have “…failure to communicate.”

[Footnotes — a convenient tip — click the number to view the footnote which usually contains a helpful anecdote, video link or definition. Then click the number next to the footnote to return to your place in the text.]

One of the greatest challenges I had the first ten years trying to dance Tango was relaxing: relaxing in the social milonga, relaxing in a chaotic ronda1, relaxing in my own abilities, relaxing in the music.  It was a lot of trouble trying to relax.  It took me a very long time, 11 years, in fact, before I found the confidence to ease into the flow.

I’d like to save you all that time and trouble. 

I’ve been down a lot of bad roads, roads leading nowhere, roads with no views, and occasionally some nice moments here and there.  But I always felt a bit lost, caged-in and confused why some days were good and why most nights were bad.  It wasn’t until I found my compass for what social Argentine Tango is in Buenos Aires in 2016 that I began to consistently, almost daily, enjoy this dance.  

“I’ve been to the zoo.”

One of my favorite opening lines of any play is in Edward Albee’s “Zoo Story” (the original, not the mundane “upgrade”)2. I dislike zoos. They make me very uncomfortable, observing animals that had no choice in being there. It’s too crowded and cacophonic for me. Tango had a similar effect and affect on me early on. There’s no sense of the natural world, just cages and walls separating animals. I had this experience with Tango the first decade of just cage after cage after cage on a winding path, sequence after sequence after sequence with no sense of place. How can we truly understand the animal outside of its natural environment? How does one relax when they feel caged in and can’t see or understand their surrounding?

I attest my first awakening to a sense of place to a teacher I studied with from 2016-2022, Monica Paz3.  What I had been lacking up to that point was context for what this dance was. From 2005-2016 Tango had been shown to me as patterns of the feet going places. In Argentina no one I studied with spoke of the feet — only feeling — and where the bodies were going.  Six months before I’d make this first Tango trip to Buenos Aires, I had taken a private lesson with Monica in the U.S.  It was in May of 2016 a couple days after I had, yet again, quit Tango for good, this time forever. I had to travel up to 2 hours one-way in those days to find a milonga (in Philly or NYC). My work van was a clunker and a real pain to unload all of the tools to get to either city. The milonga must have been a chaotic ronda and maybe there had been too many cool kids or something… I just had enough of the frustration and lack of sense of “why am I doing this?” Just after making that morning’s coffee declaration to myself — “I am done with Tango” — and feeling quite chuffed at a sense of freedom, I received a phone call. It was Edilia. Edilia was one of two Colombian grandmothers who were also in my first Tango classes. She was the epitome of decorum, grace and poise. She was always encouraging and she was quite a lovely dancer. I was a bit surprised by the call.

“Hello.”

“Hello Graham, this is Edilia, there is a very interesting teacher in from Buenos Aires.”

“Ah, well, you see I have decided to quit Tango for good this morning, I…”

“That is nice to hear. She is giving private lessons in northern New Jersey. Only two hours away. You should seek her out. I will give you the information.”

“I… yeah, ok. I’ll get a pen.”

There was still half a cup of coffee in the mug. It cooled while I jotted down the info. Edilia went on to tell me a little more about this teacher before naming her.  It was Monica Paz. I had been familiar with her PractiMilonguero interviews4. I watched almost all of these interviews after having been dragged out to a large group class some years previous, I think it may have been in 2012. I was not dancing at the time. I was in one of the several dozen stretches of quitting Tango. Luckily these friendly folk were quite persistent in calling me up to encourage me to come out for a special workshop with an Argentinian teacher. Monica Paz was very old school, poised, and she stood out in the room. She did not teach any steps that night in Pennsylvania. This upset some folk in the room who were expecting some fancy, and impossible-to-dance-socially, figure. That was the rage in the U.S. in those years. She did not yield to this expectation. I remember her saying something like ‘I will teach you the Tango you need to know, the one that is my culture.’ The class was challenging. It was only on a milonguero-style changing of weight.

After Edilia’s phone call that fated morning in May 2016, when Tango yet again refused to be “broken up with,” I wrote an email to Monica inquiring about either a 2 or 3 hour private lesson. The location was a two-hour drive each direction. She agreed to one hour with the possibility of two depending on how we got along after a coffee. We had a nice coffee. Afterward she asked, with a slight grimace, “what… step… would you like to work on?” I replied, “no step. I’ve seen your interviews and I can’t tell what the milongueros are doing, it looks like nothing… but all of their partners look so happy, calm and swept into the music.” She smiled and said “Really? You wish to learn this? Truly? I will be your teacher.” We had a two-hour private lesson that day and I knew I wanted to start over from the beginning — and build a proper foundation this time.

A few months passed into August when I fell off of a building I was restoring. It was a freak accident. I fell 18 feet and landed on the asphalt, on my stomach and face, missing an open steel door, an A/C unit, twisted steel we’d been dismantling and the scaffolding. My large drill with a 16” auger bit miraculously fell after I did and somehow landed on the concrete ledge above me. One of the temporary wooden railings hadn’t been properly re-secured after adjusting one of the 20-foot long wooden pillars I was installing on Touchstone Theatre in Bethlehem, PA that summer. The fella working with me that day saw me fall past him and heard me hit the asphalt. By the time he got down to ground level I was standing, checking for bones and quite pissed off at myself for falling. He looked at me agape and began to dry heave. I thought: ‘great, I’ve gone and fractured my back, again! (like I did in 2000).’ I couldn’t feel or see any bones or blood. “There’s not a scratch on you dude… what the f…” Elvis was pale. His name was Elvis, I was not seeing the Elvis. I was mad with adrenaline. “Alright, let’s get back to work.” An hour later Elvis said he couldn’t work anymore, he was too shaken up. It was the last day he worked on the job. He thought I had been killed in the fall by the sound. He thought he was going to find me mangled in a heap. I should have been. I finished out the day and on the drive home, coming over a crest where town faded to cornfields, the sun was setting into the summer’s haze over the smooth Blue Ridge mountains to the North. I had to pull the truck over. The flashbacks of the fall came rolling over me in strong sets of relentless waves. The sun faded low and long into the quiet. I told myself I needed to change my life. I was a workaholic. Construction would be the death of me. “I’ll return to Argentina, this time to learn this (cuss word) dance.”

That night I contacted Monica. She recommended November and December. I booked a plane ticket to Buenos Aires for a two month trip that very night.

I studied intensively with her that first trip to Buenos Aires for Tango. We had 6 hours a week of private lessons and long discussions about Argentine Tango, the music, the history, the people and why they dance. I spent scores of hours reading, transcribing lyrics, inquiring about the Lunfardo (prison slang) references, studying my notes, practicing and experiencing the social milongas she recommended.   We also studied with three guest milongueros that I admired from her PractiMilonguero interviews:  Juan Lencina, Eduardo “el nene” Masci, and Roberto “el chino perico” Ponce.  It seemed to me, studying with them, that they cared only for the music, la caminata (the walk) and the social element of what a milonga was. Tango for them was life, not a dance with steps. It was an expression of life, feeling — sentimiento! The flow of the ronda was more important than any sequence.  And, they all believed in a relaxed body, liberated hips, and connection with the floor.  The floor was their best friend, I heard this over and over again. They used the floor to move themselves through spaces. There was no stepping with the free leg and then trying to catch up to it.

The baseline of what I learned in those two months in Buenos Aires dismantled almost everything I had been told what Tango was up to that point. Up to that point from 2005-2016 Tango felt like walls so tall with no doors or windows. Some days light and music poured in, not always, sometimes it would rain and it all sounded the same. I could never see the landscape. It was like being captive in a zoo and having food launched over the walls – plop – “here is another sequence with no context for why you are here, kid.”

Monica was the first to introduce me to the concept of sending my torso with the standing leg (we use “actively grounding leg5” at the studio). It opened up a pathway to see the correlation with the martial arts, especially Tai Chi, that I studied in my teens. I was then able to bring in those experiences into my own dance, the idea of sixty-forty (60/40)6 from martial arts and the connective movements I learned with Tai Chi.  She was also the first I recall talking about inside and outside partner navigation, too, as half torso and full torso alignments.  I’ve been able to take this further into my own by infusing what I love about maps and navigating with compasses. I like being in places unknown and figuring out my bearings.  That provided me  context for plugging in yet another passion into the dance.  I had two contexts from my life I could add to Tango. Thirdly, she was the first to place credence, importance on the two methods of collecting: juntar (to bring together) and rozar (to brush).  I prefer the word gathering, also a definition of juntar, as I find it more inclusive as in experiences shared. However, most people use the word “collect” for centering the body between movements, I just don’t like this word because it reminds me of taxes.  We use rozar / el roce as “to sweep / sweep” in classes instead of “brush”.  Tomato, tomatoe, it’s all accents.  This woke me up to yet another love of mine: storytelling.  A story is only as good as its pauses, the lulls that bring the listener closer into the moment so they feel actively engaged, complicit if you will, in the story’s creation.

Think about this for a second, though.  After eleven years of learning Tango in North America… (with one exception—>click the footnote)7… 11 years… I get to Buenos Aires and learn for the first time how important those three elements are: how to send intention, where to move and why we pause.

The day the walls fell.

I found Tango not in the steps, but in the correlation of this dance to all the things in life that I love, respect and that inspire me.   Tango is a folkloric dance, one forged in an amalgamation of cultures converging in foreign lands yearning to connect, understand and be understood when language would most often prove a barrier.  I find that seeking understanding through social constructs, community, human codes has enriched connecting with this dance the most.   

