North American culture values being busy and looking busy. I remember I often heard “you are lazy” as a child, and most of you would say that I am NOT a lazy person. To get ahead, we must work! Work harder! Try harder! At sixty, I am finally able to just sit on my front porch for five minutes without doing something else. We miss important moments by rushing around being Yankees.
Argentine Tango is not North American. One Argentine told me, “You poor Puritans! So uptight! We do what we want and go to confession!” Life is busy in Buenos Aires, but I notice a different approach to time spent with other people. Coffee with a friend lasted three hours more than once in my experience. Going out to dinner means you can linger over dessert, wine or coffee until you hunt down the waiter; not until they hand you the bill and murmur, “No hurry!” while eyeing the door. One day I took a “walk” with a friend that ended up being six miles of wandering through the city. Time is savored, not wasted, or rushed.
Of course, not everyone in any culture is same, and there’s much variation, both here and in other parts of the world. Can we take a page out of that book to savor more of our tango?
Breathing
Breathing is the beginning of everything. If you are unaware of your breath, you may be moving too fast to tune into your dance. Find your breath and explore how your movement is tied to your breathing patterns. Your diaphragm is part of the line of deep core muscles and connective tissue down the center of your body. Breathe and the dance works. Hold your breath and you lose your body. Remember, slow down until you can find your breath, and you will find your dance.
Fall in love with your feet!
Tune into your body. It’s a fabulous puzzle of bones, muscle, and connective tissue. Enjoy the sensuality of BEING in your body! Breathe. Feel how you dance from place to place. Experience your feet holding you up, adjusting to each movement, communicating with your partner. And if your feet are that incredible, what about the entire body functioning smoothly, allowing you to dance? Slow down and revel in how you can move.
Let the music run the show
Slow down! Each tango has a beat. However, there is much more inside of the song: double-time, half-time, pauses, slow motion — that is not “the beat” alone. You lose opportunities to let the music express itself through you if you just learn to step on the beat. Let it move you. Tune in! Try out dancing around and off the beat, then back on it.
Slow everything down
When you slow down, what else do you hear? Let yourself feel how you move in space with your body; how you interact with your partner; how you connect with the entire room of dancers; how all of you dance with the music. As you relax into this approach, the dancers around you will unconsciously respond to your pauses, stillness and flow, and they will also start to move better.