957 Comments - 3
Date: Fri, 17 Jan 2003 11:14:25 -0800
From: "Larry E. Carroll" <larrydla@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Comments - 3
Maybe I can stay on TANGO-L if I just read everything once a week.
That way I only have to resist writing to it once a week!
TANGO BOOKS
Of course there is my own online book on how to dance the tango. On
December 27th it had been online for 5 years. And sometime in
December (I check hit counts at the beginning of each month) it
recorded its 100,000th hit.
When I first put it online I expected a few hundred hits at most,
mostly in the first few weeks. Not so. Not only does it continue to
get hits, but the number has continued to grow every month. In
December it reached 1913. At its current rate it will pass 2000 per
month in March.
I do not understand this continued growth. I have considered several
possibilities but none persuade me.
The numbers are not as impressive as they might seem at first glance.
For one thing, a hit count does not tell you if the "hitter" took one
quick glance and went on to something else, or spent hours reading
and re-reading a Web page and practicing its contents.
To help me better understand "my students" reactions to the book I
divided it into a short intro, several chapters, and a short
epilogue. Only 78% go beyond the Intoduction, only 51% go beyond
Chapter One, and further chapters have (decreasing) drop offs to the
next. In five years only 21,000 got to the epilogue.
(I get no pay for any part of my Web site, nor any fame or favor. So
this is definitely not a commercial message!)
RUDENESS
So far all talk has been about rudeness off the dance floor. There is
also rudeness on. Like the occasional women I dance with who
constantly look around to see who has come in the door or whatever,
or who will stop us in the middle of the floor to greet someone with
happy cries and hugs.
The most obvious rudeness comes from the leaders who treat the dance
floor as if they are the only ones on it. Usually they do very showy
stuff, very long steps with arms (and sometimes legs) way out to the
sides, moving either very fast or stopped dead for long times.
Oftentimes these leaders are very capable athletically and are
considered great dancers - at least by clueless women who do not have
to protect a partner from them. And who do not know that the reason
she rarely gets hurt dancing with them is not because of him, but
because all the other men are cursing him and staying very far away!
I used to get very annoyed about this, until I realized that I was
causing myself unhappiness by letting it get to me. Now I treat them
as just one more challenge in navigating a world as imperfect as the
dance floor and still making myself happy.
It takes practice to actually do that, of course. Now I manage it for
five or six whole seconds every milonga!
LA MIRADA
I have also heard the cabeceo (nod) referred to as "la mirada" (the
look or gaze or stare). This seems to capture the essence of the
process better.
One thing that has not been mentioned on this topic so far is that it
gives the woman power equal to the man's. Or maybe even more power;
when I went to Argentina I found some women could stare very
agressively! I was rarely able to "just say no." (Not that I wanted
to; I wanted to get a rep for friendliness so that my gazes would be
looked upon with favor.)
The usual (non-Argentine) method gives the man most of the power. Oh,
in theory women have the right to say no, but in practice hardly
anyone does. And when they do say no they are often punished for it
in some way. (Of course, forcing yourself to dance with someone is
punishment too, so it's a coin-toss as to which punishment a woman
accepts.)
Larry de Los Angeles
https://larrydla.home.att.net
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