841  Tango and the Floor Buffer

Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2002 11:30:08 -0600
From: Karen Whitesell <kglass@MNTVERNON.NET>
Subject: Tango and the Floor Buffer

Tango and the Floor Buffer

Learning to lead Tango is like learning to run a floor buffer.

First, you find you have turned on a tiger. It goes where it wants, faster
than you want, and in the direction of God knows where.

On the second day, you know what makes it go and reasonably sure in what
direction it will go. You find a spot of purple paint nicked to bare wood
in the quarter round on the baseboard. You look for more wounds made your
first day. Now, when did I do that? You are afraid to look for more.

On the third day, you are relaxed, confident in your ability to move around
and through the tightest obstacles. Your slightest gesture moves the
right-hand corner, another, moves you to pause back to the center to give
extra emphases, and another tiny lead moves to the lover left direction. You
ponder: This is the epitome of presence without pressure. Yes! You go
quickly this time, because you can.

Your tiger by the tail your first day soon becomes your purring kitty in the
palm of your hand.

This was my tango experience last week. My 106 year old dance floor "gives"
and had popped out the putty in the joints, leaving my new drywall ceiling
downstairs venerable to spills and spots. Nothing to do but recaulk, buff,
and revarnish. I am still stiff and sore, but I did learn to lead that
buffer.

The young man that delivered the machine gave me a 2 minute block of
instruction, turned me loose with it and said I wasn't doing too bad. He
didn't know I dance tango. It's amazing how tango skills transfer into the
strangest situations. In a few hours, it was starting to be my partner. I
should go back to that young man and say, "Are you kidding, it was a piece
of cake. I'm learning tango, and they can lead...anything."

Tango on, Karen
I wrote this last summer, just ran across it, I suppose the simile is still
timely.