4380  Trying again

Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 02:48:00 -1200
From: "Michael" <tangomaniac@cavtel.net>
Subject: [Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again
To: Tango-L@Mit.Edu
Cc: tangomaniac@cavtel.net

I'm sorry. I made some errors. The corrections are in
capitals.

Michael
Obviously must have been thinking of O. and N. while
proofreading

> Sergio wrote eloquently about surrender yesterday. I read
> his message a few times because I got hung up on the word
> "surrender."
>
> He wrote "In A.Tango the woman won't be able to surrender
> to her partner, the dance and the music unless she can
> surrender to herself first." and "It is not possible to
> allow the dance to proceed without relinquishing conscious
> control and surrendering to the inner life of that
> creative moment."
>
> I understand what he means. However, I offer an alternate
> expression, from my teacher, Joe. "Before we can embrace
> others, we have to FIRST BE able to embrace OURSELVES."
>
> Before we can accept another person's passion, we have to
> be able to accept our own passion and be able to give that
> passion to the other person. Without passion, you can't
> get to the spiritual level of tango, which is the
> apotheosis of my favorite tango expression:
>
> 4 legs
> 2 bodies
> 1 heart
>
> I asked Joe "How will I know when I've arrived." He said
> "You won't have to ask. You'll know!!
>
> Michael Ditkoff
> Washington, DC
> Regretting I'll miss this month's NY all night milonga and
> to dance with O. and N, the women who taught me what the
> above expression means.
>

Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 11:53:32 -0400
From: "Caroline Polack" <runcarolinerun@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again
To: tango-l@mit.edu

According to dictionary.com, surrender means:
To relinquish possession or control of to another because of demand or
compulsion.
To give up in favor of another.
To give up or give back (something that has been granted): surrender a
contractual right.
To give up or abandon: surrender all hope.
To give over or resign (oneself) to something, as to an emotion: surrendered
himself to grief.
Law. To restore (an estate, for example), especially to give up (a lease)
before expiration of the term.

For me, surrender means to relinquish control, to let go.

My father said something very interesting when I was talking about my tango
partner's struggles in learning to dance the tango. I was talking about his
stiff self-conscious awkwardness, which runs so contrary to that essential
"l'air de tango."

My father said, "he needs to learn how to let go."

And that's precisely it. To surrender. My partner is very uptight, not just
in tango but in just about everything. If he would learn to let go of
himself, or in MIchael's words, to embrace himself, then he would be the
quintessential leader. He does have the passion but no idea how to freely
express it because he's so locked up within himself as if he's putting way
too much pressure upon himself.

For me, when I think of the best leaders I've danced with, I've noticed a
commonality between all of them which is an apparent lack of ego or bravado.
Instead of thinking about themselves, they just surrender to the music and
to the pleasure of having a woman in their arms, no matter if she's
experienced or not. They are the kind who would never let a woman feel
incompetent or humiliated but instead as though it's been a sublime
privilege to share this wonderful thing called tango with them. The worst
leaders are the ones who don't pay attention to a woman's skill level and
instead try to guide her into doing moves that are obviously beyond her
knowledge of the choreography, thus shaming and humiliating her. They are
the worst because they are only focusing on themselves instead of making it
a wonderful experience for them both. In other words, they didn't surrender
to the experience but to their own egos with complete disregards for the
women's.

Caroline

Watch music videos on Sympatico / MSN Video!
Sympatico / MSN Video!

Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:04:57 -0400
From: "TangoDC.com" <spatz@tangoDC.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again
To: tango-L@mit.edu

Hey Caroline,

Just a word of caution, in the hope that your partner isn't misled by
any of this:

What a follower feels in a man's lead, and what a man feels, are often
two different things. And pure pleasure in the dance is often weighted
towards the follower.

My girlfriend has several years' more tango experience than I do. But
until I explained exactly how many things are involved on the leader's
side-- how much (conscious or unconscious) analysis we do, plus
navigation, plus keying into the music and creating room for our
partners' free expression, plus maintaining connection to everything--
she had no idea that we can't just release ourselves into the moment.
Ideally, that's what we'd like to do, sure; but we also have to make
sure we don't release ourselves into a wall.