I was glad to have met an authentic source for helping me feel what I was supposed to be feeling in this dance and how, with each private lesson, understand in body what it is to convey that in the dance with my partner. I wonder if it is like not having sight and having someone describe the place you are in and it slowly reveals as something so completely different than was expected. I still had to find my own way, but there was at least bedrock being exposed on which to survey and build.

That year, late November of 2016, the walls fell to a vast landscape in all directions.  I remember feeling in that moment, standing in the studio on calle Riobamba, of having the world open to me and the serenity I feel while witnessing slow setting suns. The world of Tango was vast and this comforted me.  I didn’t have to know it all, only enjoy the views and in my own time set off to explore interesting paths. I had the tools I would need – a compass, social context and the ground beneath my feet – and was being shown known paths, authentic paths, experienced paths by Monica and the milongueros. The learning of how to navigate myself more efficiently began in Buenos Aires after 11 years of stumbling in the dark. This past year with Puerta al Tango I’ve learned so much more about how to navigate with others from the deeply enriching experience of guiding this dance. I use the word guiding because I wish to earn the title of teacher.  I am very confident in my ability, experience and knowledge of navigating and understanding landscapes.  So, I use the word guide, as was suggested to me by my friend and current mentor, Brigitta Winkler.

Like most things in life, simplicity is richness.

Tango is also more about my passions in life than just dancing Tango. This dance comes alive inside of me when I incorporate my life into it, things I love: writing, words, conversations, ideas, animals, animal movements, sounds in nature, sounds of working (when I was a carpenter – not the power tools so much), the music, correlations, boxing, Muay Thai, Tai Chi, unbridled laughter, compassion, and an untiring desire to understand and hopefully be understood.

I am thankful for having found authentic guidance for understanding this dance and having had the opportunity, the experience, to learn and live it in Buenos Aires for month stretches at a time between 2016-2022. The experiences are invaluable, having solid ground beneath my feet and no walls penning me in with steps and figures.

Tango in the Desert is all about this — exploration — and questioning all I’ve been told in the past. I question it all until it holds its own. Within Puerta al Tango I relish this time to seek out my own truths, verifying them for myself, being curious of potential in sharing movement, and being open to ideas of how others may experience what I know in my gut to be true. It is a journey. I am glad I focused more on how to navigate rather than memorizing paths.

Saving you time and trouble… I hope these writings will expedite your own enjoyment of your own journey with Tango by adding perspective and insight learned from a lot of trial and open-minded experience. Tango is not steps, in my opinion. It can be if you like, but jazz is not playing notes. They are both untethered expressions of feeling — sentimiento.

Please take a moment to click  the ❤️ icon to like this article as well as any of our previous articles. It helps us grow on Substack allowing new readers to become aware of Tango in the Desert. Leaving comments and letting me know in person how you’ve enjoyed what has been written is so much appreciated and I thank you! Please consider becoming a supporting member to help us fund, sustain and grow this project. I will, however, continue to keep the written postings available —free — for all readers. 

What’s on Deck: Honing Intuition pt.1 | Octopossible & the guiding 8’s

Then in some order… (publication these past 3 weeks was delayed by over-drafts of ideas).

• Honing Intuition pt. ? | The Bull of Doubt - how surrender and vulnerability opens us to strengths

• Honing Intuition pt. ? | The Owl, the Rook and the Jackdaw ~ an ornithological guide to la mirada y el cabeceo

• Honing Intuition pt. ? | Moths to the Flame -No- ¡Que la música nos manda!

• Honing Intuition pt. ? | El Oso & bearing the burden of stewardship - why we don’t need leaders and we don’t need followers.

• Working Sounds | Molinetes are triangles (not grapevines) ~how the sounds of the working class may have shaped Tango.

• The 2 halves of us | Ipsilateral / Contralateral conjugations ~ keys to unlocking the two solar systems of tango: parallel (paralelo) and crossed (cruzado)

• Honing Intuition pt. ? | Con mi perro ~ how I learned to walk the last year of my Bo’s life… my teacher on four paws.

• Driving Tango | the sightless accelerator and the clutch-easing navigator. Exploring tandas as mini roadtrips each with a hand on the steering wheel.

Massive thanks to Jutta Lehmer for slugging through so many of the drafts these past 3 weeks. There have been over 8 drafts of what will now be article #7, and two completely new articles deriving/prequeling “The Bull of Doubt” which should publish in the near future.  Thank you, Jutta, for your keen observations, support and challenging me when I make statements that I have yet to fully back up. I am so thankful and appreciative for your time and editorial skills.  If there are grammatical mistakes in this article that is fully on me for making changes after proofs!

Thank you to whatever it is that keeps my dumbarse alive all the times I should’ve died8, and Tango for being so patient with me until I came to understand that it is a reflection of life and feeling and will show us how we truly are in the moment.

Please visit our website at: www.puerta-al-tango.com and check out our October 12-13th workshops of dancing dynamically in small spaces, embodying much of what we have written about up to the point.  Workshops October 12-13 Link

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8

Below are photos of the job that “fell” tango into my present and every day life… It happened, and I don’t know how or why… but it changed my life and I’m going with it…

all-in.

Photos of the job: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/yh2NU5Z4pEZmw9Xu/

An award for the work: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/5VtzxzEsw8ZRTh5E/

Tension is the enemy of movement.  

The first time I heard this phrase was from Brigitta Winkler when she was in the studio working with us. I had also hired her expertise to learn how to be a better guide in tango. It was a game changing experience. She introduced me to Steve Paxton, an an experimental dancer and choreographer most known for developing contact improv. It was the same day he passed away, February 20, 2024.  We warmed up as dancers using his dancing spine exercise.

It changed me.

I had already been challenged by Brigitta in May of 2023, when we first met and became friends, that I was missing my full potential as a dancer because I was exploring the dance only as I had been taught. I knew it to be true the instant she had the professional compassion to say it to me. I respect her and her honesty, immensely. It was the first time I felt spoken to as a dancer, pursuing Tango as an art-form, as a human, as an explorer of movement and potential. It opened the gateway to seeking with curiosity ways to correlate the music, the lyrics, feelings, emotions, sentiment, human codes, contexts, sense of being, sense of place and how to find the walking harmony between two humans collaborating in a ronda of other humans also in (hopefully) unplanned movement.

Dancing the spine

The way Brigitta introduced us that day, February 20th, was gathering ourselves into a circle and centering ourselves, individually, over our own relaxed feet. The exercise entailed roaming through our own bodies, exploring where tension may be found and releasing this inhibition into the floor by imagining our spines dancing between our feet.  Key word is between, not over one foot. This video link shows it beautifully.

Reflecting nature –natural movement– Small Dance is a unique and succinct example of this idea. (YouTube Link).

Essentially we want to seek natural movements in Tango.  To do so we need curiosity, exploration and self-awareness while we seek the tools to help us liberate our bodies from negative tension (restrictive tension).  There is good tension, but I prefer to harness this in select moments of: coiling, spiraling, gathering into suspension and dropping into pre-motion (aka “the drop” which is a boss term coined by two nyc dancers, Thuy and MV).  We will dive into these ideas in the weeks ahead.

But first, the spines need to be liberated… and the hips! 

In the video link “Small Dance” those micro-movements are attainable because the body (spine and hips, especially) are liberated and working as one being.  I use this exercise in classes to help us, as dancers, get into our own bodies, leave the day behind, connect ourselves with the ground (not the surface of the floor –sink deeper in) and then we physically connect with the persons to our left and right and thusly we are connected with the entire ring of dancers. The result is a sea-like flow… or like the reeds flowing in the breeze in harmony like in the Steve Paxton video clip… each one of us is still rooted to the earth, but still dancing in unison above it.   

Begin by centering yourself over your soles. 

Bring a small place on your body together that is under your sacrum, below your pelvis.  For me on my body it is a tiny sliver of connection, una caricia (like a caress) between the inside of both of my heels. They lightly touch.  Maybe for you it will be somewhere near your knees or perhaps the upper thigh… all that matters is that we find a point of light connection that feels like a breeze that can trigger in our brain –a comfort– that we are centered underneath us. There needs to be a physical connection for the nervous system to understand and relay to our minds “I know where I am because I can feel the connection.”  Because I can feel that little caress on the sides of the heels touching, specifically it is the flexor retinaculum of the foot which covers the tibial nerve which sends clear messages to my mind that the eyes cannot express.  I know where I am and know I am centered and then and only then can I honestly communicate with my partner.

Then we add three-fingers width between the balls of the feet. I highly recommend, and wish to say ‘never,’ bring your feet together in a way that the toes touch because this will cause imbalance. Try it standing in the centered position… with 3 fingers distance the whole body can decompress while maintaining form. If we bring our toes together we create imbalance. If the big toes touch there is no way to maintain natural, effortless equilibrium. If the balls of feet go wider (duck stance), we create tension on the knee, ankle and hip joints, tendons and stabilizers which can lead to injury. The military uses this stance for those individuals who have to stand guard for long periods of time without suffering.

It works. It feels good. It keeps us in the flow.

Find your center. Keep 3 fingers distance between the balls of feet. Wiggle your toes, soften both knees, release the neck so eyes can gaze (even if closed) parallel to the floor and seek to release negative tensions, holds in the body that restrict movement. Then imagine your spine dancing within the space opened between our feet.

How sixty-five 5th graders and 130 imaginary dogs in hammocks changed everything for the better

It was glorious mayhem and we loved every minute of the experience.  My friend, Risa, came with me that morning to introduce Tango at the Manzano Day School Elementary in Albuquerque, New Mexico. We had little context going in other than it would be 15 minutes and with 5th graders.

