Kathrin's Blog - for blog with images: https://kathrinlake.wordpress.com/

Bucket Lists, Tango #5 and Eat Pray Love

Stop Looking at Your Feet!

Lesson number four.  E and I are still the pet students because we are picking it up fast, which is both bad and good.  It means that Gabriela wants to teach us new things every lesson.  This really appeals to the side of me that likes to learn and desires variety, but may not be so good for mastery of basics. I am wondering when and if my head will explode, but it doesn't. This time, Gabriela does teach us something that is basic to everything in dance, but which she says many long time dancers never fully get.  That is listening to and understanding the music, and how to move with it.  For the women, as followers, it is all about listening for the lead too. You then have to hope that he has a sense of the music himself.  If he doesn't, it can be a long and boring dance.  Since I started dancing swing some years ago, I better understood that old expression "keeping me on my toes."  A skilled lead, with a soulful sense of the music, will have you starting, stopping and doing things you never thought you could do, all in time to the music.

We learn a new fancy step, that is a double step that looks great when couples do it together smoothly.  To the outside observer you may wonder how they work so fluidly in sync, but she has to listen to his small cues with his hand on her back.  When we goof up Gabriela helps us with a new vocal cue, last week it was "ch, ch, ch!" and this week it is: "ee, ee, eee!" This is all about listening, which quite frankly I find I suck at in real life. Okay, maybe not suck at, but could be better at. 

The only thing I really want to get better at is to keep my head up and stop having the temptation to look at my feet.  If I use dance as the metaphor for a soulful life, where in life do we always have the temptation to look at our feet and therefore miss the gracefulness of life?   Maybe it's watching TV?  We watch others while we never pay attention to what is going on around us and where we are moving? Or we watch others do what we want, like "Dancing with the Stars." It makes me happy that I can say I am learning tango instead of watching on the sidelines.  We are our own stars. File under undigested food for thought.

I was worried that E was going to give up the Tango lessons because she is so busy, but she too is getting hooked, and I 'm glad because she looks great doing it.  She is starting to wonder if her boyfriend may be open to taking lessons too.  We talk a little about relationships and how nice it is to be in a committed one where you don't have to worry about anyone becoming attracted to you, or you to them.  We are just here to enjoy the dance. Phew!  A relief. More fun, less complicated.

Speaking of relationships, Jim and the more advanced students start coming in the studio. There is a big poster on the table of Gabriela's big tango gala weekend in October where she brings the best of the best from Argentina (Guillermo Salvat & Silvia Grynt), to teach workshops and then the big gala dance.  Jim wants to go to the dance. I am nervous and practically beg his current dance partner to sub in for me, as I am sure I will not be ready.  She seems as reticent as I am.  The thing about dances for dancers, unlike a bar, it is considered a no-no to refuse a dance with anyone.  If they ask you, you go. We are all nervous. I convince her that we will all go together and support each other.  I'm not sure she goes for it, but I would like to see her there dancing with Jim, especially since I know E won't be there.  Funny how we used to sit around in gyms hoping the boys would ask us to dance, now here we are practically hoping they won't, or at least, that we will be able to keep up when they do.  Life is a circle in so many ways.  Gotta laugh, gotta love it. 

Find out more about what Kathrin does to live a full life at: http://www.survivaltothrival or for photos: http://kathrinlake.wordpress.com/

Tango Lesson 3 – Getting the Cross – I am a Horse

Last night was lesson number three and amazingly E and I are still being told we are Tango naturals. My LSE self (low self esteem self) has a sense of doom and tells me this cannot last, and at some point we are in for a great crash. Being one of those people who in gym class was always picked near last by team captains, I still have it in my head that I am uncoordinated. I face the fear of being found out every time I go to a dance class. My HSE self (figure it out) however, says, enjoy it, and enjoy the dance itself.  So I try to focus on that.

But the truth is, I attribute much of our progress to our teacher, Gabriela Peters, who says,

“I’m not lying, you both pick up very fast.” She shouts across the room to the beyond beginners filing in, “Look at what they do after three lessons!”

I’m blushing. Please don’t build us up so much, Gabriela. We are getting semi private lessons which progresses a person much faster.

When I dance with Gabriela (all dance teachers must be able to lead and follow) she is a fabulous leader, but when I go to one of the men helping us I am less confident. Everyone has a different style of leading and the physical cues are not always the same or as clear. You must surrender to your partner’s style. Mental note: try to include this skill in my relationship with Jim. It also reminds me of horseback riding. No one can see the subtle cues that the rider gives to the horse to make it spring into a canter. In this case, I am the horse, and it is not the cue for a canter but the cue for a “cross.”

The “cross” belongs to the women and looks so classy and clever that it makes any woman into an instant goddess. It really makes the tango the tango. But the man must lead the cross. Gabriela shows me that when she is directly in front of me I will be lead into a cross, but slightly to the side and I cannot cross. However, with other partners I find it less obvious of when I cross and when I am just supposed to walk.  I get it right at least 75% of the time. When I misstep Gabriela makes a sound, “chh,chh,chh” that tells me I am not crossing when I should. It again reminds me of the clucking or verbal sounds a rider does to help their mount get their cues when they are less competent.

This also reminds me of another horse/human parallel. Dressage horses, the dancers of the equine world, reach their peak at 10, 11 or 12 years of age after intense training, and live to a ripe old age of 24 to 30.  Race horses, however, have finished their careers in year four and are often dead by the age of 12.  Likewise, they say that couples who do partner dancing are far, far, less likely to develop dementia as they age or Alzheimer’s. They also live longer, and are generally healthier.  Alzheimer’s runs in the female side of my family, and I’m terribly afraid of developing it; another reason for me to continue facing the fear every week.