Plenty of men, of course, surrender to the moment quite freely-- and
bulldoze the line of dance, tailgate other couples, cut across lanes,
ignore the music's phrasing, fail to "arrange" the song into linear
movements and circular movements... Yay, good for them. Score one for
oblivion.

In the meantime, I'd like to defend your partner's ego a bit, and
reassure him that followers make it sound quite easy, when it is, in
fact, not. Once my girlfriend understood that I can't enjoy the dance
the way she does-- with total abandon-- because I've got
Responsibilities (the social burden of which Sergio/Nau spoke), she had
a much more tender attitude. Almost a compassionate remorse. Her
pleasure was tinged by a certain sadness, derived from the knowledge
that she was able to enjoy all I was giving her, while I was not.

Now, I might be putting words in her mouth, but I believe this
self-awareness, this interior reflection, actually enhances the
experience, and makes it more poetic. Suddenly she's more conscious of
what's really going on-- and it's not so "just let yourself go" anymore.
As a result of her knowledge, she responded with a kind of tragic
vengeance against fate (to put it in silly but perhaps accurate terms),
and refused to break the connection. She maintained it, with a steadfast
will I haven't seen before, like a host who refuses to sit down at the
table until every one of her guests has been served.

She became, to some extent, self-denying.

Now, maybe I'm missing the point, or maybe I'm speaking from a position
too far beyond this initial surrender to realize that some people are
too constipated to give of themselves freely. But in any case, I think
we've got to acknowledge-- fully-- how much the leader has to manage
(i.e., so that the follower doesn't have to even know about it) before
we start talking about how easily he ought to surrender himself to
satisfaction.

Sometimes when I hear followers talk about the pleasures of tango, I
feel like they're telling me how to pee, without understanding that men
have to Aim. This isn't to discount the followers' point; I just wish
sometimes that they wouldn't put everything in terms of free-flowing
pleasure, and realize that there's a lot of ordering, shaping, and
Apollonian work going on, which is (at its rare best) made completely
invisible to them.

Jake Spatz
Washington, DC


Caroline Polack wrote:

> According to dictionary.com, surrender means:
> To relinquish possession or control of to another because of demand or
> compulsion.
> To give up in favor of another.
> To give up or give back (something that has been granted): surrender a
> contractual right.
> To give up or abandon: surrender all hope.
> To give over or resign (oneself) to something, as to an emotion: surrendered
> himself to grief.
> Law. To restore (an estate, for example), especially to give up (a lease)
> before expiration of the term.
>
> For me, surrender means to relinquish control, to let go.
>
> My father said something very interesting when I was talking about my tango
> partner's struggles in learning to dance the tango. I was talking about his
> stiff self-conscious awkwardness, which runs so contrary to that essential
> "l'air de tango."
>
> My father said, "he needs to learn how to let go."
>
> And that's precisely it. To surrender. My partner is very uptight, not just
> in tango but in just about everything. If he would learn to let go of
> himself, or in MIchael's words, to embrace himself, then he would be the
> quintessential leader. He does have the passion but no idea how to freely
> express it because he's so locked up within himself as if he's putting way
> too much pressure upon himself.
>
> For me, when I think of the best leaders I've danced with, I've noticed a
> commonality between all of them which is an apparent lack of ego or bravado.
> Instead of thinking about themselves, they just surrender to the music and
> to the pleasure of having a woman in their arms, no matter if she's
> experienced or not. They are the kind who would never let a woman feel
> incompetent or humiliated but instead as though it's been a sublime
> privilege to share this wonderful thing called tango with them. The worst
> leaders are the ones who don't pay attention to a woman's skill level and
> instead try to guide her into doing moves that are obviously beyond her
> knowledge of the choreography, thus shaming and humiliating her. They are
> the worst because they are only focusing on themselves instead of making it
> a wonderful experience for them both. In other words, they didn't surrender
> to the experience but to their own egos with complete disregards for the
> women's.
>
> Caroline
>
> Watch music videos on Sympatico / MSN Video!
> Sympatico / MSN Video!
>
>
>
>

Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:26:35 -0400
From: "Caroline Polack" <runcarolinerun@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again
To: tango-l@mit.edu

Hi Jake,

after reading your post, I got this impression, perhaps falsely so, that
leaders are not enjoying tango at all! I am pretty sure every follower
respects the responsibility the leader has and furthermore appreciates it.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to a milonga where I saw a much older man,
tall and lean, dance with an equally tall and lean woman who obviously had
just been through treatment for cancer, her hair had that new fuzzy wispy
growth and she had a certain sickly pallor. She rested her forehead on his
neck while he sang to the music beautifully as they danced. It was so
apparent that the only thought he had in his mind was to take her mind off
her misery. I kept trying not to cry while I watched them.

>From a follower's point of view, we have to think too, we have to keep

super-alert of every nuance of a leader's movement. Granted, we don't have
the responsibility to create the dance but we certainly do have a
responsibility to respond. It goes both ways. I am able to surrender
entirely to the mood, the music, the smell of my partner's cologne, the calm
confidence of his embrace and yet also maintain a hypervigilance of every
single move he makes. To surrender doesn't mean to lose consciousness. To
surrender means to give into the experience.

Caroline

Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 11:05:51 -0700 (PDT)
From: "Trini y Sean \(PATangoS\)" <patangos@yahoo.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again
To: tango-l@mit.edu

Sorry, Caroline, but based on how much I hear women
complain about the men (these are guys who are just
inexperienced as opposed to really bad), I'd say that
followers on average do not understand how hard the
men must work. I do not hear men complain about the
women nearly as much. Comments from some of my male
students indicate that it takes longer for them to
enjoy tango than women. Could be a reason for the
gender imbalance that is common in some cities.

When I dance the man's part, there are very few women
with whom I can dance freely because they are very
good followers. Jake presents good reasons why women
still need to continue taking classes and studying.

Trini de Pittsburgh

--- Caroline Polack <runcarolinerun@hotmail.com>
wrote:

> Hi Jake,
>
> after reading your post, I got this impression,
> perhaps falsely so, that
> leaders are not enjoying tango at all! I am pretty
> sure every follower
> respects the responsibility the leader has and
> furthermore appreciates it.

PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society
Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburgh's most popular social dance.
https://www.pitt.edu/~mcph/PATangoWeb.htm

Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 14:28:21 -0400
From: "Caroline Polack" <runcarolinerun@hotmail.com>
Subject: [Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again
To: tango-l@mit.edu

That is definitely true, after having offered to lead a few times in class
for women who outnumbered the men, I had a newfound respect for leaders. It
is certainly not easy at all. There is more thinking and planning involved
and thus, a leader has to somehow keep all those plates spinning at once.
Any intelligent, thoughtful, educated woman follower would be conscious of
that, I'm sure. But perhaps never will understand entirely how much work it
is until they've learned how to lead too.

As for Jake, "I just wish
sometimes that they wouldn't put everything in terms of free-flowing
pleasure, and realize that there's a lot of ordering, shaping, and
Apollonian work going on, which is (at its rare best) made completely
invisible to them."

That's the best compliment you can get, Jake! It is certainly not easy for a
woman to simply surrender - and if she could do that, it's the best reward
for all the hard work you've put into leading.

Caroline

Lending Features https://spring.finance.sympatico.msn.ca/

Date: Tue, 06 Jun 2006 17:18:00 -0400
From: "TangoDC.com" <spatz@tangoDC.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again
To: tango-L@mit.edu

Indeed, I find myself in the odd position of supporting Sergio's
gender-roles point here (which I'm allegedly not able to understand, as
an American; but never mind that). Many, many women do not understand
the Leader's role in the dance, and the ponderous burden he carries.
Often, they just seek pleasure, without beginning to perceive the depth
of the relationship from which their pleasure derives.

This is why, in an earlier post, I remarked that dancing is frequently
just a shallow thrill. I hope I was not misconstrued as saying that it's
Never more than that.

