1470  Zen Tango?

Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2003 07:41:05 +0100
From: Guy Williams <guyzen@FREEUK.COM>
Subject: Zen Tango?

<It is that 'I like to tango' that seems absurd! You are not tangoing, you
are doing your own 'thing', for lack of a better word.>

<Please dance as you wish but do not go around saying that you dance Tango.
It is not fair to tango and it is not fair to you either, since you do not
know what tango is yet.>


I think you underestimate how serious I am about dancing tango

You must forgive me if I have offended you by taking tango steps to non-tango music.

Do you have to understand the workings of the internal combustion engine to understand how to drive a car?

What I need to know is what these essential steps are that make up tango, how to lead my follower gracefully and elegantly so that she will =
enjoy the dance. My aim is gain control in balance and movement, but to make it effortless so that I can hear what the music is telling me.

I spent years learning Tai Chi and discovered that every teacher had variations on the moves. It was confusing becuase I did not know if the =
new teacher was right or the previous teacher. The hardest thing was to let go of what I already knew in order to learn this difference. I =
concluded that there was no right, no classical style, only a mythology that suggested there might be. There was no point in mental struggle =
just to accept what was being taught and separate the wheat from the chaff. I was told that even the Masters who taught Tai Chi changed =
things as they looked at other forms or simply observed (And were often very secretive about what they knew)


No doubt in Tango there is an essence and the source of that essence is Argentina. How I dance comes from what I have learned and understood =
from different teachers and from dancing with many followers and from what I have observed, from how I hear the music and how it inspires me =
to move, from how my stature and balance and co-ordination and communication. I dance with the feeling that I have. I dance with the =
skill and ability I possess. This is the only way I can dance. This is the way I dance. There is no other way. Zen Tango