It was outside in a grassy courtyard with a fountain and a brick walkway.  Risa and I found it quite fun to strategize what we could do… and where (grass or skinny brick walkway).  The invitation was to bring experience of Tango and since I had lived in Bahía Blanca for over a year and spent over half a year in Buenos Aires, impart some of the cultural contexts for the dance.  15 minutes to show the dance, speak a little about the dance… and then teach the dance.  Sounded like a good time to us.

Then the kids kept rolling in. It ended up, by our count, something like sixty-five 5th graders plus teachers all gathering into this grassy courtyard.  Show time. Risa and I danced, freeform as always, to “Didí” by Roberto Firpo. The kids remarked that it looked fun and not what they expected.  I briefly spoke about the dance in a context that in Argentina I loved how there was no age, no body type nor level-of-income that predicates the dance.  It is more about community and expressing life… and the media rarely shows this. It is difficult to find any representation other than performance, choreographed, demonstrations.   

With that many fifth graders outside on a beautiful day and dancing on the grass, I needed in the moment to find an element to give them so as not to manufacture a stereotypical connection of the dance or dramatically stepped movements.  I wanted the kids to go into a place of collaboration, care and fun.

Dogs in hammocks 

“Alright, find someone… pair up with a fellow explorer… one palm up and one palm down place your fingers at your friend’s elbows.  Good!  Now imagine those connected arms are each a hammock… two hammocks connecting both of you together and swinging from the shoulders.  Excellent… now imagine there is a massive, friendly, sleeping dog in each of those hammocks!”

(they loved this)

“Ok… now let's move around in little plus symbols with our sleeping dogs… and let our arms sway like hammocks so these awesome dogs can stay sleeping.”

And off they went with relaxed arms, no leader and no follower, just little pairs moving around in lovely chaos… not a single pair bumped into another!  It was hilarious to hear the dialogue of keeping the dogs happy in their hammocks. It was Tango. It was pure joy and Tango.

Dogs in Hammocks  & the Tango embrace(s)

Imagine our arms as hammocks in tango. Each shoulder is where the hammock connects. There are two hammocks and our partner has the other two points.  Now, I am not a fan of using a frame in tango.  I don’t believe in having my arms and torso manufacturing a frame to maintain a form throughout movement.  I don’t see the advantage nor the point of this. Too often I see dancers forklifting or truck-driving their partners with their arms while trying to complete movements. Why use the arms to initiate movement or usher intention?  It’s a bit too handsy for me.  

Truck-driving is when a “leader’s” elbows are pumping away from the body in a forward and backward motion so the hands look like they are driving a big steering wheel.  They are basically truck-driving their partners, steering them with arms and hands around the floor.  Please don’t do this. 

Forklifting is when the dancers have so much anxiety or tension that their elbows are lifting up as if trying to float off of the floor in order to move. Once the other dancer is disconnected from the floor it will be very difficult to collaborate, let alone intuit intention. Therefore the forklifting “leader” will continue to lift up on their partner’s elbows to move them about.  Please don’t ever do this, either. We need the floor to move.  It is nigh impossible to dance Tango in zero gravity.  

The elbows are best maintained quietly receptive at our sides and slightly in front of the hip bones.  I am referring to only the forward and backward motion.  It really is like a hammock.  Hammocks are meant to swing and sway side to side, not pushed or pulled to either side.  If someone comes along and starts rocking the hammock forward and backward (from connection point to connection point) this is also upsetting.  The dogs will be very unhappy and disturbed from their state of bliss.  I encourage our elbows to sway naturally side to side.  We want natural movement, allow movement.

Dogs in hammocks and dancing spines.

This, essentially, opens the possibility for smoothly walking embraces, unencumbered embraces, thriving embraces. The same feeling we have in our arms in this practice embrace is directly translatable in essence to any style of closed or open embraces, and especially the centro-confiteria milonguero-style (my favorite, but not exclusively). The arms will not push and pull our partners off axis.  Our elbows will not dig in, pin or trap our partners arms to their bodies, either.   The tension, anxiety of being close will not translate as constriction or discomfort.  We will be more at ease and able to connect ourselves with the ground, grounding ourselves as independent dancers responsible for our own equilibriums, contributions and collaborative spirits.

Share Tango in the Desert (Puerta al Tango)

Next week will be tough to decide between the choices of:

1. Ipsilateral ~ contralateral conjugations

2. Honing sightless instinct

3. Tango is not serious, seriously.

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Here are some links to see dogs sleeping in hammocks:

• YouTube dog in red hammock

• YouTube dog in white hammock

• YouTube bluesy hound in a hammock

No word for right leg…

Perspective and intuition, bearings and navigation are very important to hone early on when learning Tango. Many years ago I read a fascinating article about a First Nation (Aboriginal) people, Guugu Yimithirr, of North Queensland, Australia. Their language uses cardinal directions and maintains a constant awareness of orientation. It is wildly interesting to me to have this cognizant awareness at all times of the cardinal directions to such a degree that it infuses the language. The idea of right and left is very limited.  I no longer have the article to cite, but my memory recalls a scenario that I’ll just make up to keep the narrative going…

“Oy Bruce, there’s a badjahr1 off your South leg!” 

“Bloody’ell bugger… where!?  I don’t see a bleemin’ badger!” Bruce cries out while jumping about and spinning around all directions while Waru watches him like a boxing commentator:

“On your North… uh East… back round South… West… Notheast, Southwest… she’s dead under ya now, man.”

Bruce picks up the dead snake.  “This is a danger noodle, mate!”

Waru shrugs, “Tha’s wha’ I said.”

This level of directional awareness, constant orientation to the point it is the language, is beyond fascinating to me.  So why not also in the dance, I thought… constant awareness of where we are and where the true tango north is. 

 It changed the way I survived the chaotic (“que quilombo2”) dance floors (pistas) in the early 2000s in Philly and NYC. They were great arenas to gain trial by fire skills to hone how to dance defensively small, keeping my partners safe and unaware of the dangers. The more I learned how to maintain awareness of where I was – orientation – and sensing the motions of others around me, the more I could carve out slivers of hope that one day I might really enjoy this dance.  Dancing defensively helped me feel the floor3, stay in the moment learning how to maneuver, improvise and adapt to the amusical4 actions of others. However, I didn’t feel much like making any “leader” friends, and even today I struggle to encounter kinship in rondas that are rife with showboating dancers and others lacking the awareness.  All floorcraft really is is showing mindfulness and good manners.  Poor floorcraft can ruin a Tango community. Full stop. 

True Tango North is the line of dance

Being always aware of “true north,” in the line of dance, I find I am more relaxed and in control even in the most hectic of rondas. True north is the line of dance. At every corner it turns westerly (left) and north then becomes the line that keeps us in our lanes safely navigating to the next corner, staying in the current of our particular lane. By practicing this awareness it helped me to slow down, hear the music, relax and the knowledge of orientation improved my abilities to safely guide giros (turns) and evasive maneuvers while keeping sure-footed bearings. This idea of a true tango north I use to navigate the two bodies in the current of the line-of-dance to do our part in keeping the ronda mindful and flowing counter-clockwise.

Magnetic North is what the partner feels 

It is fun to turn, change directions, pivot and do giros in Tango. We cannot solely walk in a straight line from corner to corner traveling for true north. So, while we have fun turning in little eddies when the current is blocked or obstructed for a moment, similar to a river but on the opposite side of the couple blocking traffic.    A river eddy is a current created behind a rock or other obstruction that flows in a circular upstream direction. opposite to the direction of the main laminar flow.  So I do recommend making easterly (right-handed) turns when in a “traffic eddy” in the line of dance.  Ideally we want to keep the ronda moving; however, the music may demand we pause, rest, turn in place. Orchestras like Osvaldo Pugliese, Miguel Caló, Lucio Demare and Carlos Di Sarli especially give plenty melodic phrasing to express against the current meaningful circular moments and then move onwards in the line of dance for the benefit of the whole.  

The compass needle and the eye in the spine

The two “eddied” dancers can rely on magnetic north to navigate and communicate very fun and clear movements in small spaces while remaining with the music. Magnetic north for me is  the feeling in the spine just above the navel that faces directly forward where my true center is facing. I like to think of this spot as either a navigating eye that knows how to feel the invited course heading. In navigation ‘course heading’ means the direction where the nautical keel / bow (dancer’s axis / center) or an aircraft's “nose” is pointed.

This little eye in the spine has no mouth that will tell us nonsense like “you can’t go there, there’s no room, you’ll step on them, you’re doing it wrong, don’t go there!” This voice is unremittingly wrong;  but, the eye is unfailingly accurate in feeling the current and looking out for us. If allowed to survey and observe with curiosity over the level floor it will feed our instincts more precise information, senses we can rely on. Imagine the navel is a little window for this observing “third eye” to sense. It is merely attached to our nervous system which is connected to our epidermal system which is sensing everything that is being transferred energetically. It can read and decipher without words where we are and where we need to go, without relying on our vision.. So let it!

1. Know where you are (see 2~ “Bending a truer knee”) 

2. Know how you are (see 3~ “Why less is more”)

3. Trust the eye in the spine. 

It feels calming and thrilling when both dancers are allowing this eye to observe with curiosity. Let it look in the direction your partner is inviting it to gaze upon and then trust that direction for sending your body in a traveling direction (forward, back, side/lateral or a pivot)!

The body knows more than our minds.

The nose is the rudder.

