599  Who Are Those Masked Men?

Date: Fri, 7 Jun 2002 21:44:05 -0700
From: "Larry E. Carroll" <larrydla@JUNO.COM>
Subject: Who Are Those Masked Men?

I got several emails asking who the unFab Four were, or speculating.

The women generally had not a clue, saying things like "It can't be X;
he dances so divinely." Another said "Y never crashes me into people;
it can't be him." Of course this is to be expected; women rarely lead a
dance and may even close their eyes while dancing. So of course they
don't know how many times they miss being crashed into by inches.
BECAUSE OTHER LEADERS - NOT THEIR OWN PARTNER -
PROTECT THEM.

The men almost always knew exactly who I was talking about, because it
is they who do the protecting. They also offered other candidates,
bringing the unFab number up to nine in the entire LA area. They even
had names for these people. One is The Bowling Ball, partly because of a
certain physical resemblance, but more because of the way he dances. He
also walks around (and through!) the dance floor like this while the
music is playing. Another is The Blind Boxer, a martial-arts movie
reference. We're not sure if he has a vision problem, or if it's just
that he's always doing these elaborate figures and is determined to
finish them.

The point needs to be made. Being a dangerous leader has absolutely
nothing to do with how athletic or how good they are as dancers. It has
NOTHING to do with doing show-dance figures. It has nothing to do with
dancing what used to be called Nuevo Tango style, or any other. There
are plenty of men in the larger LA area (and in the world) who do all
these things and are perfectly safe (barring rare mistakes).

It has to do with being selfish, in treating the floor as if they don't
share it with anyone else, as if being a man meant treating everyone
else as inferiors. And in some it may come from incompetence, not in the
athletic sense, but in the mental sense - being unable to adapt their
large, fast dance style to a tighter, slower style when the floor gets
crowded.

I refused to identify anyone as the unFab Four (or Noxious Nine), even
in private emails. For one thing, it's not necessary. All a woman has to
do is sit a while and watch.

Look for men who are going very fast ON A CROWDED FLOOR.
Men who are leading giros and other turns very fast on a crowded floor.
Who have their arms (or worse) their legs sticking out very far from
their bodies - on a crowded floor. Men who stop and do elaborate
figures - on a crowded floor.

And think, "If I were leading, would I want THAT man to come close
to me?"

Larry de Los Angeles
https://home.att.net/~larrydla

Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 23:41:31 -0700
From: Tango B i t c h <latangobitch@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: Re: Who Are Those Masked Men?

--- "Larry E. Carroll" <larrydla@JUNO.COM> wrote:

> The men almost always knew exactly who I was talking about, because it
> is they who do the protecting. They also offered other candidates,
> bringing the unFab number up to nine in the entire LA area.

****************************

Four--or even nine--rude dancers in all of Southern California (if Larry's
judgment is credible) makes us the tango world's Mecca for gracious and elegant
dancing.

I hereby invite all followers to our milongas to experience hundreds of
courteous and genteel leaders (minus four) for your dancing enjoyment.

latb