3633  Fwd: seeking connection

Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 14:16:36 -0700
From: Razor Girl <dilettante666@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Fwd: seeking connection

Please see below for the beautiful message I received
from Carole McCurdy <carolemccurdy@sbcglobal.net>:

> Hi Rose,
>
> I'm ususally a "lurker" on Tango-L, so I don't even
> know how to post this to the list. Can I ask you to
> do so for me? Sorry for the inconvenience.
>
> You opened a really fruitful discussion on the topic
> of seeking connection, confidence, and expression
> for
> both partners. One night at a milonga last year I
> had
> an experience that felt like a valuable exploration
> of
> these things. I try to remember it as often as I
> can.
>
> It was a small milonga and as soon as I walked in I
> said to myself, "Oh, well, too bad there aren't any
> good dancers here tonight." (In other words, my
> snotty
> ego was already setting me up to have a
> disappointing
> evening.) Fortunately, I spotted Mr. P on the floor
> and decided I wanted to dance with him. I hadn't
> thought too highly of him as a dancer ("Such an
> awkward, unsteady embrace he has"), but a few weeks
> earlier I had seen him perform as a musician and
> been
> dazzled by his talent and passion. This was
> something
> I wanted to connect with.
>
> I began dancing with Mr. P and, rather than trying
> to
> connect with him merely through the physical
> mechanics
> of the embrace, I somehow made the lucky decision
> to
> connect with him by trying to mirror (or imitate)
> the
> qualities of his own stance and movement, the
> intense
> hunch of his upper body, the slight wobble that came
> after each step.I tried my best to "become" Mr. P,
> to
> reflect him back to himself. It felt overly
> theatrical
> for the first few seconds, but, oh, how electrifying
> the connection between us became. I had the (if only
> physical) sensation of what it might be like to *be*
> Mr. P. And he blossomed in my arms, sensing the
> recognition and respect I was sending his way,
> sensing
> that I was trying to maximize my enjoyment of him.
> His
> dancing became much more confident, and (without
> losing his own essential qualities) he started to
> control his movements more and to really play with
> me
> in the dance. Suddenly the hunched stance felt like
> a
> strong expression of gravity, and the wobble felt
> like
> the tender lingering aftereffect of each pulse of
> music. What a revelation: Mr. P was beautiful
> dancer,
> and I had been a prig not to see it!
>
> After that tanda, I found that every man I danced
> with
> that evening had something beautiful to offer, no
> matter their postural eccentricites or limitations
> of
> technique. In fact, their eccentricities and
> limitations were something to be respected and
> accorded a value, something that added rich flavor
> to
> the dance. If my partner is stiff as a board, well,
> it
> means that we begin the tanda by doing the "stiff as
> a
> board" tango, which can offer some very creative
> moments of shared comedy, playing close to the edge
> of
> being off-balance. Whee-ha-ha. Maybe by the end of
> the
> tanda our dance will have expanded into something
> more
> soft and flexible and grounded, maybe not. The
> cortina
> has its own great value, after all.
>
> I left the milonga that night feeling thrilled and
> humbled. How sorely I had underestimated these "bad
> dancers," how foolishly I had cheated myself out of
> the deeper pleasures of connecting in the dance. It
> wan't somebody else's fat ego getting in the way of
> dancing, it was my own.
>
> That night helped me appreciate the talented leaders
> who use this type of "body empathy" when they dance
> with me, recognizing and valuing all my own
> eccentricities, discovering how to enjoy them. And I
> now understand why I see so many talented leaders
> sitting out tandas--it takes time to recover from
> the
> intensity of *truly shared* dancing, to clear one's
> "psychomotor palate," so to speak.
>
> Thanks for raising this important discussion, Rose.
> And thanks for that tango lesson, Mr. P!
>
> --Carole
>

Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 21:36:21 +0900
From: astrid <astrid@RUBY.PLALA.OR.JP>
Subject: Re: Fwd: seeking connection

.I tried my best to "become" Mr. P, > to reflect him back to himself. It
felt overly

> > theatrical > for the first few seconds, but, oh, how electrifying > the

connection between us became. I had the (if only > physical) sensation of
what it might be like to *be*> Mr. P. And he blossomed in my arms, sensing
the> recognition and respect I was sending his way, > sensing > that I was
trying to maximize my enjoyment of him. > His > dancing became much more
confident, and (without losing his own essential qualities) he started to
control his movements more and to really play with me in the dance.

This is fascinating. Letting a person blossom by letting him/her be and
mirroring who he/she is. It works both ways. The great advantage (and
burden) that women have in dancing the tango is that it enables them to
experience a hundred different worlds, by dancing with different men and, if
they are sensitive and intuitive enough, for a while becoming that man's
creation to certain extent, for better or for worse...
It also works the other way round. One of the best dancers has told me that
he dances in a different way with every woman, because she inspires him to
do certain moves.
And the total is then always more than just the sum of it's parts.
Wish that in real life we also had some music to guide us to follow each
other's steps...

Astrid

Date: Thu, 21 Jul 2005 11:05:15 -0400
From: Tanguero Chino <tanguerochino@NETSCAPE.NET>
Subject: Re: Fwd: seeking connection

Carole wrote:

> I had seen him perform as a musician and been
> dazzled by his talent and passion. This was
> something I wanted to connect with.
> I began ... to connect with him by trying to mirror
> (or imitate)the qualities of his ... movement ...

Ever watch the program Blind Dates? When a couple hit
it off, you can see them imitating the little movements
of the other person, unconciously.

When Carole decided to mirror Mr. P's movements, she was
sending the message "I am interested". It was the starting
point that leads to the escalation of connections -
physical, musical, emotional.

Good leaders use the same technique to develope the
connections necessary to achieve tango bliss. They
adapt their leads to the abilities, the styles and the
responses of the followers.

When we respond to our partners, it shows that we are
indeed interested. From there, the euphoria just
spirals deeper and deeper until that last note hits
the bulls eyes in our hearts.

Now for the cortina:

Astrid wrote:

> Wish that in real life we also had some music
> to guide us to follow each other's steps...

There probably is. It is just a little more complicated
to listen and respond to the music, and dance this dance
we call "life". :-)




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