Wherever our nose points is where our partner will think we are going, too. If our own nose is in relaxed line with the front of our spine (both physical reference to our center line and our axis) then both dancers will move in clear navigation and communication without the arms driving the movement. If we are seeking harmonious Tango between equals, then the arms and hands should not have any part of communicating “where to go.” No. Hands off, mate. No one wants to feel like they’re a truck driver’s steering wheel. The hands and arms have no part in navigating other than being relaxed and associating with the overall body.  “Dogs in hammocks5” will be the following Sunday’s publication of how to allow the arms to aid us in associating movement, flow and receiving clearer navigation. 

Concentration brings tension.  I’ve observed when a dancer is concentrating and thinking too much their noses get locked onto a target… usually dead center on their partner and sometimes far off causing the neck to twist and thus restrict movement on the opposite side of the body.  This restricts natural movement and the ability to allow the torso to spiral as it should (without effort). It’s nearly impossible to walk outside partner3 when we concentrate too much. If one dancer is “locking in” (nose aimed at the other dancer’s sternum, for example), it is very difficult to walk outside partner in either systems: parallel system (sistema paralelo)6 or crossed system (sistema cruzado).7

We want the ability to walk outside partner in tango!

It is quite unique to tango, as is the walk (la caminata) in a closed embrace. Walking outside partner is when half of our torso lines up with half of our partner’s and we still walk in harmony. In parallel system we start off full torso to full torso (or a line from belly button to sternum lined up with our partner’s belly button to sternum).  In parallel this alignment is often referred to as en espejo (mirrored) because when I’m on my left my partner is on their right. In Crossed System (sistema cruzado) we are on the same feet… right & right or left & left.  Walking outside partner to both open (abierto) and closed/blind (cerrado/ciego) sides of the embrace feels awesome. Open side is the side where the hands are connected. Closed/blind side is the side where the arms are hugging or wrapping around our partner.

Wherever our noses are pointed, that is where our partner will feel the energy flowing… that’s where they will be invited to move by either push or pull energy (not actually pushing or pulling with the arms).  Push and pull energy I like to think of the bandoneon playing music with different notes depending on the direction.  The pull energy is my favorite to explore creating a vacuum/a void for my partner to have room to fill with expression. It’s like the ebb of the waves as they pull back from the shore.  Push energy is soft and seeks to flow both dancers in a harmonized direction.   Even if your eyes are looking forward when walking outside partner… if your nose is locked in on your partner’s center you cannot rotate freely and thus walking outside partner will feel cramped, twisted, of axis ultimately resulting in both dancers veering off course even if only one of the dancers is off navigation with tension.

Cultural noses

In various cultures, the nose and lips point in the direction, instead of a finger, of the subject being communicated. Body language is very much a part of Tango, especially in the art of mirada-cabeceo (the look - the nod of agreement). The nose was not on my radar until I started guiding classes and really had to challenge what I had been taught and find new ways to explore and convey how to navigate and why it opens so many doors of possibilities and collaborations for both dancers without patterns or sequences to remember. I find the nose aligned with the eyeThis article was very interesting, especially on the concept of time and how other cultures view time and communication without words: National Geographic science article “The Point of Pointing”

Thank you for reading this week’s Navigations! Monthly I’ll share a Reckonings story of a more personal nature as last Sunday’s: Rejection, projection and letting go.

Thank you to Jutta Lehmer for proofreading, editing and all the great feedback and guidance!

Comments welcome! Please check out the footnotes below pertaining to this article. See bottom of this page.

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How to hone “Tango North” with an eye in the spine.

Line them up and let them be relaxed and free to move with the rest of you.

In wilderness survival one should first know how they are (state of mind and physical state), then where they are (bearings & surroundings) and then be in a as relaxed and ready state of being before moving from an understood spot. Same with Tango.

1. I use the skills in article 1~ Navigations to prepare myself physically and mentally.

2. I use the skills and tips in 2~ Navigations to know where my partner is and what landscape is open and safe (space in the line of dance).

3. Then, I let the nose be the rudder for the energy propelling us from under the floor.

Drowning in too much information? ¿Agobiados con tanto información?

It is a challenge to distill the vast potential of Tango into its simplistic beauty. We cannot water the garden in one sitting for the entire year. We’ll be coming back through these nucleotides of the DNA of tango on a regular rotation. We work in classes the same way, just take enough water to thrive on any given day and rest assured we will keep coming back around to strengthen awareness and corporeal understanding. We are not meant to get Tango in a short period of time. I like to let it, Tango, show me a little more about itself with time. It happens for me always when I am just observing and being present and not forcing comprehension. 

I was drowning in Ttango steps for the first 7-8 years in tango because that is all I was exposed to in classes. I hardly use anything that was presented as Tango from those years. I remember standing in the middle of Monica Paz’s studio off Calle Riobamba in Buenos Aires after a couple of weeks of starting over from the beginning. It had been an intensive study of only how to move, quality of movement, without sequences.

I remember the sensation of the lid and sides of a shoebox falling down and I was suddenly standing in a vast landscape that was Tango. There was no possible way to see all of it, but I had my bearings, a compass and a feeling that there was so much to see and no hurry. So, I just enjoyed where I was for a long while and studied, observed and experienced its depths.

Thank you for reading this publication!

If you like what is being explored, please consider giving us a like (❤️) and also supporting this effort with becoming a supporting member. Footnotes, comments and share buttons are at the end.

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Next week:

4~ Navigations: Ipsilateral is fun to say and do and yet in the first 19 years I never heard of the word... Navigating with our noses contra-laterally and ipsilaterally.

Or 4~ will be… “Dogs in hammocks” and how the arms need only swing relaxed like hammocks with sleeping dogs in them…

Rejection and Projection will happen.  There are ways to navigate it to our benefit.  Perception and patience are key as well as reminding ourselves it may not be easy for the other person.  Tango has become a more egalitarian hobby these past decades, but it is rooted in poverty, slavery, alienation and to me I see a beauty in the art form of two souls clinging together to feel alive and free… human even if just for a few minutes.

The first chapter in my experience with Tango was mostly navigating through what I perceived as snobbery, elitism, cliques and egos.  Looking back I can give some grace to some people.   I was definitely vulnerable in those days partly for reasons I’ll share later, one being a story I don’t believe I’ve ever told anyone.  It happened in the 11th grade of high school. It bothered me for decades and now I can look back on it with empathy. I let it all go by allowing it to be part of my path to something unexpected and meaningful. Never in my life did I think I would become a full-time guide for dance. It kept creeping up under me, beside me, above me until finally I let it in. Social Argentine Tango helped me heal… when I finally opened up and let go of the past.

It is true that Tango is more white collar and accessible to the  privileged in the US. This is not the case in Argentina. It does not need to be so here, either. I have a hair-trigger response to any tango snobbery. I can’t abide anyone thinking they are better than others or too good to dance with beginners. I have never met a great dancer who acted this way.   

Rejection is often a blessing

Rejection is more often an offering for a better time later on.

Projection ripples through communities. We will all do it at some point. The key is to limit ourselves as to how and why we vocalize it.This is very tough. I struggle with keeping a lid on opinions.

Projection is more interesting turned back on ourselves.  “Why do I think this and what does it matter what they are doing?”  I was once given a copy of Byron Katie’s “Let Them” book and it helped with this very real occurrence, especially with the last of the 4 questions she recommends we consider:

1. Is it true?

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

3. How do you react when you believe that thought?

4. Who would you be without the thought?

So let’s look at how rejection can become a blessing and how projection can allow us to turn ourselves back around more true to who we strive to be… and get more dances!

Rejection & Dejection

Rejection likes to hang out in our thought area. We are not getting dances, enough dances or we think, “why is that person not dancing with me?”  We are vulnerable in this dance, especially after the fun and care-free feeling of the first few weeks wanes.   The dance requires us to be fully present and open to subtlety.  This may put us in a state of being that feels exposed and vulnerable that brings in the egoic mind and then the “fun” begins.  For me it was an overactive, self-doubting voice in my head that prattled incessantly for pretty much the first decade I tried stepping tango.  Key word there was stepping tango, not feeling tango or understanding myself.   We have to know and trust our own selves before we project outward to blame others for discomforts.  I needed to learn how to be exposed and find strength in stillness moving with another person.  I doubted that the simplistic methods I had could be pleasant for another dancer.   I thought, back then, that the fancy dancers… the ones with legs moving and heels coming off the floor, doing crazy turns and zipping around the room were “the good dancers.”  And, since that style didn’t resonate with me, I couldn’t allow myself to accept that the quietness I was able to offer was desirable.  I thought Tango was this fancy, cliquey, lonely activity with glimpses of connections just enough to make me force myself to go back for more.

That self-doubt, no doubt, could be seen and felt. This is the gateway to dejection and that awful feeling of leaving a milonga gutted, getting home and feeling empty, not worthy. It happens and will happen until we can be okay with not needing validation.

If we are not getting dances, more often than not it is because we have put our own selves in a state of dejection. Let’s admit it, how often do we go out of our way to talk with someone we don’t really know at a coffee shop who is looking glum and bitter? In Tango we are committing to spend several minutes in very close proximity to another person and communicate without words and hoping for a relaxed and engaging conversation.  If we are feeling rejected and dejected, too often from lack of patience or unrealistic expectations, how can we realistically expect another person to sign up for dancing with us?  It’s a lot of time and energy. This is an interesting subject we’ll keep coming back to with tips, observations, and navigations for: missed & passed over miradas (the looks used to inquire “would you like to dance?”), rejected/postponed cabeceos (the nod or gesture to accept the mirada), why the music is telling us ‘yes, ‘no’ or ‘not right now,’ and how to survive cuando estamos planchando los pantalones con la silla (when we are ironing our pants with the seat… from sitting so long not getting dances!).  We need to take a step back, allow things to unfold, trust the flow and be aware of how and what we are feeling because that is what others will be picking up.  Whatever is being broadcasted is what others will be tuning into on their own frequency.   