Gabriela tells me that E does even better at getting the cross and is “very coordinated.” I agree.  With her Spanish-like dark looks, and long lean body, she looks stunning as she dances.

Tonight E and I were lead through an entire piece of tango music from basic steps, walks, crosses, both forward and backwards ochos, and another move which I don’t yet have the spelling for.  We are truly dancing. For the joy of that, I am happy.

Second Tango Lesson

Before my BF, “E” and I went for our second Tango lesson with Gabriela I watch Jim at his beyond beginner’s class.  I jot things down as I watch and the music of the tango seeps into my pen.  The tango couples seem more eloquent than I can live up to with mere words.  I am amazed at Jim’s progress and delighted (not jealous). I want to keep watching him dance with his dance partner. I just like being on the sidelines watching two pairs of legs in tandem. I did foolishly think that he may not be able to learn tango, but watching now I see that this is always his passion. Also, the music is part of the essential equation that I forgot to factor in.  It makes all things possible.  Even if you don’t love tango music you cannot help but be drawn into it. The dancers play a chess game. If I move like this, you move like that, but if I move like this, what possibilities will you give me? It’s a taunting, tantalizing bid to outdazzle each other and see who will crack first under the intensity, but neither ever do, or if one does they both lose, so they must not, for this is not a win-lose game, this is a dance and oh what a dance!

Gabriela corrects Jim in what I thought was a fluid motion.  He is bouncing in his quick step apparently. Though from the sidelines tango appears elegant and romantic, like our domestic life can be all maintenance, and both take practice and communication to perfect.  But when it works, it far transcends even the most blissful parts of our domestic lives.  It is that old saying of dance being a vertical expression of a horizontal desire. Doubly so for tango. When I first met Jim he had an expression he readily shared, “if you can’t dance, there is no chance for romance.”

When E and I get started with Gabriela we start as all classes start, with the walking. Dramatic dragging of feet is intentionally alluring not lazy. Gabriela shouts to us,

“Your feet must make love to the floor.  That is the tango.”

She is impressed with our progress through the basic steps and decides to show us the Ocho.  “If you do not have your Ocho, you have learned nothing,” she says. In Spanish I know that Ocho means “eight” and indeed Ochos are figure eight like moves.  E and I pick up fast Gabriela says and we are finally given our first male dance partners to test our ability to follow a lead and practice.  This is always the fascinating challenge of couples dancing.  It is especially terrific practice for strong, independent women to learn to listen (with the body) and to not take charge. It is a great metaphor for communication that we don’t really always practice at home, but the principal outcome is the same, if you listen everything goes smoothly. But Ochos allow the woman to speak the language of seduction.  Gabriela is very impressed and my male partner who I have just met tonight asks me how long I have been dancing. When I tell him this is my second tango lesson he says, “Wow.”  My ego soars with this one syllable compliment. E and I sail out of our class thinking we are tango prodigies, but I also know better having taken other lessons.  There will be struggles. I also later realize that the thing that I found so soothing and suited to me about the tango was the slow, alluring pace.  So much less frantic than swing music. The music stays with me for hours after. I think I’m hooked.

Tango, Seriously?

Okay, like many people I did read Tim Ferriss's Book The 4-Hour Workweek; who wouldn't with a title like that. This man competed internationally and won kickboxing championships (sort of in a sneaky way though), set a GWB record  for number of tango spins in a minute, and was the first American to compete in Tango in Argentina where they grow up learning it , all the while being a successful entrepreneur. Talk about live the life!

But what about the rest of us, you might say. I guess there is that old Nike slogan Just Do It, but I've never trusted it, so how about the universal spousal slogan Just Drag Them Into It. Most of the time you would see the husbands being dragged into dance lessons, but in my case I am hitched to a dancing fool. It is his passion. He dragged me into swing dancing which is a great deal of fun. But in the past year he has turned his rampant hunger for dance to the Tango. For those of you who don't know, this is one of the hardest couples dances to master because of its precision. It hardly looks like, or feels like, the loose fun of swing dancing. 

 Frankly, I was secretly hoping he would find it too challenging and give up. But he didn't, he found a fantastic Argentinian-Canadian Tango teacher, Gabriela, in Vancouver, who just won a legacy award for keeping culture alive.  Suddenly, I noticed whenever we were swing dancing in a closed dance position he was wrapping his arm all the way around my back in the if-I got-any-closer-to-you-I'd-be-behind-you Tango embrace.  I was not so sure I liked the idea that he was learning this dance with other women.  He dragged me to a few workshops and as I suspected I would have to break many of my swing dance habits to learn this dance.

Finally I yieled and signed up with Gabriella last week. Gabriella, the woman who on first meeting calls me "Kathrin, my darling" and continues to. She says not to worry "if you have two left feet, I will turn one into a right." I had to sign up to beginnner classes naturally, and Jim is in beyond beginner (that tells you how hard it is if you can't even go from beginner to intermediate, after a year you just get bumped to beyond beginner). Therefore I was to face beginning alone! Or was I? There is that old slogan, Just Drag Them Into It, and so last week I persuaded my best friend to start Tango with me. It is the cycle of dragging them into it perpetuated. So, I will continue to blog my progress, my partner's, and my best friend's in this tango line we have created. I don't expect to be doing interantional competions any time soon, or ever, although Jim is already talking about going to Buenos Aires one day. I guess the point is that sometimes it is good to be dragged into things, and sometimes it is okay to drag others into things (for your own scaredy cat reasons). We do learn, grow and discover this way.  Or you can just watch people on TV or read books about them. Your choice.