Saturday, June 28, 2014

Girls and Dragons....and Tango

     My ex-wife is a very good-looking woman. As the father of two girls, I always knew my daughters would grow up to be beautiful as well. Because I loved them, I did not want them to fall into the trap that I knew awaited.
     I worked as a whitewater river guide in my youth and I saw many women come to the mountains to be guides. They didn't want to be pretty river guides, they wanted to be good river guides. They wanted to be respected for their abilities to conduct their patrons safely down hazardous rapids.
     I came to realize that this in itself was a difficult course for women to navigate: the path that flows past attraction and self-worth.
     As I raised my daughters, I repeated a sentence over and over.
     "It is okay to be pretty," I would say to them as we drove to their grandparents' house or were hiking or were canoeing down the river, "but you've got to show the world that you're smart."
     When I dance tango, I meet many successful women. At forty or fifty or sixty years of age, they have proved to world, and to themselves, that they are smart. They are successful lawyers and doctors and nurses and many other things.
     I suspect that there is one last dragon in their lives that they must slay and tango provides them the opportunity to draw the monster out into the open. It is a fierce creature and I don't think these ladies always win their battles with it.
     I believe the thing they are fighting is the concept of attraction. Their encounters with this beast are not lone episodes, they are all part of a war that has been raging in their lives since puberty.
     Last night I danced with a woman who was being swallowed whole by her dragon. Months of lessons were finally paying off and she was able to move gracefully on her own balance within my embrace.
     She had a new haircut, a sexy dress and an elegant pair of high-heels. We danced several tandas with many enjoyable episodes that had her gushing.
     I think she made peace with her dragon last night. I spotted the two of them sitting and chatting with other women. They were enjoying the music and the ambiance of the setting. She wasn't worried about the next dance, she had gotten what she came for and she was no longer at war with the creature inside her.



For more of the Kayak Hombre, read my book Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure or River Tango. Available on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.



Saturday, June 21, 2014

Desire and Infatuation: Tango's Vital Ingredients

                I was talking to a tanguera last night and I asked her to evaluate the leaders she had been dancing with lately. We had both attended the same workshop recently and were talking about our efforts to make progress on the concepts taught during the lessons. 
                At one point she complained that the only leader she could work with on these concepts was unskilled even though he had been dancing tango for many years.
                I know this guy. He is infatuated with her. I’ll not name him other than to call him her 'fan'.
                Her complaint was that the skilled leaders with whom she had danced were too critical of her efforts and that she could not concentrate on her objective. It was only with her ‘fan’ that she could make any sort of progress.
                This morning I awoke with the realization that her problem with the more advanced leaders was a quandary often encountered by many tango dancers, both followers and leaders.
                There is more to tango than the mastery of the basic steps: molinete, ochos, etc. A person can dance true tango on his/her very first introduction to it but we fool ourselves into thinking that physical balance is our top priority. 
                When two people come together to attempt a spontaneous choreography to tango music, the only thing that counts is the connection they share. If the ‘secret’ ingredients are present in their union then the technical aspects of dancing are irrelevant.
                The secret ingredients I mention are desire and infatuation. These are volatile catalysts in the chemistry created when two people join together in a dance. Without them, movement to the music is fluid but that fluid is only water. Add just one of these key ingredients and that liquid becomes gasoline!
                Desire must be controlled and infatuation cannot be helped. These are the factors which make tango a dance for the experienced and not for the naïve. 
                If you are a slave to your passions then tango is not a dance for you.
                I know the ‘fan’. He always treats my friend with the utmost respect. When they dance, they are dancing tango. He is in heaven and hell simultaneously: ecstatic­­­­­ to be with the woman he desires and tortured by the code that prevents him from acting on his passion.
This is what tango is all about. It is not a dance for children or the immature. The participants are playing with fire and getting burned is just part of the allure.



For more of the Kayak Hombre, read my book Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure or River Tango. Available on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.


Friday, June 13, 2014

The Pleasure and the Pain of Tango

               Inquisition is a natural phenomenon.  So is our reaction to it in other people, we are naturally inclined to provide an answer or at least join in the search.  This is an act of compassion. 
               People inquire because there is something missing in their life and its absence causes them discomfort. We find pleasure in helping to ease someone’s pain, even if the act is unpleasant.
               “Why?” is the cry heard most often after a senseless tragedy.
               I once came upon an elderly man having a heart attack. His wife was hysterical. She needed to touch someone and she needed to be held. My mother and my sister were with me and they consoled her with hugs and soft words while I performed CPR.
               There is a primal voice speaking in the Universe. Sometimes it whispers and sometimes it roars. It is both the pain of a question and the pleasure gained from the appropriate response to it. It is the agony of birth and the joy of watching a life grow.
               Tango is a nation’s response to its birthing pain. It is the mechanism through which Argentinians found comfort as their country emerged as a world power in just fifty years. It is the salve that kept them sane through fifty more years of right-wing repression.
               We come to tango hurting. We don’t know why we come but we soon find the answer in the arms of another who is willing to help us find the answer to what we do not know.


              
For more of the Kayak Hombre, read my book Fear of Intimacy and the Tango Cure or River Tango. Available on Amazon.com in paperback or Kindle.