Getting to the Source

It wasn’t until after my first immersive trip back to Argentina1, this time for the dance, that I was able to return home to Pennsylvania much more capable of adapting to the tango scenes in the U.S.. Luckily for anyone starting Tango today, the overall scene in this country has been vastly improving due to so many good people focusing on inclusion, community, and floorcraft. Yes, floorcraft! Floorcraft is part of the social code of conduct too often overlooked up here. It is a skill to hone more than anything else in this social dance. It is how we demonstrate to others mindfulness, care and overall desire for the community to grow. It is simply good manners. 

There was very little, if any, floorcraft in my first decade dancing in the U.S. and this contributed to the countless number of times I quit for long stretches of time. This, combined with tango-by-steps, I believe contributes to why so few people stick with the dedication it takes to feel Tango from the inside. I really have no idea why or how I stuck with it long enough to love it. I quit countless times and life kept putting it back in front of me, often in humorous ways.

It’s not the dance’s fault. 

It is the voice in our head that tarnishes perspective. Tango is innocent because it does not take sides, nor does it care about our dramas, foibles, projections or bruised egos. It just offers possibilities. We are the ones who close the doors and draw the curtains into darkness.

Tango is for the people, a celebration against loneliness and disconnection. Unfortunately, like most good things, it has been gentrified and presented as egalitarian and out of reach of working class people who don’t have the time and energy for antics. In Argentina it is still very much a dance for the people. The social rondas there are jammed packed and for the most part people flow without interrupting by bumping into other peoples’ moments under the music. 

Hopefully by sharing negative experiences that turned out well in the end, it’ll serve simpatico and soothing for others who may be feeling similarly. So here it is–some examples of projection. Some crap I went through, more often than not of my own creation… and how tango helped me gain an upper leg and rest on higher ground.

High School | hiding in the shadows

For those of you who know me today or met me in the last eleven years may find it interesting to know that I was so painfully shy and introverted growing up. I barely spoke in public, and only in comfortable settings. If I wasn’t working washing dishes or mowing lawns or shoveling snow on weekends I was practicing kung fu or tai chi out in a field by myself. I was a loner, pretty much. I did like being in social settings with others when I didn’t have to talk or think of what to do with my arms. Sports and writing alleviated that issue… what to do with my hands. I enjoyed sports, but not so much overly competitive sports where the objective was to just win.

In middle school I was the new kid. In sixth grade I was threatened to have “(my) ass kicked in the rose garden after school” every day by a kid named Jake who had a mullet and the dirty upper lip of an early mustache. Jake was stocky and had dark eyes and was always accompanied by a large kid named Chucky who in my middle-schooler memory was a huge candied snowball with fangs and eyes disconnected from a thinking brain. There was also another guy in the trio who was a football star, scarily strong; yet, I don’t think he wanted any part of it and maybe that’s why I can’t recall his name. The bullying stopped when a gal from my block, Jody, kicked Jake’s ass in a hallway on my behalf. I had no idea any of this was going on. I recall hearing a rumor she liked me and he was jealous and I was just so clueless and remained so until I was 23 years old, pretty much. She lost interest in me after slugging Jake around in the 8th grader’s hallway.

I also managed to get kicked out of almost every lunch table in 6th grade save for two… the misfits tables. They were awesome and didn’t care that I didn’t know how to be cool or say cool things. This is probably why I can’t abide any bullying or “cool kids” garbage. I don’t have time or patience for it.

I got through those two years by just not saying much, and in the summer between 7th and 8th grade I started to work out . There was an article in a comic book advertising “increase your vertical leap by 10 inches” or something like that.  It worked.  No one ever bothered me, again.  When I returned to school for 8th grade I had gained a lot of strength doing pushups and jumping squats in the garage that summer. Then everyone seemed to want to be my friend, and by then I really didn’t care.  I was quite aloof and only liked the people that were genuine, doing their thing and treating others nicely. 

Tango would bring up these middle school memories for me to deal with later… 

Rejection, alienation, social awkwardness, these were some of the reasons I thought Tango was toxic. Later I would understand that it was more like the dog offering you a fresh kill because the dog thinks you may be hungry, too. Tango was only helping by offering up these memories like saying “hey, you want to just deal with this crap and get it behind you for good?” It took a long while for me to understand and step aside from my ego’s machinations and projections to finally just say back “yeah sure, let’s chuck it.” Or, to the dog, just politely saying, “nah, you go on ahead and enjoy, fella” and let them digest it and enjoy it.

I’m getting to the story… I am… one night at the high school homecoming dance…

In High School I was still socially hesitant when it came to speaking aloud, what to do with my arms, and also dancing. Dancing involved arms and moving in view of others that wasn’t a playing field, court or swimming lane. Being aloof and of few words helped get through the days and weeks.

It was homecoming. I was in 11th grade and I’d been elected to student government probably because my speech was so short all I could get out was “Graham. Representative. Thanks.” It got a cheer from the bored-as-hell auditorium of 400+ eleventh graders, I think because everyone else had been yammering on with election speeches. I was just sweating bullets, being alphabetically one of the last to speak, and in a panic having to say words in front of a room I just blurted out 3 words with 3 periods and sat my arse down without fanfare. I got elected. 

The 12th grade student President (Alix) and VP (Jill) were awesome at coaxing me out and feeling more comfortable. I liked the student government for the chill and non-judgmental vibe they created and for the fact I could always arrive late to school. Homecoming came around and I was down for setting up the dance after school, but had no intention of actually coming back later for it. They convinced me. Figuring out what to wear was overwhelming. I preferred my work clothes. I had no Friday night excuse because I’d already called off work washing dishes at the Confetti Cafe. I returned later all cleaned up and tried to feel normal, whatever that was, with a stupid leather corded belt around my waist. I’d never worn one before and had no idea why I borrowed it for that night. The clothes I had on moved in opposing directions on me. Everyone seemed to be having fun and not giving a darn about how they looked. I remember feeling paralyzed by these damn arms that felt like I was holding them in my own hands , awkwardly separate from my body (which also did not know what to do). I was a marionette mess with a  bobbing head out of sync with butt and knees and arms. What a jerk. Jill and Alix were having a blast and I felt like a wooden doll on a pogo stick. They were kind and encouraging.

But the awkwardness gripped me and started to strangle. Everything slowed down and I couldn’t decide what to do or where to go. I couldn’t tell if I was moving or not. I recall some concerned looks. Maybe only my eyes were moving. I probably wore a grimace.

Eventually, I slipped out unnoticed and ended up in the small hidden parking lot between buildings. It was empty and I knew there was a payphone near the sports trainers building off the stadium. There was no one about. The payphone was in the light. I wanted to make the call quick and I remember not wanting anyone to see me. I must’ve sounded like an idiot and didn’t have a good reason for wanting to be picked up right away before anyone knew. I should’ve just walked the miles home–I’d done it countless times to work and sometimes to school when missing the bus. I guess I was more afraid of being seen alone after a dance, which is weird because I never minded doing things alone. My mother answered and was nonplussed, rightfully so. Eventually she must’ve read into the panic I must’ve been trying to cover up. My mother does not suffer fools. I am thankful for this. She would meet me off the entry road behind the stadium, though. 

We hung up and I slid further into the covered entryway into the dark shadows and waited. My view was straight out the drive where it curved to the parking area where I’d exited the dance in the upper gym of the main building. There were cars 100 yards away traveling down Elizabeth Avenue. There was no one walking, no voices and no sound. Just the shadows where I waited for the old Volvo to clunk a right turn into the driveway and its round headlights to beam straight into my darkness. I have no idea why that night the dance affected me so much into such a feeling of failure and uncertainty.

Forever passed in ticking seconds. Then voices came laughing and trickling out down the lane. FUCK. How could I explain what I was doing back there? It would be my ruin for sure. They flowed with the bend and down the lane towards Elizabeth Avenue. They were all having fun. They were in little groups. A few even glanced back into the entryway sending shards of panic like a shotgun blast into me.

No one saw me. I was well in the cut of black behind the angle of the buzzing street lamp slant. One girl must’ve sensed something was in the shadows for she bent over to gaze back while walking forwards squinting to see through the black. Her friends luckily pulled her up and they stumbled on weaving as they walked, scraping the soles of their shoes on the macadam and laughing. The voices and bodies became more infrequent. The Volvo pulled up. I slipped in unseen. No words were exchanged. I went to work a double the next day. I tried to forget about it, move on, and decided to avoid dancing.

Tango kept coming back into my path…

I share this story now because I never really thought dance would be so much a part of my life, and that I would improve so much by it. It’s a far more rewarding life having filtered the past through the present. 

I don’t know why I ever stuck with Tango, especially between the years 2006 and 2013. I was fixing old houses full-time (over-time) in all phases, but I loved structural carpentry the most. After a long week it was a struggle for me to rally desire to drive to Philly or bus it to NYC (both 90 miles away from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania). Tango was a tangle of undeliverable moves taught in disjointed segments that were useless at a milonga, and quite frankly I didn’t get along with any of the males I would meet in these scenes. They seemed to me all puffed up and strutting around these small ponds with over-inflated egos. I didn’t need that aggravation after a week of slinging concrete or reframing old houses with compromised foundations. 