This is also why I don't frown upon women who violate the strict "code"
of gender roles, and learn how to lead. One of its many benefits is that
a follower comes to understand what Else the leader is preoccupied with,
in addition to his partner. (It has other benefits, such as fun, but
that's another discussion.)

So, a big thank you to Trini for backing me up here. A big thank you to
Sergio for dropping the term "surrender" into the blender. And a big
thank you to Caroline for taking this matter seriously, and starting us
off with some particular examples.

Also-- Caroline, I'm not trying to quash your earlier post. I don't know
your partner, and I don't know his obstacles. But I do know that many a
man has been breezed off course by the follower's explanation of things,
when the follower treats the complexity of this dance reductively--
whether the box into which she puts everything be pleasure, or moves, or
what have you. The couple you witnessed may have been a good example of
the tango's redemption of life, and the leader there may very well have
been doing everything in his power to give his partner a sense of
transport. But I think you're seeing the Effect only; and I think your
partner, from the sound of it, is tangled up in the Cause side of things.

Do men really get no pleasure in the tango? Of course not. We enjoy it
quite a lot. That's why some of us dance five or six nights a week, and
practice on top of it. But we cannot (or should not, at least) enjoy it
selfishly, and put pleasure first, because it will make the dance fall
apart. Ours is a more remote satisfaction most of the time-- we take
pleasure in witnessing our partner's pleasure.

No-- actually, I'm going to give you an outright lie, because it'll
probably clear up a lot. (If not for you, then perhaps for someone out
there reading in silence.) Men do not enjoy the tango At All. We suffer
and strain to give our partners a good time. We are in extreme pain,
even during cortinas. The only reason we don't fall down is because we
have a moral duty to stand up, like the columns in a ruined temple. We
push our cars to the milonas; we arrive, stoic and Spartan; selfless;
sacrificed; with stab-wounds deep enough for light to shine through,
hidden under our shirts. All so a dame can dance a nice molinete, and
show off her flirty heels. We do it because we are men, with
steam-engine hearts, telephone-pole personalities, and brows God meant
for shaping bricks. We chew on magnets to relieve stress. We are so
gravely immune to enjoyment, it's a wonder we can move, but we do it for
your sake. Or your shoes', if you're wearing Comme il Faut.

Now, if you can understand this, and then go out to happily hunt your
next moment of pleasure, and feel not even the edge of a pang of Guilt,
I think that's commonly known as "salsa dancing."

So yes, it may be a great compliment to us if we can hide this
Piranesian hell from our dance partners. But I've danced with more than
a few women who, right off the bat, seek a shallow pleasure, expect it,
do nothing to make it happen, and feel offended because they didn't get
their kick. Do these dancers need more lessons? Maybe. Or maybe they
need to surrender their inane craving for "pleasure," have a lump of
chocolate, and come back to the dance floor with something approaching
Satiety, so that they aren't disappointed when a man, doing his utmost
to keep her free from collisions, fails to build her a kingdom of magic
abandon.

Not that I'm accusing anyone in particular of doing this.

Jake Spatz
DC


Trini y Sean (PATangoS) wrote:

> Sorry, Caroline, but based on how much I hear women
> complain about the men (these are guys who are just
> inexperienced as opposed to really bad), I'd say that
> followers on average do not understand how hard the
> men must work. I do not hear men complain about the
> women nearly as much. Comments from some of my male
> students indicate that it takes longer for them to
> enjoy tango than women. Could be a reason for the
> gender imbalance that is common in some cities.
>
> When I dance the man's part, there are very few women
> with whom I can dance freely because they are very
> good followers. Jake presents good reasons why women
> still need to continue taking classes and studying.
>
> Trini de Pittsburgh
>
> --- Caroline Polack <runcarolinerun@hotmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>> Hi Jake,
>>
>> after reading your post, I got this impression,
>> perhaps falsely so, that
>> leaders are not enjoying tango at all! I am pretty
>> sure every follower
>> respects the responsibility the leader has and
>> furthermore appreciates it.
>>
>
>
> PATangoS - Pittsburgh Argentine Tango Society
> Our Mission: To make Argentine Tango Pittsburgh's most popular social dance.
> https://www.pitt.edu/~mcph/PATangoWeb.htm
>
>
>
>
>

Date: Wed, 07 Jun 2006 12:14:03 +1000
From: Roger <rde@qdos.net.au>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again
To: tango-l@mit.edu

Leading with abandon: See Lack of navigation - or Lousy floorcraft.