People were bumping into each other, whipping around with legs flying doing fancy moves that I recall one milonguero in Argentina calling “tango kung fu” as he shook his head in disgust at what was happening to their folkloric dance. Too often I’d be driving home in my rickety work van with no working heat or radio after midnight asking myself what was the point if I don’t quite understand why I am doing it, how to do it, let alone in a scene with a bunch of chuckleheaded dudes wearing t-shirts and acting like boy-royalty. Nope. I have been nonviolent since May 7, 1999. That was my last physical altercation. The tango scene back then really pushed my resolve to be a peaceful man. 

I put tango down, a lot. I think from 2005 to 2013 I probably only actively danced for two and half years in any social scene.I would, however, always be interested in the potential of the movements and the music. In Spring of 2016 I actually gave up tango for good. Then that same morning I got a phone call that changed my life. 

I fought against Tango and only hurt myself 

There is no point in blaming Tango if we don’t dance or get the dances we want.

There is no point in feeling rejected or projecting negative thoughts about the intentions or actions of others.

So many times, I tell you, when I let go of the negative thoughts, both projected and inward, and surrendered to the flow, I was always rewarded by the Tango deities2. If someone is not looking at us for a mirada / cabeceo3  (the look / the nod), it may have something to do with us and it may not. Perhaps the music isn’t right. Perhaps we are rhythmic dancers and they are looking for a melodic tanda. Maybe the last time you danced together you were so tense it was uncomfortable. Maybe there is no reason.  So don’t sweat it. A better tanda4 will come about later if we remain open and relaxed. Whatever we project others will pick up, there is nothing new about this. If we are relaxed and ready with buena onda (good chill vibes) we will get more dances regardless of our “level.” I don’t really believe in levels. There really are no levels. 

It was in the last two months of 2016 that I began to see Tango as an ally. I was immersed in Buenos Aires and studying intensively with Monica Paz. I had the fortune of starting over from the beginning with her, a bonafide teacher of Argentine Tango, and also with three great milongueros at her studio: Roberto “el chino perico” Ponce, Eduardo “el nene” Masci, and Juan Lencina. They saw tango as vida, life! They told me to “relajarse la cadera, pibe!” “Relax your hips, kid!” Relax and have fun. Tango was not stuffy or elitist there. It was full-on everything you had in you shared in rondas with social codes in place for good reasons5. In 2018 I remember where I was, even the time of day, when I finally accepted some truths, let go of the past and allowed myself to grow. Was it easy and will it be easy for others? Perhaps. I hope so. It depends how willing you may be to let go and open up to the social flow Tango offers.

Today I have a lot of male friends in Tango. The climate is changing for the better thanks to so many caring and warm people taking up the mantle to organize and build community in their area. 

This is a dance of human interaction with ourselves in one-to-one, in small groups (the couples dancing before, behind and alongside us in the line of dance), and in the community as a whole. It’s true. If someone is dancing selfishly and dangerously it affects the whole room in a negative way forcing others to deal with them one way or another. Tango reflects where we are in life as much as how life is at the moment for the society it encompasses. It will amplify our feelings, good and bad, because it is indifferent to our perceptions. It amplifies what we feed back into it because ultimately, at the end of the day, Tango is us seeking to harmonize, connect, understand and be understood through a medium that leaves us exposed (to grow) and vulnerable (also to grow). 

This dance has helped me in so many ways. I hope it may for you. 

Be sure to read the Footnotes in this RECKONINGS post! 

If you liked this article and found it helpful, please click the little heart icon. It helps to know this forum is resonating. RECKONINGS, this subset of postings, will be the platform for future personal stories in the months to come. I’m hoping to post-up twice a month.

Give us a ❤️ at the top of the page if we did a fine job.

Massive thanks to…

Two very generous editors:  Amanda Daloisio  and  Jutta Lehmer 

Everyone who kept me in the good and kept calling me up to come back out during the rough years between 2005-2016. Many are still in the scene and thankfully so! From the Philly scene: Elly F., Karen J., Zoey. From the NYC scene: Elif O., Tijen, Olga. From D.C. Kate O., Lisa C. From “rural” PA: Ann & Willy, Sharon H., Edilia and Fanny,(the Colombian grandmothers!). Maine: Jewel R!

My friends in England & Europe (2013-2020) who brought such deep social experiences sharing food, time, space and adventures which happened to have Tango a part of the mix, too. I hope to return some day soon.

Thank you for making Tango healthy all those years until I could fall off a building and later that night buy a plane ticket to Argentine in 2016.

1

I lived in Bahía Blanca, situated near the border of Patagonia & the Atlantic, for a year when I was 18 (1994-5). I went on a scholarship from a local Rotary Club. I arrived without hardly a word of Spanish. I don’t recall ever seeing tango that year, or perhaps I had no interest if I had. I do vividly recall a man singing to his wife “El día que me quieras” (by Carlos Gardel - the link goes to Spotify for a listen). He was the asador (grille master) that evening and over the wood coals as the chorizo and ojo de bife sizzled he sang with a mixture of alegría y nostalgia (joy and sentimental memory). I remember he wore a red v-neck sweater as it was winter in June. We were outside and she was sitting wrapped in a shawl… the way they looked at each other… it left an indelible impression. I was mainly interested in heavy metal and punk in those days. This happened on my first evening in Argentina. I spent thenight in Buenos Aires with this family, Carlos y Juana Staffa-Morris, since there were no flights further south to Bahía Blanca until later the following day. Bahía Blanca is also the birthplace of El Señor del Tango, Carlos di Sarli, one of the four pillars of Tango music. I did not know this fact until 2005.

Can you spot “el Yanqui boludo” (the Yankee ‘dude/doofus’)? Bahía Blanca 1995 en el pogo del último ensayo de Asacris….the mosh pit of the last gig by my friends’ heavy metal band, Asacris. No tango for me in 1994-5.

"The secret of tango is in this moment of improvisation that happens between step and step. It is to make the impossible thing possible: to dance silence. This is essential to learn in tango dance, the real dance, that of the silence, of following the melody." - Carlos Gavito1

Capturing the sea is like capturing silence. Stillness still moves and so should we in the dance. Relaxing into stillness is what can open us up to the subtlety Gavito speaks of. So how and where can we find this body electric? In the cambio de peso is where I find it and how I share it with my partners and the music.

The trick is to do more with less, to seek dynamics in simplicities. One of the most overlooked, under-explored and missing elements in Tango in the Northern Americas is the artistry of musically shifting weight, it’s pleasing forms, how it relaxes both bodies and minds (which in turn positively affects those around us) and its utility for tight space dancing.

Bending a truer knee2 helps to open us up to the subtle and vastly rich world of changing weight.   Yet, this sounds boring:  “changing weight.”  Even if we phrase it as “shifting weight,” it still lacks the essence of this beautiful and symbiotic moment that connects all movements.

Un cambio de peso… sounds more poetic. It is poetic in the embrace.   “Por qué no cambiamos el peso… con la música… y después nos vamos.”  Yes. Let’s.  This sounds fun, engaging and collaborative.   In English this would sound like “Why don’t we change weight… with the music… and then afterwards we’ll go.” It’s all in how we say it, just like this dance. It is all in how we express the music. Tango for me is enjoying the now, playing within a living moment. I want nothing to do with patterns, futuring or pre-planning anything past the now. “Que la música nos lleva…” (let may the music carry us…) and the best way to be in the music is to be relaxed and ready. The best way I find to remain relaxed and ready is through los cambios de peso.

En el cambio de peso to me is where mastery will be found and the music to be heard with the heart.

What is un cambio de peso? 

Let’s start with weighted suggestions of what it is not.  El cambio de peso is not us shifting weight in front of each other just to shift weight.  It is not a shuffling of feet back and forth until finally departing from that spot.  In fact I try never to shift my weight from one foot to the other more than 3 times, ever! I will, however, at times take an entire compás (musical measure of 4 rhythmic beats. It also means a navigational compass), and even una frase entera (an entire musical phrase which is 2 measures, dos compás). Changing weight is problematic for our partner if we (and they) feel like a metronome with glued feet to the floor. Our noses (center lines) should not be traveling further than the instep of our shoes cresting up over a ball of foot at the very maximum. If our upper torsos travel too far we spend the entire time trying to stabilize our sway for what we think will be a clear change of weight, but all we accomplish is a shuffle that feels like doubt and killing time with very little musicality nor connection to the moment or our partners. Plus it creates negative tension in our bodies especially in the neck, the IT bands, glutes and the tendons in the tops of our feet. A lot of effort wasted with no gain.

So let’s explore and more pleasing, relaxed and powerful way…

“Peso” means both weight, and also money in many countries.  It carries weight, the ability to have means, gravity, meaning, substance.

“Cambio” can mean change, and it also means an exchange. I like this idea a whole lot more:  an exchange of meaning, an exchange of substance, gravity.   

Aequilibrium3 [Latin] —> Equilibrium , from aequi- ‘equal’ + libra ‘balance’. Origins of the word denote more a healthy mental state, evenly balanced. All the more reason never to be on one leg and more seeking 60/404 distribution of weight for all dancers’ harmonious movements being "even or smooth of surface".

Equilibrium is very much a part of weight and exchange.  In healthy relationships with money, humans and the world we need balance, groundedness and understanding all to be in harmony to evolve a healthy state of being.  Tango is absolutely the same because we are the ones creating it. If we desire balance and lively moments in the dance, we therefore must be in a state of relaxed equilibrium free of thought and ready for adapting in synchronized moments with other humans.

So how does one exchange weight?

We may express gravity, harmonize our shifting of equilibriums, by remaining in a centererd state of observation without preconceived thought.   You will hear in Tango a lot of talk about maintaining one's axis, but how should we maintain this unseen axis?  Is it on an angle like the Earth’s tilt as it revolves around its axis which revolves around the sun?    Since April of 2023 I left behind this idea of this elusive and illusory axis inside my body.  It always felt too thin and without gravitas. When I am in water, especially when the seas are calm, I love the rhythmic yielding power of the ocean, seas and large-bodied lakes. Water yields, adapts around you until you try to force it, then it will overpower you. When I am relaxed in the sea with water up to my waist, I love the pulsing sway of everything… how my feet feel in the sand… how it feels to walk through the water… we must wait for gravity, for connection with the ocean floor in order to walk forward (without swimming). I use this for exploring movement for the dance. Adaptive states of being seeking connection and balance and relaxation at all times.

My center is a column made purely of water.

Water is extremely difficult to compress, there is not enough space between molecules. I want my body to be the same way, all one cohesive unit working together like the sea and not willing to be compressed. I want my height to be present. I do not want to compress my spine or crumple my body in any way (or water will spill out over the top). I also want this column in a fluid, vertical state as I move it around space and time using the floor for support, balance and energy.

I think of my center as a column of water the diameter of my head. It begins above me (drawing down the music) down through the center of my torso, inside the pelvis encompassing both ball-and-sockets, down the inside line of the legs, inside line of the knees and shin bones and remains the diameter of my head as it settles between the space between my feet and settles down through the floor.  

I want my weight on the floor so I have gravity, weight, meaning and more importantly… connection!   If we bring in the concept of 60/40 from last week’s article, el cambio de peso will feel fluid, subtle, easy and very clear and relaxing for our partners.

Why would we stand on one leg in a dance, an art form, that requires us to be fluid and relaxed?  

There is zero advantage to being on one leg.  As you wish, but let’s put to pasture this idea that “the follower stands on one leg.”  That is ludicrous, cruel and creates inequality in my experience. I want my partners to be equal and feel equal in all moments. If I am leading, I am assuming the role as navigator, a guide, for my partner who is just as equal to the task of movement, musicality and collaboration… but perhaps they are blind. This does not make me more important or the one calling the shots. I am merely navigating us safely through the social ronda as we collaborate on ideas with the music.

To do so all four soles must be relaxed and ready to connect with to the floor.  Both capable of absorbing our weight, individually, just like the knees in last week’s discussion.  We are moving weighted connections in Tango.   This does not mean we feel heavy. No!  A sea can be unfathomably heavy, but no one can lift it.  We cannot lift a sea, yet we know the weight of water.   If we are connected to the floor our bodies can move with the same power, fluidity, motion of the sea and never feel heavy  IF we keep ourselves centered and our columns in equilibrium between our feet that each sole, both balls of feet are always relaxed and ready to carry the load for us.

NEXT WEEK: Ipsilateral movements!