While the follower is abandoned, surrendered, or atuned only to the
music and the partner with whom she (he? it?) is dancing, the leader is
also dancing with the couples next door, and to a lesser extent those
next door again, and also with ... everyone.

Many years ago, the racing driver Mike Hawthorn was asked "What is most
important when driving on the road" - and his answer was that not only
should you be aware of a car behind you, its distance and rate of
closure, but you should know its make, model and approximate market value.

There is a similar requirement for any leader. He needs to know where
nearby couples are, who the leader is, and the propensity of that
leader to reverse without warning, turn right regardless, lead high
voleos, stop for endless figures, whether he is a garden gnome dancing
with an amazon he can't see over, whether he has a habit of dancing
with his eyes closed, etc.. In fact, whether he dances with abandon.

This information (and more) needs to be indexed by shape of haircut,
because he may only be visible from behind.

One of the things that struck me on a recent trip to BsAs, was the way
the women, in even the most crowded milongas, could shut their eyes, and
be enveloped in a cone of tranquility (and trust), oblivious to the
whirling elbows of neighbours only inches away from them - in the
knowledge that their partner would ensure their safety.

(Spearing off at a tangent here - I think the lexicographical
nit-picking over follower Surrender/Abandon should embrace the notion of
Trust as well.)

cheers
rde

Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 03:56:36 -0500 (CDT)
From: Zoltan Hidvegi <tango-l@hzoli.com>
Subject: Re: [Tango-L] Surrender: Trying again
To: tango-L@mit.edu

About the apparent "suffering" of the leaders: certainly the leader's
role can be stressful at times, but I can assure you, dancing tango as
a leader is often very pleasurable. Part of this comes from enjoying
the pleasure of your partner, but that's not all of it. Leaders can
achieve a state of relaxed pleasure somewhat similar to a follower's
bliss. It may only happen with certain partners and certain music.
When it happens, it is almost an out of body experience, it feels that
everything just works, you feel that your partner is reading your
mind, and you are free to move to the music, and you may find yourself
doing steps that you did not even know existed. But I agree that it
takes longer for beginning leaders to get to the level to experience
this state than for followers. But I am also convinced that this is
not just about experience, and it does not require extensive step
vocabulary.

Dancing tango is really just like a love relationship: when you first
meet, you may be attracted to each other, but you do not know your
partner yet, you have to seduce her, you have to impress her, you have
to prove yourself to her, and also you have to get to know her. So at
first you control yourself, you are careful about what you do and what
you say, so the first dances may feel awkward. But you start to know
each other, you develop trust, you relax, you let go your inhibitions,
and you can really be yourself without worrying about rejection. And
that's when you really start to dance, feeling your partner and the
music. You can start dancing like nobody is watching. Sometimes love
can happen at the first sight, when you have the perfect dance the
first time with someone you've never danced before. And there are
different types of equally rewarding dance connections. It can be a
relaxed trusting I'm at home type connection or it can be a playful
teasing type of connection. Of course the man still has to lead and
navigate, but that's not that bad. Many people enjoy driving a car,
even on busy roads, navigation in dancing is a little bit like that.
You can encounter obstacles or unexpected situations which may require
quick changes of direction or tempo, but often you can do that without
breaking the connection to the music and your partner. And a last
minute 180 degree turn to avoid a collision executed in the music
without your partner noticing it can feel very good. It can give you
a rush, and it may even inspire you to invent new moves.

I guess the experience I describe above is what someone would call
"tango moment". But it's elusive. The more you want to achieve it,
the less likely you'll get there. And sometimes you may have to live
without such moments for weeks or months, yet you will keep coming
back, because you can never know when you will find it again.

-Zoltan