I love exploring Ipsilateral lateral and gathering movements (never when walking forwards or backwards). Ipsilateral will will blow your mind and demystify crossed-system with how “less is more” is all can be. Ipsilateral & contra-lateral exchanges of weight (cambios de peso) and how the nose is our rudder… where it points our partner goes (and sometimes we twist ourselves up into tense confusion).

~~~~~~ NEED MORE? Below is more detail… and some little Darlings that got cut from above. ~~~~~~

I want to age well into tango.

The milongueros I was fortunate to study with, before they passed away, moved smoothly with dynamic power and this was when they were in their mid-to-late 70’s. I was lucky to have the opportunity to take a few private sessions with them at Monica Paz’s studio on Riobamba. She arranged these opportunities for me to study with Juan Lencina5, Eduardo “El Nene” Masci and Roberto “El Chino Perico” Ponce, during my first 2 month intensive-study-immersion in 2016*6. One evening we drove El Chino back to his home in Villa Urquiza. He got out of the car and caught his foot hopping up a tall curb. I saw him lithely adjust mid-air, land softly with the other foot absorbing his off-kilter weight from the trip and he made an effortless 3 step jogging trot, turned around and waved us goodnight with his broad smile and sauntered onward toward his home. That was all the proof I needed to liberate my hips, relax my body, seek less is more and move only using my “active grounding leg.*7”

It will take some weeks and months even years of honing this awareness and seeking proper technique. It will be time well-spent because we are learning how to move through life in more efficient and body-kind ways. Once this neuro-plasticity becomes instinctual the entire dance will unfold to us in infinite possibilities available in the present.  My best experiences in tango have been when I was completely present, not futuring… thinking of the next move or “what is happening?”  

We are working on conditioning our minds and bodies to be actively ready, quietly open to possibilities.  Additionally, this method of movement will improve the integration and dexterity of our small stabilizing muscles and therefore increase our true strength strength of micro adjustments. Conversely, when we move with stiff “standing legs” and land chasing our feet we are taxing our tendons and ligaments to stabilize and move us.

I’m choosing the active grounding leg  because I wish to grow stronger, more relaxed, more in control, move more with equilibrium and dexterity as my own body ages.  I have worked with octogenarian and septuagenarian milongueros who have for many years moved with the active grounding leg. They moved like someone half their age.  One day soon I will tell a story about a car ride I had with El Chino Perico, el último* milonguero (*the “last” and also the “greatest” dancer who lives tango).  He was 80 years old when he worked with me one very long afternoon en el centro de Buenos Aires.

Tension is the enemy of movement

My current mentor, Brigitta Winkler, reminds us of this as we explore. It is so true. A locked leg bearing our weight creates tension.

VIDEOs for this week #2 - date TBD

We can soon dive in with updated awareness into our pursuit of 60/40. The active grounding leg always will have 60% of our weight, not 70, not 80 and never 100%.   A tango dancer should never be trying to keep their weight on one foot when centering.  The search for the active grounding leg being the only active knee will keep us nimble, safe from injury and relaxed through the soles of our feet.

How to feel this idea: 

1. Stand in neutral position with equal footing, weight 40% in the left and 40% in the right.  We should feel stored energy in our belly (20%).

2. Release the 20% from the belly down the inside of a chosen leg (inseam) and let our natural body weight rest between our feet… maintain a relaxed and ready body in the sense that we do not crumble or go lazy…no… just at ease and ready to move.

3. The leg that absorbs this 20% we want to be the only one that the knee absorbs (catches softly) our weight and then restores our height ready to move… this knee should always remain in an active state.   

4. The free leg is unaware and unaffected.  It should be doing nothing… not flexing, not trying to help, not jumping at the chance to move… just observing (almost daydreaming)... just observing and quietly ready to absorb into action if and when that 20% shifts to it.

What to be wary of… bad habits!

The free leg’s knee should NEVER be bent in front of the active grounding leg… In fact it really should never be in front of the active grounding leg’s knee.  This breaks the axis and leaves the dancer flat footed and unable to safely pivot of change directions, let alone move.   The free leg should be free… the foot a weight on a string with 40% of our body weight inactive.   Embellishments are more attractive when driven to motion with the active grounding leg. 

The word “tango” is rooted in several African words. One of my favorite etymological theories I read a while back is it meaning “a collection of harmonizing instruments” of which dancers, I believe, are also instruments of music. I am unable to find this reference to cite2 it properly today. We will definitely explore the etymology of words in the future!

Some of the best and most memorable dancers I’ve met along this 19 year journey have ranged in age from 20s to mid-80s. They have been over 6ft tall (190cm) and also 4ft 9inches tall (145cm). They have been full-bodied and they have been thin. They have embodied female energy and male energy in natural ways without limiting themselves to a physical gender, as well.

There is no physical formula in tango. Only energetic.

I would love to see everyone age well into this art form, be strengthened physically and emotionally by this social outlet, this release from day-to-day stress. The goal of Tango in the Desert is to share healthier ways of moving through life and this dance.

To do so we need to begin at the very center of it all: a relaxed & ready body.

The “coffee grinding” leg

We need to trust the sole of the foot of

the leg that is grounding (or, “coffee grinding3”) us to the earth, aka the floor. It is the only sole that can tell the truth of where we are in that moment and where we can go: forward, backward or sideways… the four cardinal directions4, but never on a diagonal5 without a pivot. Only the leg that is connected to the ground with 60% of our weight should be active. The concept of 60/406 we’ll dive into more in the following weeks, and in the footnotes, but it stems from all other martial arts, boxing and agile sports.   I believe tango is more art than dance.

This may sound overwhelming, but trust me it is quite attainable, fun and a whole lot easier to understand social tango movements through this tried & true method of connecting with the ground beneath us.

The wrong knees were bent | an OBSERVATION

I have been aware of this issue of the wrong leg being active for many years; however, the root of the matter came starkly into focus while dancing in and observing the June 2nd Sunday evening Old Town Albuquerque gazebo milonga. Almost every dancer was bending the wrong knee. The standing legs were the ones that were straight and rigid. It should be the reverse and for good reason because it is the leg that is active and the one that moves us. When I was dancing that evening, when inviting a musical change of weight which is nice when dancing in small spaces, my partners were making abrupt side steps because their standing legs were locked, tense and/or too straight past a point of being able to be active. There is also an issue with many people chasing their “free7” foot, which will definitely be in future articles… we must liberate our free legs (see 60/40 footnote, too)!

In Argentina it is more common to see dancers moving with the active leg using the floor. There is more subtlety transferred in the embrace, more relaxed movements and subtle changes of weight. I’d love to see this infuse more deeply in the Northern Americas.

Tango thrives in subtlety, much like engaging conversations.

The next day during a private lesson with a new student we set to work on this concept making sure it was the active standing leg that was absorbing our weight without the other knee (the free knee) being too actively bent, as well, which is a whole other problem in the realm of Futuring8. She made a remark that was quite enlightening: 

“Well, when I am standing my leg is always locked… don’t you stand like this?” 

It was the perfect sentence & moment to bring clarity to the issue.  

“Yes, but we are not standing, we are dancing…. moving, always, in tango… especially in the pauses… but that is a really good point!” I replied. We then set to work on untangling the knees so that one is passive (the free leg) and one is active (the grounding leg).

“This will be a paradigm shift!” She had the right attitude with a light-hearted laugh at the challenge.

Why do we stand with locked knees? 

It will be a challenge, but if you think on it there is nothing healthy about standing with locked knees. From that moment in the private lesson I thought over what words would better deliver this concept to help keep dancers actively in the present.

The power of words: “The Active Grounding Leg”

This is the new phrase we use in the studio... more often it comes out as “the active coffee grinding leg” which helps the situation. I love coffee and I love natural movements and the two are quite infused in social tango, at least how I experienced it in Buenos Aires.

In the next post (~2) we’ll share more about our finds as we gather our COURSE BEARINGS to navigate these weekly OBSERVATIONS. We’ll dive into more on how the phrase “standing leg” has hindered connections and movement, and what we have been working on at the studio to find a new path as we continue to decipher ourselves, understand others and navigate this art of a dance. 

Video Accompaniments: there will be a couple of videos to see what we are talking about above. They’re not instructional videos of “how to dance tango,” but rather videos sharing how I practice tango and what movements work more logically for me today that didn’t in the past. Hopefully they’ll be available later today. Or, come experience what we are doing at Puerta al Tango some day soon!

FOOTNOTES! Please check out the Footnotes below this section, if you haven’t already, for more insight into the simplistic complexity of social Argentine tango!

1

Ronda | La Ronda - translate as “the round” and in Argentine Tango it is referring to the line of dance which for at least the outer to lanes they will always flow counter-clockwise. Generally, in this century, the 3rd lane will also flow counter-clockwise. Enrique Santos Discépolo, a tango poet and lyricist, has been quoted ascribing this directional flow as:

The deserts of New Mexico and the social Argentine tango I fell in love with have a lot in common to me. Both seem to be greatly misunderstood until visited and experienced. There is vast complexity and richness in the seemingly simplistic form.

This set of writing is about exploration and seeking understanding.

For me, when tango became a way of moving through life, seeking truths through harmony and balance, I was able to overcome challenges in my life that held me back from truly living.

There are unspoken experiences and seemingly contradictory conditions that create balance and harmony that I also find as I experience living here in New Mexico and learn more about this place. I hope that the observations, the sharing of experiences through exploration and the stories that I plan to share  might open up the possibility of this dance to you as it does for me.

For the first 10 years, tango was a struggle for me and I really do not know why I stuck with it.  I quit more times than I can recall and for stretches even for more than a year during that initial period.  Fate and serendipity would keep a door open to this dance in often comical ways that I look forward to sharing.  I learned how to feel and open up to this dance in Buenos Aires in 2016.   For the next 7 years I would explore as deeply and intensely as I could between working construction jobs.  On Dec. 30, 2022 I officially retired from a 25+ year career in rehabilitating old buildings.  On January 1, 2023 I left Pennsylvania in a mildly packed car and drove to Albuquerque, New Mexico to open Puerta al Tango.  On January 12, 2023 I welcomed my first students here and I fell in love with my new home, the community and the desert.

Tango in the Desert will have a weekly and a monthly format as follows:

Weekly Observations:

There are always trends that pass through the community at large that spark curiosity and lead to questioning of what is true. These observations have led to some very rewarding explorations in the subsequent weeks of classes at the studio and to the bonding community at Puerta al Tango.

Weekly Navigations: 

A summation of how we are exploring the previous week’s observation. “Navigations” because we are still exploring and trying to stay the course. We’ll share ideas, reckonings, and what music has been driving these ongoing explorations.

Stories That Happened:

Once a month before the 2nd Saturday there will be a personal story that changed my perception and experience with tango and life.   Length: “over a cup of coffee” read.  Also with audio readings.

There will be stories and perspectives about the challenging aspects of any social endeavor:  loneliness, rejection, doubt, injury, uncomfortable conversations, miscues, aging and not getting dances.   There will be more stories about how to overcome fears, doubts and rejections and allowing this dance to help us heal and grow stronger physically, mentally and emotionally.  I used to be painfully shy, introverted and doubting my abilities. I really did quit tango countless times until 2016. Despite over a decade of battling tango I attest finally going to the mountain myself to understand what this dance is has helped me become socially confident, emotionally solid and self-assured in life and in the dance. I hope by sharing my experience it may serve as a shortcut, solidarity, support for others also out there struggling to find a refuge in an embracing art.

I’ll share “myths” I heard along this journey that I no longer find truth in, or struggled with for too long. We are always exploring the dance and ways to change perspective as we progress in the ever-expanding world of social communication through a moving art form (tango).  Here is a list of topics we will be exploring in the upcoming months; and, what we are modifying at Puerta al Tango in order to preserve the rituals and traditions of social Argentine Tango as the world progresses and our collective awareness grows:

Myths (what I was told) VS  New Forming Conclusions (seeking truths by challenging what I was once told)

• Standing Leg ~ Active grounding leg

• Stand on one leg, be on one leg. ~ 60/40 always both soles on the floor

• Collect / bring feet together ~ We gather and center (feet together only to punctuate / express certain musicality.

• The collect is the pause ~ The gathering is where true equality lives.

• The collect is the pause ~ La Pausa (the pause) has many ways.

• Collect & Brush ~ Gather (Juntar) & Sweep (Rozar)

• “I already walk” ~ La caminata is expression of who we are

• Disassociation ~ Association by ipsilateral & contra-lateral

• Leader / Follower ~ we use “Inviter & Realizer”

• Lead with the chest ~ Bring/carry movement forth with the entire torso 

• “I just follow” ~ Dancers seek equality by collaboration

• Step forward/backward/side ~ Send the torso forwards, backwards, side

• The traveling leg moves us ~ The active grounded leg moves us 

• “I dance the melody” ~ Dance the melodic phrasing

• The cabeceo is patriarchal ~ The mirada/cabeceo allows freedom for the dancer to be left in peace.

• The leader cabeceos ~ Either dancer can cabeceo. 

• Side steps (paso lateral) ~ Paso lateral is and also is not La Salida

• The Cross System ~ Crossed System (Sistema Cruzado) and ways to use this name to help navigate.

• Cruzado (the cross) ~ El cruce (the cross) is in both systems.

• Back ochos are crossed system.   ~ Inside partner crossed system walking is 8s

• Back ochos are crossed system ~ Ochos are only part of this solar system.

• The follower pivots the ochos ~ Both dancers pivot in unison and harmony.

• We pivot by rotating the torso ~ We pivot by releasing weight into ball of foot

• “Sneaky Step” to change systems. ~ It is a weight change that changes systems 

• Tango has a frame ~ Social tango has form, not frame

• The arms maintain a frame. ~ The arms are like dogs in hammocks.

• The hips do not move. ~ Liberate the hips! Liberarse la cadera, pibe!

• We maintain our axis vertical. ~ We maintain our axis in equilibrium

• There is open and closed embrace. ~ Open, closed, salon, and milonguero embraces like Villa Urquiza and Centro. There’s no right or wrong, just options and understanding.

• “Milonguero-style is boring” ~ “Milonguero-style requires depth of feeling”

• Man leads, woman follows. No.  ~ Dancers invite & collaborate together

• Floorcraft is for beginners ~ Floorcraft is good manners

• I already dance in milongas ~ Floorcraft is a social skill that needs honing.

• Tango is a solitary dance ~ Tango is a social dance with everyone

• Tango is Argentine ~ Tango is African / Rio Platense rooted. It thrived the most in Buenos Aires in the 1930’s and 40’s

• “I cannot dance tango” ~ “(you) can dance social Argentine tango”

• Tango looks fancy ~ Social Argentine Tango is subtle 

• I learned tango steps early on. I don’t use any of them anymore. I threw them all in the garbage in 2016. Tango for me is heartfelt conversation. It can be deep and it can be light. It can be emotional and it can be thick-as-thieves brimming with laughter. Quite often I am starving for a conversation and my partner is reading from a script (tango sequences and steps). Yet, this is a dance that lives unscripted and adapting to la ronda, the air, to room, life…

These are just a few of the subjects we have so far to write about based on many years of exploration on my own and with master teachers in Buenos Aires, socially dancing in Argentina, and a lifetime of exploring movement both out of curiosity and necessity (injuries).

We hope you will join us on this journey.

Special Thank you to Amanda Walker and Jutta Lehmer for your skillful, insightful and generous time in editing! Massive thank you to all of my friends who have encouraged this exploration and everyone who has been a part of Puerta al Tango!

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Too many emails from Substack? I know. Happened to me, too. Here’s a quick and easy guid on how to control and manage:

https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/8119385168660-How-do-I-stop-receiving-emails-from-Substack-

Once a month on 2nd Saturdays a story will be published with narration option to listen to about a real experience in tango that changed my life. These will be cup of coffee reads (hopefully under 5 min).

Weekly we will be looking to post observation posts about what we are discovering, exploring, challenging and enjoying along the journey in social tango.